1 Samuel 27 - Dealing with Depression

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:12

1 Samuel 27. And we are considering the life of David. One author has put it, the making of the man of God. And you know what we've said often: God is more interested in working in us than through us. In David's life, God is building character. And God, as we saw last week, is a loving father who disciplines us. Maybe a better way to put it is trains us with the intention of making us stronger and better and more like him. And last week ended with a passing grade. We call it a victory, right? David has the opportunity in chapter 26 to kill Saul and yet convicted in the heart, knowing God's heart and his intention, he instead trusts God. He doesn't kill Saul with his own hands. He says, I'm going to trust God to bring this about in his way. And we go, victory. And from that point on, we have no record of David and Saul ever meeting after that. Now it seems Saul is going to continue to, even though he promised he wouldn't, he's going to continue to chase David through the wilderness to some degree. David gets a gold star. Now, we might feel in this, he's arrived. The time frame here is nine years or so into a 12 or 13-year run that David has from Saul. So nine years, he's he's he's not quite there yet. We can say he's in his senior year and feeling it, right? Um, but he doesn't know that. And here in chapter 27, it's a little bit of a low point in David's life and education. So quickly he reverts back to fear and doubt and discouragement. And what does it show us? These chapters are hard, but they're encouraging for me because it shows us that David is human. The so-called heroes of the Bible are very human. They have good days, they have bad days, they have seasons of victory and seasons of defeat. And that's something to understand about the people that God uses. They're not perfect, therefore, God can use us. Now, David's gonna be discouraged, and he's gonna have a time of failure. And it reminds us that the whole point of what God's working here is that David would learn to trust him and look to him. Well, let's see what happens in chapter 27. We're gonna read quite a bit here, so uh get settled in. Chapter 27, verse 1. Let's notice the whole chapter. And David said in his heart, Now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than I should speedily escape to the land of the Philistines. And Saul will despair of me, he'll stop looking for me, to seek me anymore in part in any part of Israel. So I shall escape out of his hand. And David arose and went over with six hundred men who were with him to Achish, the son of Moach, uh king of Gath. So David dwelt with Akish in Gath at Gath, uh, he and his men, each man with his household, and David with his two wives of Hinuam, the Jezreelitis, and Abigail, the Carmelitis, uh Nabal's widow. And it was told Saul that David had fled to Gath, so he sought him no more. Then David said to Achish, If I have found favor in your eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country that I may dwell there. For why should your servant dwell in the royal city with you? So Akish gave him Ziklag that day. Therefore, Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah to this day. Now, the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was one full year and four months. And David and his men went up and raided the Gesherites, the uh Girzites, and the Amalekites, for those nations were inhabitants of the land from of old, as you go to Shur, even as uh far as the land of Egypt. And whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, the oxen, the donkeys, the camels, uh, and the apparel, and returned and came to Akish. And Akish would say, Where have you made a raid today? And David would say, Against the southern area of Judah, or against the southern area of uh the Jeremiah, those guys, uh, or against the southern area of the Kenites. David would save neither man nor woman alive to bring news to Gath, saying, Lest they should inform on us, saying, Thus David did. And thus was his behavior all the time he dwelt in the country of the Philistines. So Achish believed David, saying, He has made his people Israel utterly abhor him, therefore he will be my servant forever. A little bit in chapter 28. Now it happened in those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for war to fight with Israel. And Akish said to David, You assuredly know that you will go out with me to battle, you and your men. So David said to Achis, Surely you know what your servant can do. And Achish said to David, Therefore, I will make you one of my chief guardians forever. So here we go. David is um experiencing doubt and discouragement. Uh, notice how it all starts in verse one. And David said in his heart, David's talking to himself. We all do it, right? Some more than others. But David is specifically speaking to himself. He's looking inward, not upward. Now, interesting, there is no mention of God in this chapter, uh, no prayer, uh, no Urm or Thumen, right? No summon the priests, any of that. Um, he's starting by talking to himself. Now, he'll go back to that in around chapter 29 and 30, but right now it's all introspective, it's all going inward. And he says to himself in verse one, he reasons with himself, now I shall perish someday. Saul, we understand, someday Saul's gonna get me. Uh, the only hope I have, we read, is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Now, he's been there before, if you'll remember a few chapters earlier, David ran to this same Akish, and things didn't go so well. They never seemed to, right? And the Philistines look and they go, Hey, isn't this the guy that they wrote that song about? You know, Saul has killed his thousands and David his tens of thousands. David's like, I hate that song. And and they go, Why would we trust this guy? And David goes, and he he begins to claw at the gate and spit running down his beard. He acts crazy and he gets out of there, right? Uh, David's been there before. Now, this time he's got 600 men and their families. So we're looking at, you know, a few thousand perhaps with David at this point. Um, and he begins to counsel with himself, not a great thing. Um, we can't imagine he's going to get the best advice from himself. The resources are limited when you look to yourself for advice, right? Um, being not being omnipotent, you have limited strength and power. Not being omniscient, David can only see so far. He only knows so much, and it's depressing, but let's cut him some slack, all right? It's been nine years. Can you imagine anything that's nine years in your life? Think about it. Nine years of the same thing over and over again, running from solemn, living in the wilderness. Um, nine years, and it's not getting any better. Now, he's feeling the weight of 600 soldiers along with him and their families, a few thousand people perhaps. Um, and they're depending on him, right? There's camaraderie, but they're depending on him, and you can understand why he would get depressed. Now, not just counsel from himself, we see in this as he runs to the Philistines, he comes to Akish, right? Uh, the king of Gath, the Philistines, and he dwells there. And and David in verse 5 turns to Akish for some help. Uh, if I found favor in your eyes, give me a place in your country to dwell there. Um, he's looking to the world for counsel, um, a godless world. Now, check it out. I feel like he doesn't see any other choice in this where to go, what to do, who to ask. Um, but but he's not looking to God, he's looking to himself, he's looking to the world, and it's not necessarily personal against God, I don't think. Although it could be, I could see that. It's probably more practical. And and God gave us brains to use, right? God gave us the ability to reason things out and be practical for for a purpose, but we're not to rely on it as David is here. I know what to do, I'll run to the Philistines, I'll ask the world, I'll do these things. Um, relying on your own understanding, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6 says, woo-woo, trust, says, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. That's important. When we lean and we put all of our weight on our own understanding, it usually doesn't end up going well. But check it out, turning to the world, turning to Achish for counsel, you're never gonna get the truth from the world. The kinds of things the world will counsel you with. Gotta look out for your own happiness in this situation. The world might counsel. Uh, you gotta follow your heart. Come on, follow your heart in this decision. Uh uh, God wants you happy, so you better just do that. Those are really bad counsel, but that's the best that the world has to offer so many times. You won't find truth. Now, listen, you won't find truth with godless counselors. So many resources in the world for godless counsel, and it overwhelms us. Now, here's the thing I wonder why is it so easy for me to listen to godless counsel overnight. No, there's nothing wrong with listening to some podcast or to I'm a big fan, right? But I could listen to it for hours, I could binge those things for hours, right? But getting counsel from God's word, oh, that takes some work, right? Sometimes in the morning I'm like, I'm not gonna make it, Leviticus. Oh, you're killing me. You know, any do I hear an amen? Right. But you know, why is it so easy to listen to hours of godless counsel? And yet to just listen to God for five minutes takes so much. It really does. We need to be careful because again, you're never gonna find godly counsel from the world. Practical, maybe, but not godly. You're not gonna hear what God has to say. Just be aware of that. David turns inward, see what he says to himself. He turns to the world inache, and he's not getting anywhere fast, right? He's really, we could say if we could grade his life right now, he's getting a D, and this is cute, you gotta pay attention. He's discouraged, he's doubting, he's in disbelief. We could even say, we could diagnose him and say he is depressed, right? And that's fair, right? Full-on D all around. And here's something to consider even God's people can feel depressed. Depression can be a real thing, right? Uh, doubt can be a common thing, discouragement. We all feel it. We always feel alone when we're experiencing it, but it can be a common thing to even the people of God, especially when we're distracted with other things, bless you. Um, but realize there's possibilities. Sometimes things like, let's just focus on depression, that sounds encouraging. Sometimes things like depression can be biological or chemical, right? I always tell the story because it was so enlightening to me. The time that I had, I think it was foot surgery, and uh Leela came to me. What a what an angel. She came to me and brought me some food and bed that because that's what I got for a couple days. It was great. And and and you know, I she said, How are you doing? And I said, I just don't want to do it anymore. And and she said, What? Are you kidding? Is that that bad? Well, what's wrong? I go, I don't know. I just don't want to do it anymore. And and we read, we read on the bottle of pain medication one of the side effects, depression. I'm like, well, I don't need this, you know. And and you go, sometimes depression can have a chemical reason. And we just look uh in in our our lives. Um, sometimes it can be a lack of sleep, for goodness sake. Uh, so many different things it could be, uh, but we need to be aware. Sometimes it's just surely emotional because we're emotional people, but a lot of times it's spiritual. Spiritual. The devil could just come in and say, Look, why are you happy? And and bring up everything in our mind that's going wrong in life and direct our attention away from God. A lot of times it's spiritual, and we could see that in David's life at this point because his perspective right now is inward and it's to the world, but it's not to God. Ultimately, it can be spiritual. And we need to be careful of that part of our life. Again, this whole chapter: no mention of God, no seeking God, no prayer. Now, we'll come back to that, but let's look at the result here in chapter 27 before we get to the remedy. Let's look at the result. Uh, David's living in the world, he's living with the Philistines, and that just never sounds good, right? It doesn't sound good that David would have more in common with the Philistines at this point than the people of God. Um, John tells us in 1 John that we live in this world, but we're not of this world. You live amongst the people of this world, but you shouldn't ever feel comfortable here. It's dangerous when we relate more to the things said in a sitcom than to what God has to say. Um in the world, but not of the world. He's living in the world at this point. Um, look what else, though, we see. I think we could get a picture of it in verse 9. Notice whenever David attacked the land, he left neither man nor woman alive, but took away the sheep, auction, oxen, and donkeys, the camels and the pair of returned and came to Achish, and Achish would say, Where have you made a raid today? And David would say, Against the southern area of Judah. Now, here's what's going on, right? David is occupying, he's he's going and raiding um there in the southern territory, and it is Judah, Judah's territory. But when we look at it, he is not attacking Judah. He's not attacking his own people, he's attacking the people that were left from the days of Joshua, you know, the Canaanite people that were left in the land, the godless people that God gave over 400 years to repent to, and then they were just evil through and through. We don't understand that, but God understands what stood where their hearts were at. And David is raiding those places. Now that's what it is, that's what he did. But notice the response when Achish says, Hey, what have you been up to? Oh, I've been down in Judah raiding other people, not the people of Judah, but I've been raiding in Judah. And Akish gets this idea. Oh, he's making himself a stink to Israel. They'll never have him as king, he'll never be accepted back there. That's my boy, you know. And and Akish understands that David is attacking God's people, but he's not. So what's happening here? David's not being truthful. He really isn't. And you know, we don't blame him too much, whatever. But he's not being truthful. Now, we can look for a lot of reasons to be dishonest and it'd be okay. We can justify why we're in a certain place in life. Well, if you understood what it takes to get ahead, here I am. We can justify things that we've done. Man, have you ever noticed when you're in the wrong place? You can sit and justify all day, well, my intentions, I'm just here to help this person. I don't mean any harm. Oh, you know, well, what is my purpose? Well, my purpose here is to whatever. And we can justify it over and over and over again with lies. We can lie to ourselves, we can lie to other people, we can be dishonest. Take note of this. Anytime you have to lie, anytime it's not perfectly honest, we're not in a good spot. It's not a good thing. David here is not honest to achish, he's lying. But we also see here he's making God a liar in this place in life. It's a hard place. We gotta cut him some slack, but he's making God a liar because notice verse one what David tells himself about the situation. Said in his heart, now I shall perish someday by the hand of Saul. There's nothing better than I should uh speedily escape to the land of the Philistines. So he says this I'm if I stay in this situation, Saul's gonna kill me. Now, here's one thing we know. Now we know, Saul would not kill him. Why? Because in 1 Samuel 16, God promised David, you are going to be the next king. Now, I understand it's hard to see that in the situation when you're David, but until that happened, because God said it, David was indestructible. I think so. Why? Because there is no way on planet earth that God is gonna lie. He can't, it's impossible for him to lie. So the promise that David is going to be king, God said it, but David doesn't believe it. We get it, we understand it, but he's essentially making God a liar. Saying, God, you're not gonna follow through. I don't see it, we don't blame him, but that's where he's at. So neither of these things is a good sign. He's not being honest to Akish, and he's really making God a liar in this situation. And notice there, it's for a year and four months. So you can you can picture that. A year and four months, David had this lifestyle, and this is where he was at. And I'm gonna say he was depressed. I'm gonna say it was overcast in his life. I'm gonna say he was pretty miserable in that situation. Now, the remedy here we don't exactly see. See, but we see that he's not doing is seeking God. He's not considering God at all, and he won't till chapter 29 and 30. Um, but he needs to draw near to God. David had done plenty of that in his life, drawing near to God, spending time with God. And I gotta say, that's the only remedy to this situation is to put your attention back on the Lord. What the author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 12, verse 2 look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That's how to run with endurance. Look back to God. And he needs to do that. Now, now, check it out. Practical. But it's stuff we all know, right? Spend time in prayer, spend time in the word, spend time in fellowship. Um, but it's gotta be from the heart. If I just told you that, you probably you wouldn't mean to, but you'd instinctively roll your eyes because that's what I'm gonna say, right? Pray about it, spend some time with God. Here's the thing: we can do any of those things without our heart, right? You can read the Bible without your heart all the time, especially in Leviticus. It happens. You can read the Bible without your heart. You can pray. I do a lot of praying, like out, you know, for lunch and for all these things. It's possible and easy to pray without engaging your heart. Even a Bible study, it's a good thing that you're here today. I think that's a good start. That's a good ritual to have in your life. But I know that you can be listening to this Bible study without engaging your heart right now. In fact, I can teach this Bible study without my heart. You think my mouth is moving, but my head could be somewhere else. It happens. You can do spiritual things without heart, but God wants our heart. That's the punchline. God wants our heart. Let's let's finish up in one last spot here. It won't take but a second. Turn to 1 Kings chapter 19. We could teach a whole nother Bible study, and we're not gonna, but 1 Kings 19. It's Elijah. He's a prophet. He stood up to Jezebel and Ahab. He stood up to the prophets of Baal, and and it's gone good for him, right? I mean, you know, chapter 18, I think it is, it's it's pretty, pretty hardcore victory there. Yeah, God. And Elijah experiences this victory, and then he gets super depressed. And Elijah says, There's no reason to live. God, why don't you just kill me? I don't want to do this anymore. And he's so discouraged. Crazy how we can go from victory to depression all in a day. Well, in chapter 19, he escapes, and there's all sorts of cool ways that God takes care of him with some uh water and angel food cake and all these kinds of things. And and notice there, verse 9. And he went into a cave. That's a good place to go when you're depressed, I guess it feels that way. And he spent the night in that place, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, Elijah, what are you doing here? And here's his depression. He said, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, and the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take my life. And he said, Go out, stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in an earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice. So it was when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And suddenly a voice came to him and asked, What are you doing here, Elijah? Now, the the part we need to see here is that classic, still small voice. Elijah is so discouraged. He needs some time alone. That's an okay thing. But he goes to the Lord with his problems. That's a good place to go. And this whole production of God, you know, the rocks and the, you know, the earthquake and the fire and the wind and all that stuff. And in and then finally the still small voice. The still small voice, God speaks to Elijah. I don't exactly know how to explain a still small voice. Conviction, the Holy Spirit, the leading of the Lord, that voice in our hearts. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but that's what you need this week is a still small voice. Just to say, God, what do you want to say about the situation? And he may not give you all the answers. I wouldn't worry about that. He may not give you all the answers, but he may just say again what we need to hear. You gotta trust me a little bit longer. Just keep walking with me. David was nine years into 12, getting closer, but he was ready to give up. And God would tell him you can't give up. You won't give up. You gotta keep going. But we gotta listen. And it's not just a ritual, reading the Bible, praying. It's seeing God, it's connecting with God. Make it your aim this week to connect with God. Listen to what He has to say. Read the Bible. Listen to what He has to say. And God show us is our prayer. Let's pray. God. We are so distracted in life and we get overwhelmed. And you know, you know that we're just dust. You know that we're we're just human beings. We have emotions and chemicals and all these different things. But God, we absolutely need you to get us through the trials of life. We don't want to give up. We don't want to misrepresent you or find ourselves in a spot we should have never been. God help us this week to set our attention purposefully on you, to hear what you have to say to us, to obey. Just to really enjoy you. God, I pray that you help my friends to know what that means, and me as well this week, as we give these things to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.