1 Samuel 27:1-28:2

And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand. ² And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath. ³ And David dwelt with Achish at Gath, he and his men, every man with his household, even David with his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the Carmelitess, Nabal’s wife. ⁴ And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him. ⁵ And David said unto Achish, If I have now found grace in thine eyes, let them give me a place in some town in the country, that I may dwell there: for why should thy servant dwell in the royal city with thee? ⁶ Then Achish gave him Ziklag that day: wherefore Ziklag pertaineth unto the kings of Judah unto this day. ⁷ And the time that David dwelt in the country of the Philistines was a full year and four months. ⁸ And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. ⁹ And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, and returned, and came to Achish. ¹⁰ And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to day? And David said, Against the south of Judah, and against the south of the Jerahmeelites, and against the south of the Kenites. ¹¹ And David saved neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us, saying, So did David, and so will be his manner all the while he dwelleth in the country of the Philistines. ¹² And Achish believed David, saying, He hath made his people Israel utterly to abhor him; therefore he shall be my servant for ever. ¹And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men. ² And David said to Achish, Surely thou shalt know what thy servant can do. And Achish said to David, Therefore will I make thee keeper of mine head for ever.

You’ve perhaps heard statements like, “The ends justify the means.” That’s a lie. God is just as concerned with the means as He is the ends. After three events dealing with revenge against Saul and Nabal in 1 Samuel 24-26, David came to another crossroads in his life where he attempted to put himself outside of Saul’s attacks. Despite Saul’s “positive” responses in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 to David’s mercy in sparing him, it seems that Saul never relented of his murderous hatred of David. He revealed a consistent pattern of unrepentance despite his sorrow and positive affirmations of David. That pattern of unrepentance would finally lead to Saul’s demise in 1 Samuel 28-31. Recognizing this pattern in Saul, David made the decision for the second time to go down to the land of the Philistines to escape him. His hope was that Saul would stop chasing him because the Philistines would be an obstacle to him. While there, the Lord would accomplish some good through David, but did that good really justify David’s decision that was based in fear? Is allying with the enemy ever okay for any reason? Worldly wisdom as defined by James 3:16 is “bitter envying and strife [selfish ambition].” This week we will learn about how “Success Isn’t Always Success” and we will learn three principal marks of worldly wisdom that we should avoid in our lives.

First, we learn that worldly wisdom is marked by selfishness and lack of real trust. We have seen David be motivated by fear in his time on the run from Saul before. In 1 Samuel 21, it led him to lie to Ahimelech and put the people of Nob in danger. It also led him to lose his dignity before Achish. In 1 Samuel 27, it drove David to go the Philistines. Despite God delivering him time and time again from Saul and giving him victory over Goliath, David still feared “the hand of Saul.” While David was not wrong to assume that Saul was going to continue to seek his life, he was wrong to allow fear to drive him to trust in finding safety among the Philistines. For about seven years the Lord had faithfully sustained and delivered David while on the run from Saul. He not only went to Achish himself but took the six hundred men along with him. This is a reminder to us that when we compromise, it always has an impact and negative influence on others around us. While David’s decision did deter Saul from pursuing him, it led him into a greater problem. He found himself allied with the enemies of God’s people. What motivated David’s decision was fear. Fear really stems from self-preservation. David’s decision was a selfish one. It was made to save his own skin. Despite David’s wrong motives, the Lord blessed him and the people of Israel by Achish giving Ziklag to David and his men. Ziklag was actually Israelite territory that had been taken over by the Philistines. Achish gave it back to David so, despite David’s wrong motives and lack of trust in the Lord, God accomplished part of His good plan for David and Israel anyway. This did not justify David’s actions, nor his motives. Notice that nowhere does David inquire of the Lord for direction. Instead, he operates out of his own selfish ambition. Despite the good that came from it, David and his men had found themselves joined to a lord of the army that Goliath walked out from to challenge Israel back in 1 Samuel 17. It is amazing where wrong motives will lead us and we cannot be deceived by apparent good that comes from our sinful motives and actions. Erwin Lutzer rightly says, “When we turn to the world for refuge, the enemy of our souls is only too happy to make us comfortable” and that is exactly what Achish did for David. He made David and his men comfortable in enemy territory. What sinful alliances have we made that we thought accomplished good, but actually put us outside of the will of God? We must never be driven by selfishness and lack of trust in the Lord.

Next, we learn that worldly wisdom is marked by lying and lack of true grace. While under Achish, David and his men began to plunder the enemies of Israel and their territories. However, David convinced Achish through deception that he and his men were actually raiding their own people in Israel. Achish did not seem to be the wisest of leaders. He was tricked by David in 1 Samuel 21 into thinking that David was a mad man. In 1 Samuel 27, he was fooled into thinking that David was doing his work and making him great profit in the process. David used an ungodly tactic of deception to bring all of this about. While Israel’s enemies were suffering loss and defeat and God used David’s actions to bring about good things for His people, David used lying and a merciless lack of grace to bring it to pass. Lying is always wrong because it violates the very nature and character of God. God is a God of truth and never lies. His people are called to always pursue His character. We find that God uses people with wrong motives and actions to accomplish His purposes many times. Lost people can even do great things in the “Lord’s service” because God accomplishes His purposes despite fallen people, but that does not justify the person, their motives, or their sin. There are even people that are lost in churches today that fill ministry responsibilities that God has used to build His kingdom or fill needs in a congregation. However, despite the good that comes from what they do, they are at the same time hardened as they continue to rebel against the truth in their own soul. Their accomplishing “good things” will not negate their corrupt nature and their deeds. Those deeds, while beneficial in some ways to the people of God, will be accompanied by sin, strife, and problems in the church. Someone serving with wrong motives may fill a ministry need, but will often produce rotten fruit surrounding the ministry. Paul addressed such people in Philippians 1:15-18 who preached Christ from “envy and strife [selfish ambition].” Despite this, Paul could rejoice in that some good could come from their sinful motives because Christ was still proclaimed. Yet, before God, those individuals would still have to give an account for their sinful motives. Here, David did accomplish good in attacking and plundering Israel’s enemies, but he did so and brutally killed off the people, not to do God’s will, but to prevent anyone from surviving and telling Achish the truth. His lie led to mercilessness. He would do nearly anything to keep from being found out as a fraud to Achish. This is a reminder to us that we can never let apparent success in a ministry or in an endeavor deceive us to think we are obedient to the Lord. We can never let the fact that we have done what appears to be a good thing to fool us into believing that our wrong motives are overlooked by God or justified. Do we utilize lying or sinful tactics to maneuver through life? How do we treat others along the way?

Last, we learn that worldly wisdom is marked by pride and lack right of commitments. In the first two verses of 1 Samuel 28, we arrive at where David’s selfish motives, lying, lack of trust, and lack of grace led him. The time came for the Philistines to go up to war against the Israelites and David and his men found themselves on the wrong side of the conflict. Here was God’s anointed king about to march to war with the enemies of the people God had called him to shepherd. This is where wrong motives and actions in life lead us in relationship to God and His people. They always lead to us, in some way, shape, or form, working against God’s people. This section ends without us receiving an answer as to what David would do. We get that answer in 1 Samuel 29-30, but for now, David is left keeping up pretenses and continuing to play his part before Achish. The last words of verse 2 are very telling to how deep into it David was. Achish referred to David as the “keeper of mine head,” a title referring to his personal bodyguard. David’s actions led him from the Lord’s will of shepherding and protecting His people to protecting the enemy of His people. Sin is so deceptive. Wrong motives are so tricky and destructive. Pride gets in the way and can lead us to a dark place where we are committed to the wrong things. What do we do where we find ourselves driven by pride and pretense to a place we never intended to go? It is to humble ourselves before the Lord and break away from the sinful commitments. No matter how much it hurts and no matter how much humility it takes, we must humble ourselves before it’s too late and we find ourselves on the wrong side of the spiritual battle.

The ends, in fact, do not justify the means. God is concerned with our motives and methods when we serve Him and live our lives in this world. We can never fool ourselves into thinking that we can live our lives without continuing to trust in the Lord, with a lack of grace, or with wrong commitments and think that God will be pleased or that disaster won’t eventually strike. Perhaps today you find yourself in a pit of despair and you feel trapped because of a series of sinful motives and actions that have landed you in “enemy territory” in league with the “enemy.” How you got there is important and must be dealt with, but what is most important now is how to get out. What is the answer? James provides us wisdom to turn from “friendship with the world” (James 4:4) when he wrote, “Submit yourselves therefore to God… Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:7, 10).