THE FUGITIVE

By John Stallings


The first grey streaks of dawn appeared & the fugitive knew he must move on.

He traveled light because he was on the run. As he swung his backpack on, his mind wondered back over the last months. It felt as if he’d been running all his life. He knew every back road, every village, every cave, every gully, every place a man could hide for a few hours. Such was his life lately.

There were good days & bad days. He didn’t have to concern himself with eating breakfast because there was nothing to eat. As first light appeared- down the dusty winding road he went; a road that seemed to lead nowhere in particular.

The tattered traveler came to the top of a hill & surveyed the valley below. There sat a small village, rather non-descript; just a few buildings with a large tent in the middle. Hopefully the fugitive might find some food for his empty stomach in this little backwater town.

The village he is viewing is called Nob. Eighty-five priests of God live here & it’s also home to High Priest Ahimelech & home to the tabernacle.

The fugitive has run out of options. He didn’t really want to come to this place but as detectives say, he “had a tail.” Someone was tracking him & he had no choice but to stop in this village & try to get help. He has the street- cred to know “you play the hand you’re dealt.”

Though the fugitive basically had a good character, in his present state of affairs he’d lie or do just about anything to stay alive.

This story begins in 1 Samuel 21.

The fugitive is David & he’s being hotly pursued by King Saul.
David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him & asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”

Now David is going to tell a whopper of a lie. He says to Ahimelech, “The king [Saul] charged me with a certain matter & said to me, -- “No one is to know anything about your mission & your instructions.”—Some might say David didn’t place all his cards on the table. The cold hard truth--It was a lie.

David was running from Saul, not conducting a secret mission for him. He must have sounded convincing because Ahimelech bought it without question. But it was still a lie. David lied because he was between a rock & a hard place. Saul was trying to kill him. After so long on the road a man gets desperate & he says whatever he has to say to stay alive. David never meant to hurt anyone with his fabrication. Oh- but he did.


“OH WHAT TANGLED WEBS WE WEAVE, WHEN FIRST WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE.”

It’s interesting to read Revelation 21:8, describing the people that will be in the lake of fire. It speaks of all the heinous sins of mankind & liars are included.

However the only place “all” is used is “all liars.” I think the reason for that is -- we seem to accept the fact that all murderers & all fornicators & all thieves etc. who haven’t been forgiven will be in hell. But we tend to think in the case of lying, -- a “little white lie” slips past God’s radar & doesn’t register with Him. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible emphasizes “all liars” so we’ll understand all lies are considered sin.

David is telling “little white lies.” A small boy was asked to describe what a lie was & he said; “A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but an ever present help in time of need.”

But the plot thickens now because someone else was in Nob that day. This someone knows who David is & knows David is telling a lie. His name was Doeg the Edomite. He was Saul’s head shepherd, one of Saul’s hired guns. He saw David & David saw him. And he saw Ahimelech give several loaves of consecrated tabernacle bread to David. We’ll hear from Doeg again.

Just before David leaves town he says, “Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to have a sword handy do you? I left mine back at home” Now David makes an attempt at putting himself into “Oscar’s best actor” contention “ by adding, -“……Because the King’s business is urgent.” When we tell one lie we usually have to tell another one to prop it up.

Ahimelech replied, “The sword of Goliath whom you killed as a boy in the Valley of Elah is here; it’s wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword but that one.” David said,

"There is none like it; give it to me.” [1 Samuel 21:9]

David, what’s gotten into you? First you lie then you lie again. Now you’ve taken the sword of Goliath, the giant you defeated-- to fight your battles. David, have you lost your mind? Where is God in all this? When you were just a shepherd boy you faced Goliath & all you needed was one stone from your sling. Now are you going to use the weapon of the man you killed with a rock?

Yes, in a sense, David has lost his mind. Another old saying goes, -- “Honesty is the best policy but insanity is the best defense.” If you cut a man off from his friends & family & put him in the wilderness, it does strange things to him. The constant pressure pulls at him until it wears him down. Things he swore he’d never do now don’t seem so bad.

Up to this point in his life David had done everything right. He has been the absolute model of faith, obedience, courage, integrity & devotion to God & to his king. But he is still a very young man who is living a long way from his family & home because he’s a fugitive on the run from King Saul. David needed some stability in his life but for the time being that had gone.

DAVID HAD BECOME USED TO POSITION & POPULARITY.

A humble shepherd boy had been promoted to a captain over a thousand in Saul’s army & he had all the popularity that came with that. David had leaned on the support of people but now in this trying hour that support had been dismantled.

David had the support of his wife Michal. He also had the support of Saul’s son Jonathan who loved him more than his own father. Then David had the support of the prophet Samuel who’d taught him about sacrifice, service & worship. Samuel was a significant support to David during his early years.

It’s wonderful to have supports, props & crutches in our lives to help us make it. Praise God if He’s been gracious to you & given you an adequate support network in your life.

BUT DAVID’S SUPPORT SYSTEM HAS BEEN DISMANTLED.

Think of it. Think of all David had lost & how far he’d slipped to now be a desert dweller, begging for sustenance. David had been the greatest battlefield hero his nation had ever known & now he was a fugitive from justice.

David had also lost his popularity, his people & his pride & was now relegated to a distant memory. He’d been removed from the public eye. People assumed Saul would be successful in his attempts to take David’s life. Every person upon whom David had leaned in his life was taken away.

I suppose the lowest place a man can come to is the place where he loses his pride. Now that all David had to cling to had been stripped away.

David’s lies were acts of fear but taking Goliath’s sword was an act of desperation. First there’s fear, then there is a lie, then desperation, but the worst is yet to come.

Fear drove David to lie to Ahimelech. Fear drove him to take Goliath’s sword. Now fear drives him to do the strangest thing he has ever done.

NEXT DAVID GOES TO GATH

Gath? Haven’t we heard that name somewhere? Yes, we have. Gath is in Philistine territory. That means it’s not in Israel’ it’s foreign to David. But wait; Gath is also the hometown of Goliath, enemy territory. Why would David do something like this?

It’s hard to know but we can imagine he was thinking, --no one would ever look for him there. -- So now David’s in Gath with Goliath’s people. The man of God is hiding in the enemy’s camp. It was an outright act of spiritual treason. God’s people were to have nothing to do with the Philistines. They were to be separated from the surrounding nations. But David looked around & said, “This looks like the quickest way out.”

The greatest temptation when we’re in trouble is to take the quickest way out. You & I can write this next principle down; -- when in trouble, the quickest way out is almost always wrong.” When we go over to the world’s side & compromise our convictions, disaster is soon to follow.

DAVID HAS A MELT-DOWN

Once David realizes he’s been seen & recognized, he plunges headlong into an act of madness. He feared what might happen to him so he –“pretended to be insane in their presence; & while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate & letting saliva run down his beard. 1 Sam. 21:13

Have you ever seen someone put on a crazy act? But then you realized if they were sick enough to be that convincing, they in actuality had a “screw loose.” IMHO, you can’t play-act like someone who’s “lost it” without having some level of emotional disturbance, at least for the moment. Keep in mind this is the man who won the greatest military victory in Israel’s’ history, the victory over Goliath & the Philistines, Israel’s arch enemy.

David’s compromise [ostensibly play acting] didn’t work. All it got him was thrown out of Gath. Now he’s back on his own& back on the road. First there is fear, then the lie, then desperation, then compromise & now humiliation.

BUT THE WORST IS YET TO COME.

Still on the run, David comes to a place called the Cave of Adullam. Chapter 22:1 tells us that his family went to meet him there. Now he’s back in Israel. David has basically reached bottom & is on his way back. Then we’re told that “all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him & he became their leader.”

About four hundred men were now with David. The exiled king & his rag-tag army. Every crook & troublemaker came out to join him. David was now the captain of crooks & the duke of deadbeats. As David grew spiritually, these men began to grow & they would one day become his mighty men. In later years his greatest warriors would come from this motley crew.

DAVID FINALLY STARTS TO WALK WITH GOD AGAIN.

As David changes, his men change. Some parents tell their children --“Don’t do as I do-- do as I say do.” But you & I know that’s never what actually happens. The reality is, in the end our children will do what we do. All David has to do to change these 400 hoodlums huddling in this cave with him is to start doing right & they’ll follow suit.

The story should be over but it’s not. There are a few loose ends dangling that need to be tied up. Whatever happened to Doeg the Edomite & Ahimelech?

Let’s return to the village of Nob for a moment. Things are quiet, too quiet. There’s not a sound in that little village of priests. There never was much noise but now all you hear is the wind whistling through the bushes. It’s deathly quiet & overhead the vultures are circling. In the hot sun dismembered bodies lie on the ground. They’ve been hacked to death in some kind of execution. Eighty-five priests are dead along with their families. A whole village has been wiped out.

WHAT HAPPENED HERE? WHO DID THIS?

Doeg the Edomite told Saul that he had seen Ahimelech give the sacred bread to David. Keep in mind; Ahimelech believed David’s lie that he was on a mission for King Saul. He’d acted out of patriotism but Saul called him out & accused him of treason for aiding & abetting David, a fugitive. Abimelech had no way of knowing David had told him a lie but he will now pay with his life. When Saul ordered the priests killed, his own soldiers wouldn’t do it because the priests were servants of the Lord.

But Doeg was an Edomite, a foreigner & a lackey for Saul & priests meant nothing to him. So the whole village was wiped out. Only one man lived to tell the story & his name was Abiather. Somehow he found David & told him what happened at Nob. David’s reaction in 1 Sam. 22:22 is, ---That day when Doeg the Edomite was there I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family.

David thought he could get away with the lies & the charade but he couldn’t & didn’t. He knew Doeg was there & he knew he’d tell Saul but he was so wrapped up in himself & his own problems that he acted out of self-interest & didn’t level with Abimeleck.

Who killed the priests of Nob? Who is really responsible for the tragedy? Not Doeg, not Saul- but David. David’s hands were dripping with the blood of the innocent people of Nob.

LOOK AT THE MALIGNANT GROWTH OF SIN

First there is selfishness, then fear, then desperation, then compromise, then humiliation & finally disaster. The saddest part of the story is that David never intended for things to end up like this. Not in a million years. He lied to get food & it seemed justifiable at the time. Most of us would have done the same thing.

If David had stopped to think, if he’d even dreamed of such a thing he’d never have told the lie. But he didn’t think. He didn’t dream, he just lied.

NO ONE EVER GETS AWAY WITH SIN

Numbers 32: 23 says, -- Be sure your sin will find you out. Galatians 6:7 says…….a man reaps what he sows. The chickens always come home to roost & the skeletons always eventually come out of the closet.

This story is so powerful because many of us are like David. We cut corners morally & ethically, we make excuses for our small sins & under pressure we do things we shouldn’t do. All the while we’re like fugitives, running, hiding always looking over our shoulder, hoping against hope we won’t get caught today.

GOD’S SEVERE MERCY

But even though David committed such horrendous sins he’s still God’s man & God is going to use him. This brings up the question; couldn’t God have supplied David’s need for food so that he didn’t have to bother Ahimelech in the first place? The answer is yes.

Why did God allow David to disobey knowing that a whole village would be wiped out in the process? It’s not possible for us to fully understand God’s ways but this much we know; God allowed this so that David would humble himself & realize that left to himself he’d ruin his own life. Sadly this is a case of severe mercy because a city was destroyed in order for the lesson to be learned.

As we’ve already said, we can lean on many things in this world. Some people lean on a pill, some on a needle & some on a bottle. What are you leaning on today?
Are you leaning on a spiritual spouse who prays for you? Are you leaning on people or things more than you trust in the Lord?

Is your support system keeping you from looking to God for the real support you need? Every plank in my support system can fail but God will never fail me.

God is famous for dismantling men’s support systems & the process is painful, but it helps us to learn to lean on Him-- & Him alone.

When at last David got back on his own turf, resting safely in the cave of Adullum, reflecting on the events in Gath, he wrote Psalm 34. If you check, you’ll see the inscription at the top of the chapter--“When David feigned madness before Abimelech.”

There in the cave of Adullam God restored David to his spiritual roots. In Adullam David wrote Psalm 34, one of the classic descriptions of true spirituality;

I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear it & rejoice.
O magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.

Then David refers to the specific events of his deliverance;

I sought the Lord & He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him & were radiant,
And their faces shall never be ashamed.
THIS POOR MAN cried & the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.

This brings me to the final point in this story: When we sin, someone is going to have to pay the price. In this case an entire village of innocent people paid the price.

The one overarching quality David possessed that made him a –Man after God’s own heart- was his willingness to repent. Saul on the other hand didn’t seem to ever be able to do it. The javelin he threw at David started the manhunt that lasted nearly ten years. But in a sense, that javelin never stopped traveling & years later it found Saul & pierced his heart on Mount Gilboa.

The good news of the gospel is that God specializes in forgiving sinners.

Whenever we’re ready to turn for home, our  Heavenly Father will meet us on the way.


BLESSINGS,

John