Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 23-24

Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 23-24

This Sunday we come to 1 Samuel 23:1-24:22. Saul hunts David every day and can't lay a hand on him, and when God finally puts Saul in David's hand, David won't close his hand on the kingdom. Read the passage this week and sit with one question it keeps asking: whose hand actually decides your future? Work through the questions below to get your heart ready before Sunday.

Critically Think

1. Read 23:1-5. Keilah is under attack and it's Saul's job to defend it, not David's. What does David do before he acts, and how many times does he inquire of the LORD (23:2-4)? What does it tell you that the hunted fugitive is shepherding God's people while the crowned king hunts him?
2. In 23:7, Saul says, "God has given him into my hand." Look back at 23:4, where God told David, "I will give the Philistines into your hand." Saul borrows God's own words. How is Saul reading an open door (a trapped enemy in a walled town) as God's approval of his agenda?
3. Read the narrator's verdict in 23:14: "And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand." Why is this the hinge sentence of the whole chapter? What's the difference between Saul's determination and actual authority over the outcome?
4. Read 23:15-18. Jonathan comes to David one last time and "strengthened his hand in God" (23:16). Jonathan can't rescue David, change his circumstances, or even stay. What can he do, and what does that show you about the ministry of pointing someone back to God's promise?
5. Read 23:24-28. Saul is closing in at Maon, one mountain away, "closing in on David and his men to capture them" (23:26). What breaks Saul off the chase, and who arranged the rescue? Why do you think they named the place the Rock of Escape (23:28)?
6. Read 24:1-7. Saul walks alone into the very cave where David is hiding. David's men call it the promise cashing in (24:4). Yet David only cuts the corner of Saul's robe, and even that makes his heart strike him (24:5). Why does David say, "The LORD forbid that I should... put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed" (24:6)?
7. Read 24:8-15. Notice that David spares Saul but still tells him the truth to his face ("you hunt my life to take it," 24:11). How does David hold mercy and honesty together? What does he mean when he says, "May the LORD judge between me and you... but my hand shall not be against you" (24:12)?

Prayerfully Meditate

1. David could keep his hand off his enemy and off the throne, not because he was strong enough to hold back, but because he was sure enough that the outcome was in God's hand and not his own. Where in your life are you trying to secure yourself by an act you know you shouldn't take?
2. God did not leave David to engineer his own safety by cutting a corner he knew he should not cut, and He will not leave you there either. Do you believe the hand that kept David out of Saul's grip is holding you?
3. Jonathan strengthened David's hand in God when he couldn't fix a single circumstance. Who has been a Jonathan to you? Whose hand could you strengthen this week with a word about God and His promise?
4. There's a moment in the cave when everything David wants, the end of the running and the throne God promised, is one sword-stroke away, and taking it means one act he knows is wrong. Is there something within reach right now that you could seize by a sin, a vindication, a relationship, a settling of the score?
5. The account is not yours to settle, because the Judge who sees all of it will settle it in His time and His way. What would it look like to hand your case to Him and take your hand off the sword?

Intentionally Act

1. Before you act on a decision this week, do what David did: inquire of the LORD first. Bring the specific choice to Him in prayer and ask Him to keep you from securing yourself by sin.
2. Be a Jonathan to one person. Go out of your way to point a friend in the wilderness back to God and His promise, even if you can't change their situation.
3. Name the "cave moment" you're standing in, the thing you could grab by one wrong act, and decide ahead of time to keep your hand off it. Write down the score you're tempted to settle and hand it to God as Judge.
4. Remember that you're not mainly David in this story. You're Saul, the one who has warred against the LORD's Anointed and been met with mercy instead of the sword. Thank Jesus, the true Anointed, who would not grasp the crown by a shortcut but received it from the Father's hand through a cross.
5. Come Sunday ready to worship. Take a few minutes this week to learn the songs below so you can sing them with your whole heart.

Songs for Sunday
His Mercy is More 
Christ Be Magnified 
Yet Not I But Christ In Me
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)