The Philistines haven’t forgotten that it was David who destroyed their champion years ago. Afraid they will retaliate, David pretends to be a raving lunatic so that he might escape their presence.
1 Samuel 21:13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
The mighty man who killed the great giant Goliath is acting like a mad man. Oh, how the mighty are fallen!
Alone, afraid and alienated, David has nothing and no one on whom he can lean. God has brought him from the very top to the very bottom of life.
Why did God so afflict the “man after His Own heart”? He wanted David to learn to lean on Him and not on all the other props he had constructed in his life.
Did David learn to lean solely on the Lord? I believe He did. Later, he writes about it.
Psalm 34:3-4 O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
What God did in David’s life, He is prepared to do in your life and mine. You see, leaning isn’t bad as long as we are leaning on the right One.
“Learning to lean, learning to lean—I’m learning to lean on Jesus—Finding more power than I’d ever dreamed—I’m learning to lean on Jesus.” By John Stallings
Ideas for this unprofitable blog are taken from The Sermon Notebook—Biblical resources for preachers and teachers of the word of God. They allow these sermons to be used as the Lord leads but not for profit without their permission.
