Disaster Response
1 Samuel 26 and 27
“I’m so stupid!”
How many times have you said that?
(Not about me… although, maybe you have!)
But I mean about yourself.
We can find ourselves so frustrating?
Especially in the spiritual realm.
We start with the best of intentions. We want to live a vibrant faith. We want to honour God in our work, relationships, our priorities.
We make bold commitments about the kind of Christian we’re going to be.
But before long… we slip back into old patterns.
“I’m so stupid!” we mutter.
And very often, the reason we stumble is simple: fear.
Photo of Nick Leeson
Back in the late 1990s, there was a young stock trader called Nick Leeson. He was doing exceptionally well at Barings Bank — a 233-year-old, prestigious British institution.
He was raking in huge profits, winning awards, showered in praise.
Then one day, a trade went wrong. It wasn’t catastrophic — the bank could have easily absorbed it.
But Leeson was afraid. Afraid of losing his reputation, his bonuses, his career.
So he hid the loss. He tried to fix it himself. He made another trade to claw back the money. That one went badly too.
Fear kept whispering: You can sort this out. Don’t admit it. Just one more trade and you’ll make it back.
So he doubled down.
Within months, the “golden boy” had lost £827 million and bankrupted a bank that had survived wars, depressions, and centuries of economic storms.
All because one man was too afraid to admit a small mistake.
That’s not just a City of London story. It’s a Bible story.
Over and over again, Scripture shows us:
Fear leads to selfreliance, which leads to compromise, which leads to disaster.
We’re in 1 Samuel — and it’s a story of two kings.
The king the people chose: Saul.
The king God chose: David.
And most of the time, David shines. The foil to Saul’s insecurity and disobedience. He’s “a man after God’s own heart.”
But in the two chapters before us today, we see two very different Davids.
Same man. Same calling. But two different crises… and two very different responses.
It’s a vivid reminder of why we need a better King than even David.
And it shows us two engines we can run our lives on. Two fuels we can burn:
- Faith — that’s chapter 26.
- Fear — that’s chapter 27.
Those are our two points this morning.
- Fuelled by faith – chapter 26
We open in chapter 26 — and déjà vu hits.
The Ziphites are at it again. Remember them from chapter 23? David’s own tribe, but loyalty? None.
They sell David out at the first whiff of opportunity.
So Saul sets out again — chasing David into the wilderness.
It all feels very familiar. But there’s a twist this time.
In chapter 24 — last week’s passage — David stumbled into Saul. It was a coincidence. Or perhaps I should say, a Godincidence.
But here? David is intentional. Strategic. He sends out scouts (v. 4), personally surveys the camp, and then handpicks one of his best fighters — Abishai, brother of Joab.
And so begins the midnight mission
Picture it:
The moon is high. The camp is quiet.
Saul sleeps in the centre, spear stuck in the ground.
Around him — ring after ring of heavily armed soldiers.
And through the shadows, two figures glide.
David and Abishai.
It’s almost comical — like a cartoon — Abishai whispering “Shhh, shhh, shhh!” as they tiptoe past one snoring warrior after another.
How is this even possible?
Verse 12 tells us: “The Lord had put them into a deep sleep”. This is divine intervention.
Abishai can read the signs. Verse 8: “David! This is it! God’s gift to you on a silver platter!”
And he’s already rehearsing the move: “One strike, David. No sound, no mess. By sunrise, we’re back at camp — job done.”
But Abishai had completely misread the situation. And David had changed.
Look, some Bible scholars have put chapters 24 and 26 together and said: “they’re so similar that they must be describing the same event”.
But they’re really not.
In chapter 24, David was poised to kill Saul — only to slice the robe and walk away, conscience-stricken.
Since then, David has had two wakeup calls:
- God’s conviction in the cave (ch. 24)
- Abigail’s wise words (ch. 25)
Now, he’s not driven by fear (as in ch. 24) or rage (as in ch. 25).
This time, faith is at the wheel.
And he says to Abishai, verse 9: “Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed and be guiltless?”
I want us to notice three facets of David’s faith-fuelled response.
- Patience
Firstly, patience.
I’ll be honest — I get where Abishai’s coming from in these verses. I mean… David’s been promised the throne. Saul will fall.
And yet months — years — of hiding in caves instead of living in a palace. Families uprooted. Children sleeping in tents.
Abishai must be thinking: “Let’s just end this. Tonight. Then tomorrow my wife and kids can sleep in their own beds.”
But David says “No”.
“Yes, God has promised I will be king. But NOT by my hand.”
Therefore, verse 11: “The Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed.”
Abishai wants to fastforward God’s plan. David chooses to wait.
And here’s the secret: Faith fuels patience because faith fuels the imagination.
Look at verse 10. David imagines three different possibilities.
- Maybe the Lord will strike Saul down just like he struck Nabal – cold dead.
- Or maybe not. Maybe he will live a long life and just die in old age.
- Or maybe God will send him into battle and he’ll be wiped away.
Maybe…
Faith fuels our imaginations.
That’s not how we tend to think about it.
We often think imagination belongs to the daydreamers, the eccentrics, the headintheclouds people. But actually?
A vivid imagination should be one of the hallmarks of deep faith.
Dale Ralph Davis puts it beautifully:
“[Christians] would do well to let their imaginations run riot in regard to the adequacy and sufficiency of God… faith needs imagination to pull out all the stops if it is even to begin to grasp the grandeur, majesty, and ability of Yahweh.” Dale Ralph Davis
“[Christians] would do well to let their imaginations run riot in regard to the adequacy and sufficiency of God… faith needs imagination to pull out all the stops if it is even to begin to grasp the grandeur, majesty, and ability of Yahweh.”
The thing we must not do is tell God how to act. Let me try to ground this. Two examples.
You get bad medical news. You’re waiting for scan results.
Wellmeaning friends tell you: “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
But you think: “You can’t know that. God hasn’t promised that.”
What should you do? Well, let your faith fuel your imagination:
- Maybe it’s clear — and God spares me suffering.
- Maybe it’s cancer — and God heals me miraculously.
- Maybe it’s cancer — and God gives me an amazing oncologist who cures me and who I get to share the gospel with and invite to Alpha.
- Maybe it’s terminal — and God uses my dying days to bring my MacMillan nurse to faith.
- Maybe I go quickly — I’m going to die one day after all – but maybe God will use my funeral sermon to save my unbelieving parents.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. You don’t know. And you certainly can’t tell God what to do.
But faith, faith lets our imaginations run wild with t what God might do. And it grants us patience.
Or try this one. Your job is miserable — I mean soulsappingly dull.
What do you do?
You don’t quit because the Bible says we must work if we can work.
But:
- Maybe God is prompting you to look for another job elseswhere
- Or maybe He’s keeping you in this job because there’s a colleague he wants you to reach for Christ.
- Or maybe he wants you to stay in a boring 95 job so that you’re freed up to look after your family and serve in church.
- Maybe God has you in that job because in the future you’re going to be in senior management and he wants to make you into a wiser, humbler leader.
Maybe.
Friends — let your faith stretch your imagination until patience becomes possible.
That’s what David does in the camp that night.
- Forgiveness
Secondly, faith fuels David’s forgiveness. Look at vv. 15–21.
Picture it. David has just walked out of Saul’s camp. He’s standing on the opposite hilltop, the stolen spear and water jug glinting in the morning sun.
And he calls out.
Remember David has been wronged. We know that right? It’s been the whole story of 1 Samuel up to this point. Saul has mercilessly persecuted David.
Now when you’ve been wronged, you’ve got two choices. Just two:
- You forgive the other person
- You make them pay
And oh, how we want to make them pay. That urge runs deep. And it’s not all bad — it’s actually part of being made in the image of God. God has hard wired into us a love of justice.
We should want wrongs to be made right.
But here’s the problem. It’s not just other people who do wrong. According to the Bible, all of us do.
Sure, there are differences of degree. We’re not all an Adolf Hitler or a Jeffrey Epstein.
But all of us live as if we’re the centre of the universe. All of us try to bend the world to our will. All of us ignore God.
And that makes us dangerous judges — because if we go down the “I’ll make them pay” route long enough, we will become just like the people we’re judging.
I think David knew that. He knew that if he rammed Saul’s spear through his chest, he’d cross a line.
He’d become Saul — raging, fearful, self-protective. In fact, he’d become exactly what Saul had always accused him of being: a usurper trying to kill God’s anointed.
So he doesn’t. He forgives Saul.
He doesn’t make Saul pay with his spear.
He doesn’t make Saul pay with public humiliation in front of Abner’s troops.
He doesn’t even make Saul pay in the confrontation.
And when Saul says in v. 17, “Is that your voice, David my son?” — if it were me, I’d have said, “Son? Please. You’ve been hurling spears at me and sending death squads after me. You’ve treated me like dirt. Don’t call me son!”
But David… never calls him a fool — even though Saul admits it himself in v. 21.
David always honours him as “my lord the king.”
How does he do that?
Because his faith fuels his forgiveness.
You see, faith does two things:
First, it humbles him.
You’ll never truly forgive someone if you think you’re better than them. It’s only when you know you need forgiveness — when you see your own sin clearly — that you can start to forgive others.
Second, it frees him.
So much of our unforgiveness boils down to this: we want to prove we’re in the right.
But David doesn’t need to do that. He doesn’t need to be vindicated now.
Because he knows that justice will be done — in God’s time, not his.
And we know that even more clearly than David did, don’t we?
Because we know the cross
And the cross shows us two things at once.
It shows us that every wrong will one day be punished — either in Christ’s death or on judgment day.
And it shows us that we don’t need to vindicate ourselves. God has already done it. Not because of what we have done. But through what Christ has done on our behalf.
That’s where the power to forgive comes from.
- Wisdom
Thirdly, faith fuels wisdom.
Look again at verse 21. Saul says:
“Come back, David my son.”
Now — pause there.
You can almost hear the emotion in Saul’s voice. Maybe even see the tear in his eye. He sounds so sincere.
“Come back, David. I’ve seen the truth now. You’ve proven your loyalty. I won’t hurt you again. I promise.”
But David doesn’t go back.
Why not? Because David is not stupid.
He knows exactly who he’s dealing with.
You see, faith is not naïveté.
Some people imagine Christians are just sweet, gullible optimists — eyes closed to reality.
But that’s not Christian faith. Not for a second.
Christian faith is clear-eyed. It’s brutally realistic.
Because it knows the human heart.
It knows that, apart from God, people are not basically good — we are twisted in on ourselves. We betray. We manipulate. We turn.
And David has seen Saul turn more times than he can count.
So David doesn’t buy the act.
Notice what he does:
He doesn’t go down into the camp himself — he asks for one of Saul’s men to come and retrieve the spear.
In fact, he didn’t even reveal himself to Saul – v 13 - until he’s safely on the other side of the valley.
He makes sure there is distance between them — literally and emotionally.
That’s not fear. That’s wisdom.
David is shrewd. He’s discerning. He reads the moment with spiritual clarity.
Because faith doesn’t mean believing people’s promises at face value.
Faith means trusting God’s promises — and using God’s wisdom to navigate a broken world.
Faith gave David the strength to forgive Saul — but it also gave him the wisdom not to follow him home.
Because forgiveness in the gospel is free. But trust – trust is earned.
David’s faith made him patient, it fuelled his forgiveness and it made him wise.
- Fuelled by fear – chapter 27
Which makes the beginning of chapter 27 so jarring.
I mean — picture what just happened in chapter 26.
David has Saul in the palm of his hand. Abishai is whispering, “Do it!”
But David refuses.
Not because he’s weak.
But because he’s full of faith.
He says, “God’s got this. I don’t need to make it happen. I trust him with the timing. I trust him with my future.”
But then — flip the page.
Chapter 27, verse 1:
“One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul.”
Hang on…
The hand of Saul?
Just a few verses ago, David was resting in the hand of God. Now he’s trembling before the hand of Saul?
It’s a total collapse.
His faith has melted into fear.
And you can well imagine why.
David’s been on the run for years. Sleeping in caves. Eating scraps. Always only a step ahead of Saul’s soldiers.
And it’s not just him — his family’s there. Maybe kids are crying. His wife is exhausted. They never stay anywhere long enough to unpack.
Every twig snapped in the night might mean death.
And when you haven’t slept … when the pressure is mounting… when the people you love are suffering…
Even the most faithful heart can wobble.
And so David breaks.
Look at what he does.
- Self-reliance
Firstly, he resorts to self-reliance.
Just run your eyes over chapter 27 again. What’s missing?
God!
He’s not mentioned – not once.
No prayer.
No seeking guidance.
Just a weary, fearful man saying: “I’ve got to fix this.”
And his solution?
Flee to the land of the Philistines — the enemies of God’s people.
Now that’s not explicitly sinful.
But it is stupid.
Because every time in the Bible, when God’s people go over to the enemies of God — it ends in pain.
Lot moves to Sodom. Disaster.
Jacob heads to Egypt. Disaster.
David has already tried this once in chapter 21 — remember how well that went? He had to fake insanity just to escape.
But that’s the thing about fear:
It makes smart people do stupid things.
Faith fuels our imagination — it makes us ask: “What good thing might God do?”
Fear shuts it down — “There’s only one way out, and I have to take it.”
Let me give a couple of examples.
You’re bored. Stuck in the routine. Same job, same place, same church.
And you think, “I’ll just chuck it all in. Backpack round the world. Escape.”
No church lined up. No Christian community. Just vague vibes and a desire for change.
Is that sinful? No.
But it is foolish. And spiritually hazardous.
Or maybe you’re single. You haven’t been out with anyone for ages, and prospects at church are looking slim. And there’s this colleague at work. They’re funny. Thoughtful. Kind.
Only catch? They’re not a Christian.
And they ask you out.
Is it sinful to say yes?
You might reason, “Well, I’d never marry them - not unless they come to faith.”
But your heart’s already leaning in.
Which means it’s unwise.
It’s unkind to them.
And perilous for your walk with Jesus.
Fear leads to self-reliance
- Self-deception
And one of the many dangers of self-reliance is that it often looks like it’s working at first.
I mean, that’s why Nick Leeson was able to rack up over £800 million in losses before anyone noticed — because for a while, it looked like he was a genius.
And in the short term, David’s plan works too.
Look at verse 4. Saul gives up. The threat that’s haunted David for years suddenly vanishes.
And David — and his family — they finally get a taste of rest.
Achish, the Philistine king, even gives him a town of his own — Ziklag. A home. A base.
But scratch the surface, things are not as great as they seem.
Because to keep this new life going, David has to sell a story.
He has to convince Achish that he’s turned traitor — that he’s now fighting against Israel, his own people.
Verse 10: Achish says, “Where did you go raiding today?”
And David replies, “Oh you know, out west… in Judah. South of Israel.”
A strategic half-truth.
But it’s a lie. And worse — to protect the lie, David wipes out entire villages.
Men. Women. Children.
Not a soul left to tell the truth.
It’s horrific.
And yet, Achish is so taken in that by chapter 28, verse 2, he appoints David as his personal bodyguard.
The arc is complete: the man who once stood as bodyguard to the king of Israel is now bodyguard to the king of the Philistines.
And then comes the twist: Achish says, “Let’s go fight Israel. Together.”
And the chapter ends… with that horrifying question hanging in the air.
David, the future king of Israel, riding into battle against God’s people?
Do you see the slide?
Fear leads to self-reliance.
Self-reliance leads to compromise.
Compromise leads to self-deception.
And self-deception? That’s where we lose sight of who we are entirely.
We tell ourselves:
“I’m not really flirting with that person.”
“This job isn’t just about the money.”
“I’m not leaving church just because it’s hard.”
We spin the story.
We hide the truth.
We blur the lines.
Until we’re not even sure what’s true anymore.
And that’s the scariest part.
Fear doesn’t just lie to others — it lies to us.
We start believing the stories we tell ourselves.
- Self-talk
But where does it all start?
Go back to 27:1. How did the spiral begin?
“David thought to himself…”
That’s it. That’s the origin.
David started talking to himself.
Now, people joke that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.
But the truth is: we all do it.
All of us have an inner monologue — narrating, interpreting, justifying, accusing.
And David was a master of it.
He wrote Psalm 42 and 43 — both ending with this refrain:
“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.” Psalm 42:11; 53:5
“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.”
David didn’t just listen to his feelings — he spoke back.
He even did that back in chapter 26. I mean, when he says to Abishai, “Who can lay a hand on the Lord’s anointed?”
He wasn’t just telling Abishai.
He was telling himself.
Because your internal monologue sets the direction of your life.
And here’s the key question:
What’s the soundtrack playing in your soul?
Is it a soundtrack of fear or faith?
Lies or truth?
Do you tell yourself:
“God’s not coming through for me. I’ve got to fix this myself.”
Or do you sing a song of hope, of faith?
Do you remind yourself of the Man who went over to the enemy —
Not to save his life,
But to lay it down for his enemies?
Do you sing about the One who went into the city —
Not to raid it,
But to be raided by it?
Do you tell your heart about the King who walked away from comfort —
So that you could be comforted?
Who left behind the safety of heaven —
So that you could be safe forever?
That is a song worth singing.
That is the truth that breaks the grip of fear,
Fuels the fire of faith,
And calls us back to wisdom, forgiveness, and perseverance.
So let’s be people who don’t just listen to ourselves —
But speak truth to ourselves.
Let’s sing songs of faith — of hope
Songs of the King who gave everything… to bring us home.
Let me pray.
