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  (1 SAMUEL) HOW TO GET AN ANSWER FROM GOD
  by David Guzik
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Summary: David's journey illustrates the importance of seeking God's
will through prayer and obedience in the face of challenges.

Duration: 27:20 Topics: "Seeking Guidance", "Faith And Trust"

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In this sermon, the preacher discusses the story of David and his
encounter with Saul in the city of Kiela. The people of Kiela were
afraid of Saul, who had a history of violence and had massacred the
priests in the city of Nob. However, they looked to David for leadership
and protection. David sought guidance from the Lord before deciding to
help the people of Kiela and fight against the Philistines. Despite the
danger, God promised David victory in the battle. The preacher
emphasizes the importance of humbling oneself and seeking God's
direction in difficult situations, and relates this story to the work of
Jesus Christ on our behalf.

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CONTENT
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1 Samuel chapter 23, beginning at verse 1, Then they told David, saying,
Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and they are robbing
the threshing floors. David was on the run from King Saul. There was a
price on his head, either literally or figuratively.

Every step was a step of danger for David. While he was a fugitive from
Saul, he was hiding out in the strongholds of the wilderness. But the
prophet Gad came to David and told him, Get yourself out of the
stronghold and go into the land of Judah.

That was an unsafe thing for David to do, from all outward observation.
The safest thing he could do was stay in those strongholds. But God
didn't want him there.

And now we see, in 1 Samuel 23, verse 1, why God didn't want him there.
Because God wanted David to help the people of the city of Keilah. Now,
please notice this.

When David was in the strongholds, back in chapter 22, he was safe. He
was protected. But he couldn't be of much help to anybody else.

You know, the analogy just struck me as I was teaching on this last
night, how we often do that in our own lives. We sort of separate
ourselves out from other people or other situations, and we put
ourselves in a stronghold, so to speak. And we're very safe there.

Nobody can touch us. Nobody can hurt us. We can't help much of anybody,
either.

And that was David's place at this time. He said, get out of your
strongholds, go to the land of Judah. Even though it's a dangerous
thing, David didn't know why, but now he does.

Because now the request comes from the Israelite city of Keilah. It
says, come and help us. The Philistines are fighting against us, and
they're robbing the threshing floors.

The threshing floors were the place where the grain was processed on its
way to becoming flour. And on the threshing floor where the grain that
was harvested was broken up, and the grains of the wheat were being
broken away from the kernels and the husk and all that. In the midst of
all that, the Philistines just come and rob the Israelites.

There you are, you're a farmer. You've worked for months and months to
bring in the crop, and then finally now when it's come to fruition, the
Philistines come and steal it from you. All your work's come to nothing.

The Israelites were oppressed. They needed help. And so the call goes
out.

Did the call go out to King Saul? He's the king of the Israelites. Why
not call up King Saul? Why not tell Saul, the Philistines are fighting
against Keilah, and they're robbing the threshing floors? Perhaps the
message did go out to Saul. Maybe the message went out to Saul, and he
didn't care very much.

Maybe Saul was too busy fighting David to protect his own people. We
don't know the exact reason why. Maybe they didn't even bother sending
the message to Saul.

For whatever reason, the message came to David. Now what would you do?
Somebody cries out to you and says, Help me. Save me.

I need your help. Some people would say, You know what? This is none of
my business. This is Saul's problem.

It's not my problem. Forget it. Other people might say, What? Somebody
needs help? I might be able to help them.

Let's go. I can fix this problem out of my way, and let me do it. Can I
suggest to you that either one of those responses is wrong? You know
what the right response is? To do what David did.

Look at verse 2. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I
go and attack these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, Go and
attack the Philistines and save Keilah. Isn't that beautiful? David was
faced with an opportunity. David was faced with the opportunity to help
somebody, to save somebody, to make a difference in a situation.

But it's filled with danger. It's a risky thing, but it seems like it's
a good thing. What do you want me to do? Lord, I will inquire of the
Lord.

Isn't that a precious thing? How often do we get into trouble in our
lives because we fail to inquire of the Lord? We either say no, or we
say yes, without inquiring of the Lord. We don't seek God. Now, later
on, when the whole thing is blown up in our face, and we're in a lot of
trouble, then we inquire of the Lord.

Lord, get me out of this. Lord, what's your will? How much better to
inquire of the Lord at the very beginning? You know, I think David had
to have something in his inquiry of the Lord that we have to have also.
You can't effectively inquire of the Lord if you already have your mind
made up.

If you have already decided, I'm going to do this, or I'm not going to
do that. If you've already decided that in your mind, what good is it
for you to come to God and say, well, okay, God, please guide me?
Because you know you really don't mean it. What you mean is, God, give
me a rubber stamp for what I already want to do.

Do you know the greatest key in understanding the will of God? I know
I've got you on the edge of your seat, because everybody wants to know
the will of God. Everybody has a question that is, Lord, what's your
will? I just want to do your will. Lord, how can I know your will?
Friends, the greatest key to knowing the will of God in your life is to
have a surrendered and a submitted heart to Jesus Christ.

A heart that says, I will do your will no matter what it is. That's the
kind of heart David had to have. That's the kind of heart we have to
have.

To come before God and say, Lord, if you tell me yes, I'll be happy with
that. If you tell me no, I'll be happy with that. I just want to do your
will.

Oftentimes, we never hear the will of God, because we've decided already
what it is before we ever really seek Him. Well, David wasn't like that.
He inquired of the Lord.

And it says here, David inquired of the Lord, saying, Shall I go and
attack these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, Go and attack the
Philistines and save Keilah. And David's men said to him, Look, we're
afraid here in Judah. How much more if we go to Keilah against the
armies of the Philistines? Now, David says, Okay, I know what we're
going to do.

The Lord's telling me to do this. Let's go forward and do it. And what
did David's men say to him? No way.

What, David, are you crazy? We're in enough trouble right here. We've
got our hands full with escaping the murderous rage of Saul. You expect
us to go and fight against the Philistines? David, isn't one enemy
enough? Don't you think it's enough for us just to be bothering with
Saul? Now he wants us to expose ourselves to the danger that we could be
facing from the Philistines.

David, you're crazy. You're nuts. We're not going there.

Now, I think that that was fine for David's men to share that with him.
They needed to know how they... David, I should say, needed to know how
they felt. If they disagreed, they should have said it.

But what should David do with that? There's two wrong reactions you
could have. David could have said to these men, Wow, you don't think we
should go? Well, then I guess we're not going. And David could forget
all about what the Lord had told him to do.

That would have been a wrong reaction. That would have meant that David
would have been operating as if God was leading him in a democracy.
Where, well, what do you do? He speaks to his 400 men, and David's
number 401.

And, you know, well, guys, what should we do? And the votes are split.
201 to 200. Well, I guess we do it to 201, won't we? That's not God's
way.

Not in this situation. So David would have been wrong to say, Well,
okay, you guys say don't go, we don't go. But David would have also been
wrong if his attitude would have been, Ah, who cares? I don't care what
you guys say.

God's told me. I don't even need to listen to you. Come on, we're going.

That would have been a bad attitude as well. Because who knows if the
Lord isn't speaking to David through his men. Maybe the Lord wants to
guide him through these men.

So what do you do, David? You inquire of the Lord again. Look at it
there in verse 4. Then David inquired of the Lord once again. And the
Lord answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will deliver
the Philistines into your hand.

Now, not only does God tell David to go to Keilah, He also tells him
that you're going to have victory there. I'm going to deliver the
Philistines into your hands. Here's my promise to you, David.

It's not just that I'm telling you to go there. I'm telling you you're
going to have victory. Isn't that precious? David hears the direction of
the Lord.

He says, okay, man, this is what we're doing. They say, David, you're
crazy. David says, well, I've got to consider that.

Let me take it to the Lord again. And he does. And God confirms it.

And he tells him, go, go. I want you to fight this battle. Look at how
it turns out here, verse 5. And David and his men went to Keilah and
fought with the Philistines to strike them with a mighty blow and took
away their livestock.

So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah. Isn't that beautiful? David,
go. He inquired of the Lord.

He's moving in God's will. He's being led by God. He's seeking God's
direction.

And the Lord guided David. That's beautiful enough. Then look at verse
6. Now, it happened when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David
at Keilah that he went down with an ephod in his hand.

You might read that and you say, so? You know, there's a lot in that
verse if we understand everything that's going on in it. First of all,
who was this fellow, Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech? He was a priest. He
was probably the high priest.

And in the previous chapter, we saw that Saul, in an act of cold-blooded
murder, slaughtered all the priests in his family and their families,
and somehow, Abiathar escaped this slaughter. Okay? Abiathar, a priest,
escaping from Saul's slaughter of the priests. Fine.

Look at it now again, verse 6. When Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled
to David at Keilah, that he went down with an ephod in his hand. You
say, oh, an ephod. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? Now it's all
clear to me.

You know what an ephod is? An ephod is a part of the garments that a
priest would wear in the Old Testament. It was like an apron. Now, the
work of a priest was a bloody work.

You did a lot of work cutting animals and sacrificing them and pouring
out their blood before God. It was messy. And so, just like a butcher
would wear an apron, so the priest wore an apron.

And they called that special apron that the priest wore an ephod. Now,
there was one very special ephod in all of Israel. The priest just wore
a regular white one.

Yeah, that's fine. But the high priest wore a special blue ephod and
there was something very special attached to that blue ephod. The
breastplate of judgment.

And what it was, was it was sort of a decorative thing that attached
with little gold chains to the ephod and it stood there right on the
high priest's chest. And this was the high priest's uniform, his
ceremonial garments. And so he would put the ephod on and attached to
the ephod would be the breastplate of judgment.

And on that breastplate would be 12 stones. Three rows of four with the
names of the tribes of Israel inscribed on each stone. It was a very
powerful picture.

It was the Lord's way of saying, hey, Mr. High Priest, when you go and
administer before me, you've got to have the people on your heart. There
they are, right on your heart. See? You can read their names.

They're right on your heart. Now, tucked inside of that breastplate was
something called the Urim and the Thummim. You say, Urim and the
Thummim? What's that? And let me give you the studied research of many
Bible scholars as to what the Urim and the Thummim are.

We really don't know for sure. Now, the ancient rabbis give us some
ideas. As I've been able to research it, the most reliable idea I can
find about what the Urim and the Thummim are is that they were a white
and a black stone.

And we don't know exactly what the Urim and Thummim were, but we know
what they were used for. The Urim and the Thummim were used to find out
the will of God, to inquire of the Lord. And basically, this is how it
would work.

The High Priest would ask God a question that would have a yes or no
answer. For example, look at the question David asked in verse 2. This
is a question that would have a yes or no answer. Shall I go and attack
these Philistines? And the Lord could answer yes or no to that.

Well, they would ask that question. The priest would ask it before the
Lord. He'd reach his hand into the breastplate.

There was apparently a little pocket or pouch in it where the Urim and
the Thummim were held. And the priest would pull out a rock. And that
stone would either be a white stone or a black stone.

The white stone said yes. The black stone said no. Now, think about
that.

And you say, wow, that's how they determined the will of God? They'd ask
God a question, reach into their pocket, and whatever they pulled out,
that's the answer? I know what some of you are thinking. Part of you are
thinking. Maybe it's split evenly down the middle.

Half of you are thinking, that is so goofy. I mean, what is this, the
magic eight ball of the Old Testament? You know, you ask a question,
shake it up, and just wait for it to appear? I mean, is that any way to
discern the will of God? Second thing some of you are thinking, you're
thinking, man, I wish I had a set of those. Because I would love to be
able to just ask God a yes or no question, reach in my pocket, and pull
out, well, it's white, it's yes, or it's black, it's no.

Thank you, Lord. You know, I think this is the exact reason why God
never told us exactly what the Urim and the Thummim were. If God would
have given us very specific instructions and said the Urim and the
Thummim shall be two stones, one white, one black, shaped a certain way,
blah, blah, blah, and given us the whole explanation and exactly how
they were used and such, you know what would happen.

You'd be able to go down to the Christian bookstore and you would see a
whole wall filled with different companies giving their own Urim and
Thummim for you to take home and use from God. Now, you need to
understand that God has given you a superior way to know the will of God
than the Urim and the Thummim. He's given you, if you're a believer in
Jesus Christ, if you're born again by the Spirit of God, you have the
indwelling Spirit of God within you.

And you have God's Word to guide you. As a matter of fact, I think this
is why the Urim and the Thummim worked. The Urim and the Thummim worked
not because there was anything special or magical in a white rock, in a
black rock.

The Urim and the Thummim worked because God gave the instructions for
their use in His Word. Therefore, when somebody was using the Urim and
the Thummim, they were obeying God's Word. This is such an important
principle.

And maybe some of you here this morning are sort of tortured inside
because you want so badly to know the will of God. If you want to know
the will of God, first of all, find out what God has clearly said in His
Word. Walk in that.

Live in that. Lord, what are you saying to me? Clearly in your Word.
Find out what God's will is as it's clearly revealed.

Then, to the very best of your ability, fulfill what God has given you
to do that you already know. Don't you think it's funny that oftentimes
we as Christians will be in a place of direct disobedience in our
Christian lives right now, and then we'll ask God to show us His will.
Don't you think God looks down from heaven and He says, why should I
reveal my will to you? You're not doing what I've already told you to
do.

And you want me to tell... What, are you going to keep asking my will
until there's something you like? Until there's something you're just
choosing to do? No, God says, if you want to know my will, show a
passion for fulfilling it right where you are right now. And so, the
ephod came to David and he had the priest, he had the guidance, and
might I say that the presence of the high priest and the ephod and the
urm and the thummim, that was more precious to David than a thousand
mighty soldiers. To know the will of God.

To seek the will of God. That's power in your life. Therefore, when you
step forward, you're not guessing, you're not wondering.

You say, this is God's will for me. I know God wants me to do this. Now,
notice it doesn't end here.

Verse 7. Saul was told that David had gone to Keilah. So Saul said, God
has delivered him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a
town that has gates and bars. Then Saul called all the people together
for war to go down to Keilah to besiege David and his men.

Wasn't that interesting? Now, David is a man who inquires of the Lord
and God speaks to him and says, okay, this is what I want you to do.
Saul is a man who doesn't inquire of the Lord, but he thinks he knows
what God's will is. He hears that David is set up in this city and that
David can now be located and captured and dealt with.

And what's Saul's reaction? He says, praise the Lord. Thank you, God.
You've given me my enemy, David.

You want to say, hello, Saul, what are you thinking? This is sin. This
is wickedness. God isn't blessing you in this.

Think about it, Saul. Think about what God wants you to do and where He
wants you to be. So again, Saul is completely off of the mark.

He completely is misunderstanding God's will and God's ways. And instead
of saying, listen, let's leave David alone. Look at what he does in
verse 8. It says, then Saul called all the people together for war to go
down to Keilah and to besiege David and his men.

Do you understand what's happening there? Saul is assembling the army of
Israel not to fight against the Edomites, not to fight against the
Moabites, not to fight against the enemies of Israel. He's assembling
the army of Israel to fight against David. David.

His own son-in-law. David, the man who killed Goliath. David, the man
who had led Israel on many successful expeditions against the
Philistines.

That's who Saul is focused against. Isn't this tragic? How warped the
heart can be. And if you want to see how warped it can be, would Saul
bring the army of Israel to the city of Keilah to save the city of
Keilah when it was besieged by the Philistines? Nah, he didn't care
about that.

But when David is there, and he can capture David, then Saul is excited
about going to the city of Keilah. Well, we know the Lord's going to
protect David. We've just got to see how.

Verse 9. When David knew that Saul plotted evil against him, he said to
Abiathar the priest, Bring the ephod here. Then David said, O Lord God
of Israel, your servant has certainly heard that Saul seeks to come to
Keilah to destroy this city for my sake. Will the men of Keilah deliver
me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord
God of Israel, I pray tell your servant.

And the Lord said, He will come down. Then David said, Will the men of
Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said,
They will deliver you. Well, that was bad news for David.

David must have scratched his head and said, Yeah, a lot of gratitude
from the people of Keilah, huh? No good deed goes unpunished, David must
have been thinking. But then again, we can kind of sympathize with the
people in the city of Keilah. I mean, they were afraid.

They had heard how Saul had wiped out a whole village of Israelites at
the city of Nob when Saul massacred the priests. They knew the
bloodthirsty character and nature of Saul and they were afraid of him.
Isn't that tragic? They're afraid of Saul, but they look to David for
the things that the king should be doing.

Saul is becoming more and more distant, more and more out there, more
and more rebellious against God. And so what does David do? He gets this
warning, verse 13, So David and his men, about six hundred, arose and
departed from Keilah and went whatever way they could go. Then it was
told Saul that David had escaped from Keilah, so he halted the
expedition.

All right, let's conclude just with a few final points here. First of
all, the broad, obvious point. Did you pick up in this whole little
narrative here how you can be in the center of God's will and still be
in a lot of trouble? All right, that was David.

Did the Lord tell him to go to Keilah? Yes. Did David do what the Lord
commanded him to do? By the way, that's a remarkable point right there,
isn't it? David sought the will of God. He inquired the will of God.

All this, he knew the will of God, but also David did the will of God.
We can know God's will backward and forward. We can talk about it.

We can discuss it like experts with other people. We can say, oh,
marvelous, and then thinking, well, you've got the Urim and the Thummim
and you've got this and, you know, what's the predestination of three
wills? Oh, theological discussion of God's will. Oh, beautiful.

Are you doing it? David did God's will. He knew it. He understood it.

And he put himself in a real mess. That's okay. The Lord would see him
out of it.

But sometimes, when we're in the midst of a mess, we think, I couldn't
be in God's will. Maybe you are. Maybe you're not.

But sometimes, obeying God will put us in a place where we have to trust
him even more. And that's where David was. Secondly, we notice that
David had to find deliverance through taking humble action.

Should we remind ourselves of what kind of man David was? David was a
warrior. David was the kind of man who could look at the giant Goliath
and stare him straight in the eye and say, you're going down. This is a
brave man.

This is not the kind of man who backs down from a battle. But what did
David have to do? He had to retreat and sneak away from the city of
Goliath. Friends, do you understand that this was David going against
his instincts and humbling himself? I'm sure that there was part of
David that said, I'm going to stand up and fight.

I'm not taking this from Saul or anybody else. You want a battle? Let's
have a battle. Let's get it on, Saul.

I'm sure there was something in David that wanted that, but he didn't.
He took the humble course of saying, we'll retreat. Friends, a lot of
times our salvation is found in taking the humble course.

And finally, I want you to see how this pictures for us the glorious
work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Do you understand what I mean by
that? You see, let's understand that Jesus was the descendant of many
human ancestors. Jesus descended from Abraham.

Jesus descended from Isaac. Jesus descended from Adam. Jesus descended
from Noah.

I mean, there's any number of biblical characters that Jesus descended
from. But you know, Jesus has never given the title Son of Noah. He's
never given the title Son of Abraham.

He's given the title Son of David. I want you to see this. Kela was a
city that was destined for destruction.

And what did David do? He said, no, I'll move myself and make myself the
target for destruction so that the destruction of Saul won't be targeted
against Kela. That's exactly what happened. It says here, David escaped
from Kela and so Saul halted the expedition.

Do you realize that's exactly what Jesus Christ did for you? You were a
target for God's judgment. You deserved it. I deserved it.

We all deserve God's judgment because we sin against God. We rebel
against Him. But what Jesus did was through His humble action, He said,
I'll be the target.

And God diverted His judgment away from us, put it upon Jesus at the
cross, and now the Lord God says, Jesus took the punishment that you
deserved. Aren't you happy that the Son of David did the same thing for
you and I? And doesn't this give us the picture of exactly what God's
work is in David's life right now? Without David really knowing it, in
these terms, the Lord God is making David more like Jesus. You know,
that's His work in your life, too.

You wonder, Lord, why have you put me in this situation where I don't
know what to do? That's where David was in. Lord, why have you put me in
this situation where it seems like people might betray me? That's the
situation David was in. Lord, why have you put me in this situation
where people are attacking me, like Saul was attacking David? Lord, why
have you put me in this situation where I have to humble myself to see
you work? Lord, why? Why? Why? Because He wants to make you more like
Jesus.

That's God's great goal. Everything that God does in your life is to
make you more like Jesus. Because the Lord has put Jesus' life into you.

Now He's working it out of you in every aspect. Let Him do that work and
receive the life of Jesus in you today. Let's pray and ask God to cement
that work in our hearts.

Father, we do thank you this morning. We ask, Lord Jesus, that you just
fill our hearts with an awareness of the greatness of the Son of David.
Lord, we're blown away by David's wisdom in seeking you, by his
obedience, by his courage, by his patience, But Lord, all of those
things don't compare at all to what Jesus Christ has done for us.

So we thank you for David, Lord, but we want Him to point us to the
greater Son of David, to Jesus Christ our Lord. Make us more like Jesus,
Lord, as you work your glorious life in us through what Jesus did on the
cross. Thank you, Lord.

We love you. We praise you together this morning in Jesus' name, Amen.

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Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/10/SID10653.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/david-guzik/1-samuel-how-to-get-an-answer-from-god/
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