27th May 2026

27th May 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (1 Samuel 29 focus v6-8)


Message (Alan Burke)


Say you look for a new job because you’ve got a new boss, and they are an absolute pain to work for. The new job is further away; you expected to spend more time on the commute, but after a while, it starts to become too much. Then you realise the job that you’re doing isn’t what you really want to be doing, but at least the boss is okay, but then you find yourself with colleagues who aren’t good for you; you find yourself compromising what you know is right. Unintended consequences. Our lives are filled with unintended consequences, and I’m pretty sure David had no idea of the consequences of the decisions that he made. He had got himself into a situation of his own making, with his lies he had been digging his own grave to an extent. He likely thought how on earth was he going to get out of this one, after all he had done such a great job of hiding the truth from Achish. The commanders wanted Achish to send David away and well he does what they say, David is sent away. 


But notice what Achish says to David in v6; ‘So Achish called David and said to him, “As surely as the LORD lives,…”’. Achish here uses the personal name of God denoted to us in capital letters. Remember he is a pagan; he would have worshipped false gods, like Baal, Astarte, Asherah, and Dagon. And yet he is the one who evokes the personal name of God. The only mention of the LORD in this narrative comes from the lips of Achish and not David. It is striking that the man who was introduced to us as a man after the LORD’s heart has failed to trust in the LORD (see 1 Sam 13:14, Acts 13:22), he had forgotten what it was to trust in his deliverance; for the past sixteen months he had lived a life of deception, a shadow of the man who faced up against Goliath, saying that he came in the name of the LORD, Heaven’s Armies, the God of the God of the armies of Israel… (1 Sam 17:45-47). 


None of this should surprise us, for David was a sinful man, just like you and I are sinful; we all face the danger of falling into sinful behaviours, of wandering from the truth; we should always be on guard; we may say that will never happen to us, but there is every chance because of how deceitful sin is. Achish conveyed his total confidence in David; it makes it clear just how good David had been at his deception. David bought the spoils of war to Achish; Achish, though, had not seen the reality of David’s life; he hadn’t gone with David into battle. Words are one thing; we can say lots of things, talk the talk as such, but for the believer, the reality of who we are is often seen in how we live, in how we walk the walk. David had strayed from what he knew to be true, and he had taken Achish in by his deception. 


The irony in all of this comes in David’s response at being sent away. While he should be marvelling at how the LORD had sovereignly worked, getting him out of the mess that he has made for himself, the unintended consequences, that he was being delivered by the hand of the LORD, but the deception after the deception led to David asking “What have I done?”. The wise thing for David would have simply been to say something like “if my lord wishes”, but his deception continues in his very next breath; it reveals a lot as he asks; “Why can’t I go and fight against the enemies of my lord the king?” David’s folly continued on, yet the LORD was at work in spite of David; he is sovereign, even in David’s folly, and he was and is at work. The LORD is sovereign even in our sinful actions, in Acts 2 we are told; This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross (Ac 2:23). The LORD used the sinful actions of sinful people who made the free choice to put Jesus to death for his set purpose and he uses our sinful actions, that should never be an excuse or reason to sin but we can take comfort that the LORD uses us in spite of ourselves, even in our folly. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q78 What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
A. The ninth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbor’s good name.