Desolation - Part 1
From Consolation to Desolation
Well, it is good to see all these smiling faces out here. How are we doing, church? It is great to be with you. My name is Mike, and I’m one of the teaching pastors here at The Well. If you’re a regular around here, welcome. And if you are joining us for your second week after Easter, thank you for coming back and trusting us. We’re going to get into the Word of God as we do every week, so if you have your Bible with you, we’re going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 19.
We’ve been journeying through a series called Monarchy, where we’ve been looking at three of Israel’s most well-known kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. Ultimately, all of those kings lead us to the King of Kings, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We’re essentially through Saul’s life now—he’s still around, lingering in the background, but the focus these last several weeks has been on David.
As you recall, David has been in a season of what we call “consolation,” where everything is awesome. It is the rocket ship ride: famous success and the perceived presence of God. He is near, He is good, and He is doing amazing things. In a lot of ways, you feel like Midas in these moments, where everything you touch turns to gold. David was anointed as the future king in chapter 16. In chapter 17, he fights Goliath. He goes from a relative unknown to a household name literally overnight. The people are singing of him: “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.” He is the man.
As we moved into chapter 18, we saw his life turned upside down in some beautiful ways. He’s brought into Saul’s kingdom as a trusted armor-bearer. Saul sends him out to battle, and David is succeeding everywhere he goes. In fact, the text says that David was prospering in all his ways because the Lord was with him.
1 Samuel 18:14 (NASB)
David was prospering in all his ways for the LORD [was] with him.
That is a beautiful season. I don’t know about you, but I certainly wish seasons like this lasted forever. I would love for my life to always be “up and to the right,” feeling like God is close and everything I do is right. But unfortunately, that is not the economy of God. That is not how He seems to operate. The danger of consolation—as good as those moments of feeling God’s nearness are—is that we can begin to yearn like babies for the bottle of consolation rather than the God of the consolation.
What God in His love and goodness often does is take us to the summit of consolation and then bring us to the other side: desolation. This is the place where He feels distant, where His voice is no longer as clear, and His nearness doesn’t feel like it used to. This is the season David is about to walk into. God is a gracious, loving Father, and He’s going to take David on a journey to teach him things that you simply can’t learn during seasons of consolation.
The Removal of Comforts
We’re going to cover three chapters today—19 through 21—and look at five different “bottles” or sources of consolation that God lovingly removes from David’s life. These all have a purpose. They are, in God’s sovereign hand, used for David’s good. Though we’ll cover them in minutes, this season will last the better part of a year, and it’s just the beginning. In total, David will be in this season of desolation for fifteen years. It is purposeful, it is hard, and it is divinely directed.
Notice the five things God takes out of David’s life: his job, his home and wife, his mentor Samuel, his best friend Jonathan, and finally, any sense of control he thought he had. As we venture out of chapter 18, we’re reminded that Saul was afraid of David and became his enemy continually. The posture has shifted. Twice already, David has evaded Saul’s spear. That leads us into chapter 19.
1 Samuel 19:1 (NASB)
Now Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants to put David to death. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, greatly delighted in David.
Jonathan, the prince in waiting, is fiercely loyal to David at his own expense. He takes up David’s case before Saul and asks his father why he is against David. Saul actually listens to Jonathan and vows that David shall not be put to death. For a moment, David is reinstated. He goes back to fighting battles and playing the harp to ease Saul’s mind. But the madness returns quickly.
1 Samuel 19:10 (NASB)
Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, so that he stuck the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night.
This is the third time Saul has attempted to assassinate David. In this moment, David loses the first of those five things: his job. He will never again work alongside Saul as a trusted confidant. He runs home, but even there, he finds no safety. Saul sends messengers to watch the house and kill him in the morning. David’s wife, Michal, helps him escape through a window. When Saul’s messengers show up, she lies and says David is sick. Saul doesn’t care; he tells them to bring David in his bed so he can kill him. This relationship between David and Michal is now severed. They won’t be reunited for another fifteen years. Saul even gives Michal away to another man. David has now lost his job, his wife, and his home.
Losing the Prophet and the Friend
Now a man on the run, David goes to the only spiritual anchor he has left: Samuel the prophet.
1 Samuel 19:18 (NASB)
Now David fled and escaped and came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.
David recounts the pain to Samuel. “Samuel, twice in one day I avoided the spear! I went home and he had people stationed outside! Four different times I’ve escaped death!” You can feel the pressure rising. But as soon as he arrives, Saul finds out and sends messengers.
1 Samuel 19:20 (NASB)
Then Saul sent messengers to take David, but when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing [and] presiding over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul; and they also prophesied.
God creatively thwarts these messengers by having the Spirit overtake them so they start prophesying. Saul sends a second and third delegation with the same result. Finally, Saul goes himself. In one of the funnier moments in the Bible, Saul strips his clothes off and prophesies while lying down naked all day and night. I was talking to a pastor friend earlier, and he suggested I should demonstrate what this looked like on stage to drive the point home. I told him that would certainly be my last message at The Well!
But even with this supernatural intervention, the outcome is that David has to flee again. This is the final recorded interaction between David and Samuel. The man who anointed him, his spiritual advisor, is removed from his life. David then runs to his faithful friend, Jonathan.
1 Samuel 20:1 (NASB)
Then David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said to Jonathan, ‘What have I done? What is my iniquity? And what is my sin before your father, that he is seeking my life?’
David doesn’t run away from people; he runs to people. You can feel his angst: “Jonathan, what have I done? Why do I deserve this?” David recognizes this is irreparable. He is fearful for his very life.
1 Samuel 20:3 (NASB)
Yet David vowed again, saying, ’Your father knows well that I have found favor in your sight, and he has said, ‘Do not let Jonathan know this, or he will be grieved.’ But truly as the LORD lives and as your soul lives, there is hardly a step between me and death.’
David is saying, “I’m not being dramatic; I am a step away from death.” He is watching his world implode. Jonathan, being the anchor he is, tells David, “Whatever you say, I will do for you.” They devise a plan to test Saul’s true intentions. During this, they make a covenant—an unbreakable promise to be good to one another and their future families.
1 Samuel 20:16-17 (NASB)
So Jonathan made a [covenant] with the house of David, [saying], ‘May the LORD require [it] at the hands of David’s enemies.’ Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life.
This is one of the most beautiful pictures of biblical male friendship. Jonathan loves David as his own life. But when Jonathan goes to bat for David, Saul loses it.
1 Samuel 20:30 (NASB)
Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan and he said to him, ’You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you are choosing the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?
They didn’t teach me how to cuss in Hebrew in seminary, but I’m pretty sure Saul just did. He calls Jonathan the “son of a perverse and rebellious woman.” Saul is committed to hanging on to a kingdom that God has already stripped from him. He tells Jonathan that as long as David lives, Jonathan’s dynasty has no chance. Jonathan has to report the bad news to David.
1 Samuel 20:42 (NASB)
Jonathan said to David, ’Go in safety, inasmuch as we have sworn to each other in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD will be between me and you, and between my descendants and your descendants forever.’’ Then he rose and departed, while Jonathan went into the city.
The two men weep together, knowing their daily friendship is over. David has now lost his job, his home, his wife, his mentor, and his best friend.
The Loss of Control
In desperation, David runs to the city of Nob to see Ahimelech the priest.
1 Samuel 21:1 (NASB)
Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, ‘Why are you alone and no one with you?’
David is alone and desperate, and he does something we don’t usually see from him: he lies. He tells the priest he’s on a secret mission from the king.
1 Samuel 21:2 (NASB)
David said to Ahimelech the priest, ’The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’
David is resorting to anything to stay alive. He takes some bread and Goliath’s sword, but he realizes he’s being watched by one of Saul’s servants. He has to leave. He makes a decision that shows just how bad things have become: he flees to Gath, a Philistine city. This is Goliath’s hometown. David is so desperate that he runs to the enemy to find relief from Saul.
1 Samuel 21:10 (NASB)
Then David arose and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish king of Gath.
He hopes to fly under the radar, but the servants of the king recognize him immediately. “Isn’t this the guy they sang about? The one who killed ten thousands?”
1 Samuel 21:11 (NASB)
But the servants of Achish said to him, ’Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, ’Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands ‘?’
His last hope—his anonymity—is gone. So David plays the very last card he has. He feigns madness. He scribbles on the doors and lets saliva run down his beard. He acts like a madman so the king will think, “This fool can’t be the great David.”
1 Samuel 21:13 (NASB)
So he disguised his sanity before them, and acted insanely in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva run down into his beard.
It works. The king asks, “Do I lack madmen that you brought this one to me? Get him out of here!”
At this point, every bottle of consolation has been removed. Significance, home, wife, mentor, best friend, and finally, his dignity and sense of control. The sweet season is over. David is in the depths of desolation.
The Purpose of the Wilderness
God never leaves David in this season, but His presence feels different. God is working behind the scenes, protecting David, but not allowing him to escape the lesson. In the wilderness, the text stops explicitly saying, “The Lord was with him,” but it never stops demonstrating it.
I’ve been in and out of these seasons for thirty years, but the most acute one for me happened over twenty years ago. I had just finished seminary and was working my first ministry job in Dallas. It was amazing, but then the church restructured and I lost my position. Then, doors I thought were opening in Fresno with my best friend, Brad, suddenly closed.
Finally, a door opened in Sherman, Texas. We sold our home, moved our newborn and our two-year-old, and within two weeks, I realized something was wrong. I was butting heads with the senior pastor. The church culture was weird—I found out later it was a church split made up of the “grumblers and complainers.” My relationship with the pastor soured. Looking back, I can see my own pride and sin contributed to that, but at the time, I just felt isolated.
My wife was battling postpartum depression, and I was emotionally unavailable and insensitive. We ended up in marriage counseling. Here I was, a pastor whose job was to help other people’s marriages, sitting there in humility confessing that ours was a mess. Then, a year in, my pastor gave me an ultimatum. I couldn’t do what he asked, and he said, “There’s the door.”
I went home, threw my notebook on the couch, and told my wife it was over. I applied for every job I could find. Starbucks and Target wouldn’t even hire me. We burned through our savings and were putting groceries on credit cards. I felt like God wasn’t paying attention. I told Him, “Lord, I sacrificed to be here, and You are doing nothing for my good!”
It wasn’t until years later, after God brought us here, that I could look back with an honest assessment. I had to own my part in that mess. But in the moment, I was reeling. Many of you are there right now. You’re nodding because you’ve felt that sting.
As we conclude, let me offer four observations about desolation:
- Seasons of desolation are normal. Despite what some theology tells you, there is not a single character God used in a great way who didn’t experience desolation. From Abraham to Paul, and even Jesus, this is part of the journey.
- Seasons of desolation are hard. They are painful and disorienting. God removes the “bottles”—even good things like a job or a friend—because they have become crutches. He wants to teach you things about Him that you can only learn when it’s just you and Him.
- Seasons of desolation can be self-inflicted. We have to have the courage to ask if our own disobedience or sin created the situation. That wasn’t the case for David here, but it would be later in his life.
- Seasons of desolation serve a greater purpose. They don’t last forever. God brought David to the end of himself to prepare him to be the shepherd king. Until he understood his great need for God, he couldn’t lead the nation the way God wanted.
We can draw encouragement knowing our Savior knew what this felt like. From the cross, He cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He walked through desolation so that we could have a Savior. He felt God was far so that we could know God is near.
Father, thank You for these rough seasons that You divinely direct in our lives. As we walk through them, teach us to trust You. Help us remember that You are near to the brokenhearted. Teach us whatever we need to learn, and in Your grace, comfort us on the journey. We love You. In Christ’s name, amen.