Look Who it Was Random video

LOD-15 - Finding Hope when EVERYTHING has Been Lost

520 views · Published 7 August 2014 · 49:35 · Indexed 25 September 2026

Channel: John Barnett Online Teaching · 2014 · People & Blogs

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Our Struggles
Frame God’s Faithfulness

The context of these dark and lonely days in David’s life, makes an incredibly beautiful frame around some of the most precious of all of David’s Psalms . His prayers, cries for help, and affirmations of God’s faithfulness: seem even clearer, dearer, and more memorable from those dark and lonely hours in David’s life. David repeats in as many ways as possible that:

All the Time (God is good)
God is good (All the time).

What a meteoric rise, and equally meteoric fall, David experiences in First Samuel 18-20. David suffers painful loneliness as he faces family conflict, big life changes, and great danger. Think of everything happening here. David moves away from home (18:2), joins the army and becomes an officer leading troops (18:5), becomes a national celebrity (18:7), draws the jealous rage of King Saul (18:8-9), faces life threatening situations (18:11), meets and marries the King’s daughter (18:17-28); then sees Saul send soldiers to kill David as he slept in his bed at home (I Samuel 19:11). During these days of danger and turmoil David writes Psalm 59, 11, and 64—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are in danger.

First Samuel 21:1-9: as David flees for his life again, he suffers intense loneliness as he loses his job, and is separated from his family. David writes Psalm 52—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are away from our work, home, and family.

1 Sam. 21:10-15: David goes from fear, to terror, to nearly a complete breakdown in the time surrounding his capture by the Philistine army at Gath. He writes about this in Psalm 34 and 56. After he gets away from the Philistines, David is so alone that feels abandoned and wrote Psalm 13, 40, and 70 about life in the pits of despair.

First Samuel 22:1-4: After a period of life alone in the cave, David was joined by an incredibly difficult group of criminals and societal rejects. This was a turning point in David’s life because God refined his character through his cave troubles more than at any other time. David suffers intense loneliness as he lives and works with this tough crowd. David wrote more Psalms in this period than at any other time in his life. These cave Psalms are 4, 57, 141-142—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are far from home and feel exiled.

1 Samuel 22:5-24:16: David suffers the intense loneliness of unemployment, unsettled home life, and betrayal by friends. David takes time to look back at those events and write Psalms: 17, 63 (after I Samuel 22:5-23); 31,54 (after I Sam 23:10-25); 35-36 (after I Sam 23:29 from En Gedi); and 7 (after I Sam 24:1-16 when he spares Saul’s life). In each of these Psalms God inspires David to record his lessons on how to overcome the feelings of despair and bitterness when we are betrayed by those we trusted as friends.

I Samuel 25: David suffers the intense loneliness when wronged in a business deal. David writes Psalm 53—how to overcome the feelings of loneliness when we are in danger of bitterness over being hurt in a business deal.

David has
Survived

As we open to I Samuel 29, David has survived all that, and even one last commando raid by Saul on David’s hideaway in I Samuel 27.

David survived: like a cancer victim that has finally finished the surgery, chemo, and radiation; and finally is declared cancer free. David was weak, but David had made it out of the woods, and life has returned to what it was like before all these months and years of fear, turmoil and struggle. What a pathway those days had been. Do you remember what David had gone through?

After being captured and held by the Philistines, betrayed and nearly hunted to death by traitors from his own tribe, surviving month after month of murderous commando raids led against him by his own father-in-law, and enduring all the emotional damage that job loss, anxiety and frustration could exact from him: the Lord allows David’s life to even out.

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