Don’t Waste the Wilderness - 1 Samuel 26

Believe it or not, we’ve been working our way through the book of 1 Samuel for almost a year. Admittedly, our pace has been a bit choppy recently, but this is where we’ll be camped out for the foreseeable future.

Now, if you remember anything about the storyline so far, what we just read in 1 Samuel 26 should sound very familiar.

Once again, David is on the run. Once again, Saul is hunting him down. And once again, David has the opportunity to take Saul’s life, but he doesn’t. Chapter 26 closely mirrors what we saw in chapter 24. There was a brief intermission in chapter 25 with Nabal and Abigail, but now we’re back in familiar territory, almost like a repeat episode.

In fact, whenever we see something repeated in God’s Word, we should pay attention because repetition isn’t pointless. God wants us to see something through it.

You might be wondering, what on earth could God be teaching David by forcing him, on three separate occasions, to flee Saul? What exactly is the point? I think the lesson is actually a very simple one: God was preparing David to be king in Israel, but he wasn’t preparing him the way you and I would expect. God had promised David that he would one day be King, and yet, Saul still sits on the throne. You have to imagine that from David’s perspective, God’s promise is nowhere close to being fulfilled.

And that was precisely the point. The Lord was preparing David for the throne in the wilderness, where his life was in constant tension between promise and fulfillment. But it’s in that tension, in that season of wilderness waiting that David’s faith and dependence upon the Lord was ultimately tested. Because that is one of the most challenging seasons of life where you have to wait in that awkward in-between stage.

It’s in that in-between stage, the wilderness if you will, that God often calls his people to wait, trust, and embrace his timing. If you’re taking notes, those are our points: God uses the wilderness to teach us to wait (vv. 1-12), to teach us to trust (vv. 13-22), and lastly to teach us to embrace His timing (vv. 23-25).

The Wilderness Teaches Us to Wait (vv. 1-12)

As I was saying earlier, this passage is very familiar isn’t it? It’s a lot like what we read from 1 Samuel 24, where Saul wandered into the cave that David was hiding in, only for him to spare his life and cut off the hem of his robe. Just as things were then, they are here as well – everything is set up perfectly for David to take Saul’s life.

Despite previously saying he would not try to take David’s life, the Ziphites revealed to Saul where David was hiding, and once again, he’s hunting David down. And so, as we read, David and Abishai go to spy out Saul and his men who the Lord had put under a deep sleep.

And just like all the men around David in the cave in 1 Samuel 24, Abishai encouraged David to end Saul’s life. In fact, he said he would take care of Saul for him – all he needed was one stroke of the spear that was right next to Saul.

Once again, David had Saul’s life presented to him on a silver platter. He had the opportunity to put an end to all the running and hiding, by killing Saul and yet he chose not to.

He gave Abishai his reasoning in verses 9-11: “Do not destroy him, for who can put out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless?” 10 And David said, “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish. 11 The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed.”

In other words, it would be wrong for David to kill Saul since God had put Saul on the throne in Israel to begin with. The Lord commanded Samuel to anoint Saul as the first King in Israel. And so, for David to kill Saul would be to take matters into his own hands and rebel against the explicit will of God.

But there was a clear consequence for David’s decision to once again spare Saul: David was going to have to continue to deal with Saul and neurotic behavior while he remained in an indefinite waiting pattern to become King in Israel.

Which is why it really shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us that a recurring theme throughout the Psalms of David is waiting upon the Lord.

Psalm 25:5 – “Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”

Psalm 27:14 – “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

Psalm 33:20 – “Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.”

Psalm 37:7 – “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him...”

Psalm 38:15 – “But for you, O Lord, do I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.”

There are more, but hopefully you get the idea – David wrote about waiting on the Lord because he understood it so well. Besides, who likes to wait?

One of the great challenges of the Christian life is learning to wait in a world that hates waiting. We live in a culture conditioned for speed. You’re pretty much suffering if your wifi is running slow. And let’s be honest, sometimes two-day shipping feels like a long time. That same impatience bleeds into our spiritual lives. We want immediate results in our careers, our relationships, and even in our walk with God.

We long for the promotion, the platform, the answered prayer; all while avoiding the process. We want to receive the crown without ever having to walk through the wilderness.

But Scripture shows us again and again: God often does His deepest work in the lives of his people during the seasons of waiting. The delay isn’t wasted time; it’s typically a season of preparation where God often shapes us into something better.

The Wilderness Teaches Us to Trust (vv. 10-20)

It’s usually through that wilderness season, a season of waiting that God forces us to become more dependent, more reliant, more confident in Him – which is exactly what we see with David!

Before David did anything he told Abishai that he intended to spare Saul and gave him his reasoning in verse 10: “As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish.”

In other words, David doesn’t need to worry about Saul because the Lord is going to take care of him. The Lord will strike him down, or he’ll eventually die, or perhaps he’ll lose his life in battle. Regardless, Saul’s life wasn’t in David’s hands, his life was in the hands of the Lord.

When you go back and read 1 Samuel 24 where David had the opportunity to kill Saul in the cave, it really seems that he was tempted to go through with it but ultimately chose not to. But here, in 1 Samuel 26, when basically the exact same opportunity was presented to David, he wasn’t seriously tempted. He knew exactly what he needed to do: he had to spare Saul’s life, which of course, meant waiting indefinitely, but was an expression of trust in the Lord.

I know I’ve used Shakespeare’s Macbeth as an illustration previously, but it’s such a perfect illustration for this particular stage of David’s life. Macbeth was told that he would one day be king in Scotland, but he was never told how he would become king in Scotland.

And so, infamously, he took matters into his own hands and killed King Duncan in order to become king.

David could have done that exact same thing! He could have killed Saul to become King in Israel, but he chose to trust God and wait.

Because it’s in those seasons of waiting where what you trust in is truly revealed. Macbeth took matters into his own hands which revealed his self-reliance. While David chose to wait, which ultimately revealed his reliance upon the Lord.

David even showed respect and honor to Saul because he knew that the Lord had put him on the throne.

In fact, after sneaking into Saul's camp and taking the water by Saul’s head along with his spear, David began his address by expressing concern over the lack of security around Saul. David accused Abner, Saul’s top commander, of not sufficiently protecting Saul, the Lord’s anointed.

But of course, David’s broader point was that Saul had no reason to be threatened by him because even when he had the opportunity to kill him he chose not to go through with it. Therefore, Saul needed to stop trying to kill David.

David transitioned in his address from pointing out Abner’s failure to making a personal point. He wanted Saul to stop chasing him so that he could remain in Israel.

Look at what David said in verse 19: “If it is the Lord who has stirred you up against me, may he accept an offering, but if it is men, may they be cursed before the Lord, for they have driven me out this day that I should have no share in the heritage of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.”

David lays out who or what may be behind Saul’s obsession with him. If it’s the Lord then I can offer a sacrifice. If it’s other men, may they be accursed. David leaves out the possibility that it may be Saul’s jealousy that may be causing him to chase him down.

But again, David’s point is that he doesn’t want Saul to chase him out of Israel, because if he is chased out of Israel, he will, “share in the heritage of the Lord…” It’s as if Saul and those who seek David’s life are saying to him, “Go, serve other gods.”

We read that and think, that’s a rather odd point. Why is David acting as if he can only serve God in Israel? Isn’t God everywhere?

And the answer is of course God is everywhere. But there was something very unique and special about Israel, as the commentator Dale Ralph Davis pointed out, “...when one had left Israel there was no possibility of public worship.”

Only Israel had the tabernacle, priests, and sacrifices. Only Israel had prescribed public worship services. If David was cut off from Israel, he’d be cut off from attending worship.

I’ve had countless conversations with people who profess faith in Christ and are absolutely convinced that there is very little spiritual significance to attending public worship. In fact, I think there is a large swath of people who don’t attend church at all because they don’t think it matters.

David clearly disagrees with that sentiment because one of his chief concerns about dying outside of Israel was that he would not be before the face of the Lord in worship again. Verse 20, says the “presence of the Lord,” but the literal translation is “before the face of the Lord.”

If David was exiled from Israel, he would be exiled from public worship.

Those who profess faith in Christ and refuse to attend public worship are living in a self-imposed spiritual exile.

Church is where we commune with the living God through his Word, Sacraments, and prayer. God has promised to meet with his people through his ordained means, and so to refuse to attend public worship is a self-imposed spiritual exile. David understood regular worship to be the lifeblood of his communion with God.

And fundamentally, to take God at his Word, to believe that the Lord will meet with you through the very means that he has promised is an expression of trust!

The reality is, the more reliant and dependent you become on the Lord, the more you’ll see worship as absolutely essential to your walk with God. David believed that. Do you?

The Wilderness Teaches Us to Embrace God's Timing (vv. 21-25)

We really see David’s open hands on full display in verses 21-25. After David spared Saul’s life, Saul breaks down in verse 21, confessing his sin and acknowledging David’s righteousness. And how does David respond? He doesn't gloat. He doesn’t say “I told you so.” He entrusts the situation to the Lord, saying in verses 23-24:

“The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, for the Lord gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the Lord’s anointed. Behold, as your life was precious this day in my sight, so may my life be precious in the sight of the Lord, and may he deliver me out of all tribulation.”

That’s a man who has learned to wait on the Lord and embrace His timing. That’s someone who has surrendered the outcome—the very throne God promised him—into God's hands. David is still not king. Saul is still alive. But David faithfully waited.

And notice how the chapter ends in verse 25. Saul says to David, “Blessed be you, my son David! You will do many things and will succeed in them.” Then it says:

“So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.”

That closing image is powerful. Saul returns to his place—but David walks away still waiting. There’s still no resolution at the end of chapter 26. In many ways it’s like what we’ve read before. Saul apologized, but didn’t make any promises. David was still in the wilderness. Effectively, none of David’s circumstances have changed, but David has changed, hasn’t he?

David has come to see that faithfulness is not measured by how quickly God fulfills His promises, but by how steadfastly he trusts Him in the waiting. He has embraced the Lord’s timing.

Jesus had to embrace the Father’s timing as well. How many in the gospels does Jesus say something like, “my hour (or my time) has not yet come?” He used that sort of language regularly because he understood the plan of redemption was on God’s timetable.

That’s one of the great lessons of this chapter: waiting, the in-between time is never wasted when it forces us to be more dependent upon the Lord. The Lord was using the wilderness to shape David into the kind of king who is utterly reliant upon Him. That kind of growth happens in the wilderness.

We love the idea of glory, but Scripture is clear: the path to glory runs through suffering.

David has already been anointed king. The crown is promised. He knows where this is going. And yet—what do we see? He’s not on the throne. He’s still on the run. Saul is still alive. The path forward isn’t power or revenge—it’s waiting. Trusting. Sparing the man who is trying to kill him. David chose the harder path and entrusted the outcome to God. And by doing so, he shows us a shadow of something greater.

Because no one understands that the pathway to glory runs through suffering better than Jesus. The cross came before the crown.

Jesus, too, was anointed—declared beloved by the Father. And yet, He embraced the wilderness. He waited on God’s timing. He refused to take a shortcut to glory. Satan offered Him the kingdoms of the world. The crowds wanted to make Him king by force. But He said no. He chose the cross before the crown.

And He did it for us.

Jesus bore the full weight of our sin and shame, endured the wrath we deserved, and died in our place—so that we might share in His glory.

Now, in Christ, we walk that same path. Like David, we wait. We endure. We suffer. We sometimes wonder when the promises will be fulfilled. But the good news is this: God never wastes the wilderness. He uses it to prepare His people for glory. The cross always comes before the crown—but the crown is coming.

Don’t seize what only God can give. Trust His timing. Wait in faith. And remember: your King walked this road first, and He walks it now with you.

Amen. Let’s pray together.