1 Samuel 21:8 – And David said unto Ahimelech, And is there not here under thine hand spear or sword? for I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.

1 Samuel 21:9 – And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it me.

Hello readers, back with a new blog today, once again from the life of David. This story is extremely applicable today. Incredibly applicable today. When the weaponless David saw the sword that he had used to kill Goliath he said… There is none like that; give it me… we need to understand this story today. People today, Christianity today is on the run, like David was. People today, Christianity today is under siege, like David was. The haste of Christianity today has left people and Christians weaponless, like David was. David was faint and weaponless, and how many people and also Christians we see in the same boat today. David was being persecuted by Saul, Saul had issued the order to kill him, not because David had done anything wrong, but because of Saul’s own problems, his pride, his jealousy, his envy – it was stupid, but typical of sinful humanity – as Jonathan asked his father, What hath he done? David was on the run, the man of God was on the run. And he went and came to Nob and met Ahimelech the priest of God there. David went to the right place. We should go to the priest, the bishop, the shepherd of our souls, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the one and only mediator between God and man. That’s what priests do, mediate between God and man, and when we are saved we become priests unto God, we all have access to God by Jesus Christ. It is an incredible privilege, you may go straight to God, into his very presence, and be heard, all on the basis of his Son. Jesus is the great high priest, it is he alone that atoned for the sins of humanity, it he is alone who has the power to and does forgive, it is he by whom we have access to God, it is by him that we can enter boldly into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God today. David went to see the right man, a man who would point him the right direction, in God’s direction, a man of faith, and these are the people we should treasure in our lives. People who put God first, who put the truth first, who can and do give you what you need when you need it.

And like Ahimelech was able to furnish David with bread and a sword, so Jesus is the one who feeds us, who gives us eternal life, who gives us victory in the battle. Pastors, teachers, preachers today should be like Ahimelech, able to give their flocks food and weaponry for the battle. Because if you are saved you are in a battle, there is a war inside us, around us, and a world and devil that hates us because of Christ in us, because we have been translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the Son of God, the kingdom of light. Satan won’t let go of you without a fight, Pharaoh didn’t easily surrender the children of Israel, and even after the plagues, he still came back after them to the shores of the Red Sea. He would go no further, and the devil can’t pursue you beyond that Red Sea of the blood of Christ in your life. Ahimelech had bread and a sword for David. He showed himself approved of God, he was a faithful priest, he is a picture of a faithful pastor, preacher, teacher. He had something of great value for David. Do you have anything of value for others when they come to you for help, for advice? Do you have the word of life to extend to them? Are you a sower of the word, that precious incorruptible seed which bears much fruit? One of God’s preeminent commands to mankind is to be fruitful and multiply, this is not only applicable in the physical sense, but in the spiritual sense. Be fruitful in your life and multiply, spread the seed of the word of God. The seed is not spread in vain. Are rivers of living water flowing out of your life? Do you have something for a weary traveller in this world, for a faint soldier of God? When you go to church, or to your friends, or to a counsellor, do they point you to the Lord Jesus Christ. Does your pastor, your teacher point you to Jesus Christ? Do they point you ONLY to Christ, or Christ plus something, or even just something and not Christ at all? Ahimlech had nothing to offer David but that one sword. Which was exactly what David needed, and only what he needed. He pointed him to the old sword. What do your fellows have for you? Do they have hallowed bread and THE sword? Or are they more like Doeg the Edomite the treacherous, bitter Judas who stood by, a betrayer, an accuser, a liar, a man out of place, a sower of discord, a tare planted amongst the wheat by the devil. It goes to show, where you find Davids and Ahimelechs, you will also find Doegs, you will always find Doegs. Watchers, waiters, opportunists, people who serve a different master, just as Judas Iscariot did.

When David came to Ahimelech he asked him for weaponry, and David told him he didn’t have any weapons because the king’s business required haste. Wow that is so true. The hasty business of today’s Christianity has stripped believers of their weapons. Their sword and spear has been checked at the door. They have nothing to do war with. They’ve been stripped of the life source, they’ve been stripped from the origin of the power, just as Samson was. They’ve left their first love, or perhaps are not even truly saved at all and the process of time reveals as such. They are helpless, they are faint, they have no weapon and no bread, no nourishment from the word of God. Jesus said we are to live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Job said that he esteemed God’s word more than his necessary food. Jesus said seek the kingdom of God first and his righteousness and everything else you needed would be added to you. Get the order right. God comes first everytime, all the time, in everything. Christians today have abandoned the word of God, they have departed from the faith. They say no, but in truth they have. Abandoning the word of God is abandoning the faith, because our faith is directly proportional to the word of God. Trading God’s word in for a new word is departing from the faith. God has no new word, he had no new word for Balaam, he has no new word for you today but that same old word. John spoke about this in 1 John. That same old word. The word from the beginning. That which we heard from the beginning. God’s voice has always been the same, the word has always been the same, stop looking for other words, other experiences, stop loathing the manna that rains from heaven as the children of Israel did. The Bible says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. The word of God is vital. But Christians come to church without their Bible, they don’t read their Bible, they check their Bible at the door. Satan has stripped Christians of their weapons in the haste of life. And weaponless Christians are sitting ducks. They live conquered lives, they are like Israel in Judges who were always occupied by Midianites and Philistines, who lived under their yoke, who learned to LOVE the yoke of the Philistines, those Israelites who hundreds of years before had LOVED the cruel bondage of Egypt. Has Satan gotten you to a place where you are content under his dominion? Beaten down, cowered down Christians? You don’t need that Bible, you need music, you need entertainment, you need to be amused, occupied. Worship that moves so fast, lives so busy that the Bible is forgotten, left behind. This is what happens when you occupy yourself in the king’s business… but not the true king’s business… but in people like king Saul’s business… a man who disobeyed and rejected God’s word, and whom God departed from. Weaponless Christians.  Christians afraid of warfare, sanitized, “love” only Christians. Get real. The Lord is a man of war the Bible says. He will come to make war when he returns. We see people about business today that requires haste. And in our haste we make foolish mistakes, stupid decisions. Haste makes waste the saying goes. Balaam was a hasty prophet, he hasted to be rich, for fame and glory, and he pierced himself through with many sorrows.

Ahimelech was more faithful than we will ever realize. He said to David, there is none other save that sword here. Ahimelech wasn’t toting multiple Bibles. He didn’t have bookshelves of commentaries, he was dependent upon multitudes of scholars, he didn’t have a vast array of weapons… which wouldn’t get the job done… he just had one sword, a trusty, dependent, proven, tried sword. The sword was wrapped in a cloth. Why was the sword put away? What was it doing there? Why had David been disconnected from it? Likewise, the Authorized King James Bible has been wrapped in a cloth today. Put away. Gathering dust somewhere. The sword that got the job done in one of the most famous stories of the Bible, David against Goliath, put away, wrapped up, hidden, concealed, put out to pasture, not put to work. Most “Christians” have traded in the sword that cut off Goliath’s head, for no sword at all. They have a sword which has no faith attached with it, they have a different sword, a useless sword. In another story of David in the Bible, there was a giant that had a new sword, and that new sword thought to have killed David! David had to be rescued by his mighty men, he didn’t go out to battle after that. New swords will get you. What a warning. Don’t go with a new sword, take that old, trusty, dependable, faithful weapon. It got the job done, it gets the job done, it will get the job done again. There is a theme in the Bible of the coming famine, and the famine is here. There is a famine of the word, the famine of the reading of the word, the famine of the hearing of the word. A famine so sore that all the years of plenty which we enjoy now will be quickly forgotten. We can be living in comforts, in pleasures, in ease, our faith not even necessary as we surround ourselves with uncertain riches, with smooth words, in easy company. But when the famine hits, those years of plenty are instantly forgotten. We recently had a number of rainy days, it was wet, but what soon followed was torching summer sun. How quickly the rain was forgotten! The ground went from wet to parched so quickly. This is how dependent we are on God. If the rain stops, the heat arrives, we quickly wilt away. Never get disconnected from the sword of God’s word.

It’s not too late. Go back to the proven winner. There are swordless Christians people running around everywhere. Powerless to deal with sin, powerless to deal with temptation, powerless to resist the devil and his fallen angels. People who are taken captive by the devil, who grind in the devil’s prison house, people who are bruised, incarcerated, people who are truly bent over under Satan’s cruel bondage as the woman who was bent over in Jesus’ day was. What about the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 who the Bible says had suffered many things of many physicians. Whose your physician? Some false prophet, some false teacher, some idiot whose making merchandise of you, whose defrauding you, whose got a new sword, and no bread for you, a weary, faint, weaponless pilgrim in this world? Are you bent out of shape, pressed out of measure, beaten, battered, bruised, cowering? The solution is the sword. Go to the right place. Get with the right people. Get THE sword. Arm yourself with God’s word. That’s how Jesus smashed the devil in the temptation, it’s how all victories are won. God’s word created the world, sustains the world, will judge the world. God’s Word died for us, God’s Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God. It is he that wields the two edged sword. We can have that sword. We can slay the giants of today. We can slay the champion of the Philistines. Even when nobody else can. David did it by simple faith, it just took a simple shepherd boy who didn’t know better than to trust God! Ahimelech said there is none other save that here. Clear your bookshelf, be like those in Acts who took all their books of curious arts, books of fake, magical, counterfeit power and burned them when the kingdom of God came to town. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ trumps it all. Break Simon the sorcerer’s hold on your life. The magic of the devil is nothing compared to the blood of the Lord Jesus. There is none other, there is nothing else like that sword. It is trusted, tried, tested, proven, it is eternal, incorruptible, all powerful. Go back to the proven winner.

The sword was behind the ephod. An ephod was a priestly garment, priests wore ephods in their service. Firstly, we must be clothed with the righteousness of Christ before we go to battle. You see, the sword is useless to you unless you get saved first. You must be clothed, you must be in fellowship with God. You must walk with God by faith. There’s no point wielding the sword without faith, without reality, without being born again yourself. People can read the Bible and get nothing out of it. People can study the Bible their whole lifetime and be none the wiser. They can know the word but they don’t truly KNOW it. There is no heart reality. It is Jesus that opens the book to us, you and I cannot open it up to ourselves. Our eyes, our ears, our minds need to be enlightened by Christ, quickened by him, we must be saved, born again. There must be a reality there. There must be a walk there. A Christian walk. Priests put on the ephods, that was their priestly wear, but ephods often became idols to Israel, symbols, relics, ephods got away from what they were meant to be. Is the sword hidden behind an ephod for you today? You may have wrapped your sword and packed it away. Instead in it’s place is an idol. You need to get that old sword out again. Human beings make idols of just about anything. The things themselves often aren’t bad in and of themselves, but it’s what we make of them. We can start to idolize our service, ourselves, our efforts, our walk, our righteousness. We worship the gift rather than the giver, we worship the creature more than the Creator. We can be lifted up with pride and fall just like Lucifer did. We can put our service to God ahead of God, we can elevate the external over the internal, the soul over the spirit. We so easily mix the order up. We so easily worship the creature instead of the Creator, who is blessed forever. God starts coming second, third, fourth and pretty soon he’s out the door all together. Jesus in the letter to the Laodiceans said behold I stand at the door and knock. What’s Jesus doing outside the door of your life? Have you kicked him to the curb? Have you invited “another” Jesus in? Not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible? What “other” Jesus, what “other” gospel has got you fooled? Have you turned your back on Jesus? Is he hanging on the cross in vain for you? So easily we can be like the 9 lepers who Jesus healed who went their way and did not turn back and worship and thank Jesus for cleansing them.

There were three main characters in this story, Ahimelech, David, Doeg, which one are you? Are you able to give food to someone? Jesus is the bread of life. If Jesus is a reality in your life, you should be able to share the gospel with others. Are you useless in God’s service, or are you a profitable, faithful servant as Ahimelech was? Are you a David? Do you need a sword? Have you been disconnected from your weapon? Have you been disconnected from food? David was faint, and we all faint out there in the world. We become spiritually faint. We need to read the word to renew our strength, our spirit. We need to abide and meditate in the word. We are all faint in the battle. But God will sustain us. God has honey in the woods of life for us, just as he had for Jonathan in the middle of the battle with the Philistines. It is not wrong to be faint, there is nothing in the world that can substitute for the word of God. But where will you go to satisfy your hunger? Where will you go to get a weapon? We can eat the hallowed bread. Bread we have no right to eat. But bread that we can eat because of what Jesus did for us. He is the bread from heaven. Have you got no weapon? Have you surrendered your weapon? What does your weapon shelf look like? Have you got yourself a shiny new sword, forged in the devil’s shop? A shiny new sword endorsed by the intellectuals, the orators, the preeminents? A shiny new sword which you won’t cop any stick for? Which you won’t have to contend for? Which revises OUT words like Lord and Christ and hell? A shiny sword that lets you down, it was a giant with a shiny new sword that nearly did for David. But it was that old sword that got the job done, which will get the job done again. The third person was Doeg, are you a Doeg? Are you just standing by? Are you a Judas Iscariot, a betrayer, a traitor, a liar, a fake? Doeg was there, what was he doing there in the house of God, around people like Ahimelech and David? What business did he have there? Edomites in the church house.

There are great many things to take from this story. Ahimelech said to David, If thou wilt, take it. Today, if you will, take the cup of salvation, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If thou wilt. It’s there. It’s behind the ephod. What does that mean? To get the sword, you must first see the ephod. You must see the Son of God, who died on the cross for your sins. You must be born again. You must be saved to then serve God. We are at enmity with God until we get saved, you must be forgiven, your sins must be covered by the blood of Christ! It’s your choice, if thou wilt, if you will. But will you? Is there someone to direct you to the sword? Whose directing you where in your life? David knew of that sword. It had got the job done once, it would again. He knew there was none like that. He said give it me. He laid hold on that sword. He was armed again. He had become disconnected from his sword, but he was back. He was faint, but now he was fed. Ahimelech, God’s faithful servant, wasn’t a compromiser, he wasn’t selling out, he told David it was the only weapon he had there. And what a weapon. If we just have one book, the Bible it is enough. He didn’t have self help books and manuals, he didn’t have commentaries, philosophies and empty flowery words, he didn’t have a myriad of Bible versions. He just had one sword. The one that David had taken from and beheaded Goliath with. One of the great and famous victories in the Bible, all because a shepherd boy had simple faith in the God of Israel, a faithful shepherd boy who minded God, who had God’s glory at the forefront of his mind. See the sword, recognize the sword, say give it me, because there just ain’t anything else like it, and you don’t need anything else besides it. There is none like that; give it me!

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