you be merciful and speak. Come seek my face, you toll of my heart. Your face more will I seek. Amen and let us turn to our scripture reading 1st Samuel chapter 21 And that is page 311 in most of the the Bibles under the seats and As you're turning there. I'll Just give a little bit of a description of the the holy bread It's bread that has a few different names depending on which place we're in in scripture, or perhaps which translation of the Bible we have. It's sometimes called the Holy Bread. It's sometimes called the Bread of Presence. It's sometimes called the Show Bread. And I'm going to ask especially the children to be listening. It's usually called the Holy Bread in here, but one time it's called the Bread of Presence. So be listening for that. Then I'm also going to say Bread of Presence, Show Bread. kind of a strange name for food. Why would we call food something like that? Well, it's because it's bread to be placed before the presence of the Lord, or it's show bread to be shown before the Lord. So that's where that name comes from. Otherwise, as it's most often called in our text this morning, It's just called Holy Bread. Let us then read 1 Samuel chapter 21, verses one through nine. Let us hear the word of God. Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, why are you alone and no one with you? And David said to Ahimelech the priest, the king has charged me with a matter and said to me, let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you and with which I have charged you. I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand to give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here? And the priest answered David, I have no common bread on hand. But there is holy bread if the young men have kept themselves from women. And David answered the priest, truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on expedition. The vessels of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy? So the priest gave him the holy bread. For there was no bread there but the bread of the presence, which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day that it is taken away. Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen. Then David said to Ahimelech, Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste. And the priest said, the sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here. And David said, there is none like that. Give it to me. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I recently heard an account of a church in a persecuted part of this world. And when they meet, they hold unusual worship services on the go. They take a large bus and they drive it out to a rarely used road. And then they set up two watchmen, one up the road a little ways and one down the road a little ways to warn them if anyone is coming. And once they're all set up, they then have worship in that bus. And that allows them to freely and loudly sing the praises of God and to worship God then in that way. They worship God on the go. Now, because of potential persecution, this account did not say where this church was. It did not mention any names. Of course, part of the point of them worshiping this way is you don't know exactly where they will be worshiping. Now, if we did know the people of that church and if we could speak openly with them, I think they would be glad to not have to do church on the move. I think they would be glad to have a time of peace and freedom from persecution when they could openly worship God and sing his praises without having to go onto the bus into the middle of nowhere to do so. Here, in 1 Samuel, we see David in a time as a fugitive in his life, and he's stopping at Nob, which is now where the tabernacle is. And what does he do? It's a time of flight, it's a time of persecution. Saul is after his life, and so he takes the holy bread on the go. Now, we have many of David's prayers for us in the Psalms. And we sang just a few of his Psalms that are focused upon worshiping, being in God's house, coming before him. Is it David's usual, regular desire in times of peace that he would have to take the holy bread on the go? No. No, that's not what we normally see in David's life. But in a time of flight, in a time of persecution, This is how he worships. People of God on rare occasions, God's people must worship on the move or grab holy bread on the go. But this should not be the regular practice or the regular desire. And so we explore that truth with this theme this morning that we should long for undisturbed fellowship in God's house. And we'll look first at holy bread from God's house in flight, and then at daily bread in God's house in peace. Now there are some difficult questions that we will not fully answer in this text. And that's because the text does not give us enough information to directly answer them. And so one of those difficult questions is this, is David justified in his lies here? There are times in the Old Testament when, for the preservation of life, a lie is allowed. The clearest example of this is Exodus chapter 1. The Hebrew midwives lie to Pharaoh to protect the lives of the male babies. And the passage in Exodus 1 speaks about how they feared God as they did this, and then how God honors them. We read of that at the end of Exodus 1. But this is rare indeed. we are called to be people of truth and the midwives they're not even protecting their own lives as much as they're protecting the lives of others the male babies in Israel David here is lying for his own sake perhaps needlessly before we we say that we we know for sure that this is some needless lie though let's consider just how disrupted and in danger the life of David is at this moment. Here's the big picture, which even Jonathan, as of chapter 20, now realizes. Saul is trying to kill David. That's the big picture. Here's some details within that picture that describe how desperate David's situation is. First, David is not a safe distance away. Nob is less than five miles away from Saul's court in Gibeah. Now five miles by foot is more than five miles by car, but it's still not very far. David is not a safe distance away. Second, the priest here is a man named Himalek. He may well be an ally of Saul. We met quite some time ago, the brother of Himalek named Ahijah in chapter 14. And certainly Ahimelech's brother, Ahijah, is in Saul's service. That's what we see in chapter 14. And so this may be part of David's desperation. He may well suspect that Ahimelech is also an ally of Saul. And a third detail is the presence of one of Saul's leaders, named in verse 7, Doeg the Edomite. He's a chief of Saul's herdsmen, the text says, and that basically means he's a captain of captains. And of course, Saul's men have been told to kill David. And as we see in chapter 22, the presence of Doeg is bad news. Chapter 22, verse 22 says that David recognized the potential danger of this man's presence. In short, people of God, we are to be people of the truth. In rare circumstances, a lie to preserve life is blessed in the Old Testament And I don't think we can know the motivations or the situation of David clearly enough to say what he was supposed to do here. And I'll just say the most reformed preachers and theologians throughout the centuries have been divided on what exactly was David supposed to do here. You know there's a sense in which text by not telling us invites us into the confusion and uncertainty of difficult times in life. You know, sin makes a mess. In this case, it's first the sin of Saul, and now it's difficult to respond wisely, to respond in a godly manner. to respond without falling into his own sins against that sin. And people of God, if we take away some of the, what we might call extreme details, and we just think of it in those terms, doesn't that describe times in our life when situations are difficult? And it makes even knowing what we ought to do a difficult question. Now, don't get me wrong. The commandments of God are most often very straightforward. In most situations, it is not difficult, it is not complicated to know what we are supposed to do. But there are times when knowing the godly path, knowing the wise path, is difficult. Sin makes a mess. Here it's first the sin of Saul, and David is at least struggling with some levels of sin and fear of man here, but we might note that his Psalms, which we'll look at a little bit more next week, Lord willing, are not a confession of sin at this point in his life. And again, the text does not explicitly condemn anything David does. There is one act of David which we know was justified. There's one act of David in which there's no question because Jesus tells us in the New Testament that is the taking of the Holy Bread. Perhaps you remember from the Gospels, it's in Matthew, it's in Mark, it's in Luke. the time when Jesus' disciples plucked grain on the Sabbath day, this act was questioned and Jesus gave an answer and part of his answer was, remember when David ate the holy bread from the tabernacle when he was hungry and he gave also to his servants who were also hungry and in need. We know that this act of David is justified. The ceremonies of the law do not stand in front of David's need in this case. Now the law, we're not going to read Leviticus 24, but perhaps you can write it down and maybe I had a fine to read it later, but I'll just quickly say in Leviticus 24, the law says the show bread, the bread of presence, the holy bread, it's only to be eaten by the priests and it's only to be eaten in the holy place. That's the Levitical prescription. Of course, David is not a priest and he's taking the bread outside of the tabernacle to eat it somewhere else. But Jesus says, this was permissible, this was justified. Or as Jesus then says in the gospels, when he healed a man on the Sabbath, is it better to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath? That same principle is at play here. David is hungry. Jesus uses those words in the Gospels. David is in need, and so the holy bread is used in a permissible way. A Himalek permits it, only asking one question, are you and your men at least ceremonially clean? And most importantly, Jesus himself speaks of this act approvingly. In summary then, the lies of David, may have been permissible, may well not have been. We'll look at that more in the next week or two. David is at least partially driven by the fear of man and struggling with that at this time of his life. But there is an overall reliance upon God. And we see that in David's prayers at this time in his life, in the Psalms. And the taking of the holy bread was certainly permissible. Now when we read about David, and as we think of even wrestling with these questions here, and it's interesting, the ancient rabbis said that David was excused and taking the holy bread, but they gave the wrong reason for it. Jesus gave the right reason for it in the Gospels, and so even in seeing what was permissible, the rabbis didn't understand why it was permissible. But as we wrestle with these kinds of things in David's life, as we wrestle with difficult situations in our own life, what is most important at the end is not to just look at 1 Samuel, not to just look at our own life and say, well, let's learn from David. Well, let's learn from other godly persons around us. We do give thanks for the great cloud of witnesses, to use the language of Hebrews 11. But where must this always bring us back to it must always bring us to be looking beyond David to be looking beyond ourselves and it could be considering the one Holy Savior who in times of of peace which there weren't many of those. and in times of disruption, including when the whole Sanhedrin is after his life, when everyone is trying to trip him up and trick him and put him into situations where he would speak some untruth or some lie. When the true son of David, when Jesus Christ has the greatest disruption upon him, he handles it perfectly. He handles it without sin, including the disruption of having divine wrath poured out upon Him so that in suffering for our sins, He might make us clean. Here is a passage where we look beyond David and the sins of his youth and our sinfulness, and our struggles in times of disruption, and our wrestling, and we should wrestle with the will of God in times of disruption and in difficult questions, and we look beyond this and we look to Him who, as Peter says it in 1 Peter 2, verse 22, speaking this way about our perfect Savior, He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. And he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. So people of God, we look beyond David and we look to the perfect Savior, Jesus Christ. But that also brings us back to thinking about worship. Because why do we worship? We worship because God is worthy of worship and our Savior who died for our sins is worthy of worship. And so we think about David grabbing holy bread on the go, not able to worship because of disruption in the way that he would normally want to. And then we think about, well, what do we do in times of peace? And that takes us to our second point, daily bread. in God's house in peace we know that we are to be people of truth and we know that in undisrupted peaceful times we don't grab holy bread on the go when the when there is a time of peace we give thanks for that blessing and we come regularly peacefully before God and we give thanks for this it's a great hardship as it was a trial this time of David's life is a trial when the regular patterns of coming into God's house would be disrupted. And our life will will not have the highs and lows of of David's life But we still will face highs and lows. And there are still many things that can cause disruption in our worship to God. We might think of disease or the weakness of old age. People of God, we all understand that a time can come when someone might be shut in. And that's a word that speaks about a weakness. It's a word that speaks about a trial. And what can that even include? That might even include being shut in from regular worship in God's house. It is a disruption which comes upon many of God's people at the end of their life. And similarly, disease might cause it earlier in life. Now, in times like that, well, what do we do? We have something called shut-in communion. You know, that's a kind of holy bread on the go for New Testament times. It's following the spirit, if not the exact letter of the law. And by the way, in taking the holy bread on the go, that's following the spirit of the law. The very symbol of the holy bread was that the priests were to eat all 12 loaves as a symbol of God's provision for all 12 tribes. Well, it's fulfilling the heart of that law to give that bread to provide for someone who's hungry, isn't it? Well, when we have shut-in communion, that breaks the regular pattern that we would have communion all together as Christ's body. But we recognize for some it's impossible. We have holy bread, we have communion on the go. We have shut-in communion when that is absolutely necessary. There are other things which can disrupt our regular worship in God's house. Perhaps it's a struggle with personal sin, and that's a different category in the sense that that's something which we are to confess, we are to leave with God, we are to repent and then move back into God's house. But there are other things that are not an issue of personal sin that should not be dealt with in the same way. Perhaps it's a struggle dealing with the sins of others. That's what it was for David, even that extreme case of someone seeking to take his life unlawfully. Perhaps it's struggles of other physical or even of mental health. People of God, we must be compassionate. There are such things as times of disruption, when someone is running for their life in one way or another, when daily bread in God's house in a regular way is not possible. Again, we're careful. We don't want this to be regular. We don't want to make excuses if personal sin is the issue, but people of God, we must know that this is the case. There is such a thing as holy bread on the go. We hear this. And when that is the only option, we take holy bread on the go. And we judge carefully when we see others doing it, but also hear this, we want to never make it an excuse of this irregular running for one's life situation that must never change the desire for regular daily, or we think about worshiping God's house, weekly bread from God. the desire for regular, peaceful fellowship with God and in His house, worshiping, praising Him who's worthy of all our worship. And we all come as sinners who need His salvation. People of God, that must always be the desire, even if there's a disruption which makes it impossible for a time or even for more than a brief time. Turn with me to Psalm 122. Turn with me to Psalm 122. You know, this is precisely the prayer of David later in life. We know that this was a prayer later in life. The mention is made of Jerusalem. That's not conquered until years later after David is crowned as king. The tabernacle is not there until years later. So this is a Psalm from later in David's life. And how does David speak in Psalm 122? We already sang some of this, but let's read now. I'll read verse one and three and four and six. I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. So we're in the context of worship. Verses three and four, Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together to which the tribes go up. The tribes of the Lord as decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord. In other words, this is what we all want to be doing. We all long to praise and worship God. And then what's the context in which we can best do this? What is our prayer? Verse six, pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you. Was David perhaps thinking about a season in his life when regular attendance in God's house and following God's ceremonies was not possible, when he had to take holy bread on the go, which Jesus himself said was justified? Was David even thinking of that when he says, by the Holy Spirit, this is my prayer, that there would be peace. And people of God, this is always our desire. Even if it's not possible for one reason or another, it is always our desire to be in regular, peaceful attendance to God's word and to God's house and hearing God nourish our soul. This is our prayer with David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, where's Jerusalem? That's where the tabernacle is. That's where you go to worship God. Brothers and sisters, we do not read of David ever eating the holy bread while he's king. When the times are less disturbed, when he's no longer a fugitive, the ceremonies of the law will be held in high honor and observed closely. In short, there is a difference between times of flight. For David, this was literally running for his life and times of peace. And may it be the same for us. When we might have times of weakness, We would desire that it would not remain so, but that we would enter God's house. Now let's return once more to think about those who, through the weakness of old age, would even be shut in. Because there is a special pain, a particular pain, because it's not recovering from some surgery or some illness. or some other ailment where there's maybe a light at the end of the tunnel that this isn't going to last forever. No, it's the weakness of old age. It's not going to be reversed. There are times when God's people reach a point in life where they cannot come to God's house on this earth anymore. But you know the desire for regular peaceful worship with God is the same. It just takes a little bit of a different note. I desire worship in God's house forever. We are always to be desiring regular worship in God's house. When someone would reach that stage of weakness in life, the prayer only changes a little bit. Instead of praying, Lord, restore me. restore me to a state of healing, to a state of peace where I can be worshipping you regularly. No, the prayer becomes this. The prayer becomes, Lord, I know that I will not be able to go into your house on this earth anymore, but but may you give me endurance through this time of disruption and weakness in my life and bring me to your house forever where there will be no disruption of any kind, not the disruption of disease and weakness and ailment, not the disruption of my own sin and we are all sinners here who come before the Lord. None of that disruption but no, Lord, when you would take me to yourself and when forever I would worship you without sin because you have reformed me, without weakness because you have given me the resurrection body and I can then worship you in peace regularly forever and in eternity in the eternal heavens by the eternal temple. People of God, the desire for regular worship never goes away for God's people. It remains what we ought to do for the one who is worthy of all of our worship. And surely there are, there are so many songs about worship just from David. Certainly David prayed in this pattern, the same David who said in Psalm 27, may I be in your house all the days of my life. is the same David who prayed by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 23 after speaking about what? The valley of the shadow of death. About something that's like the last trials and struggles on this earth. What are the last words of Psalm 23? And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And one Psalm, David says, I will worship you all my days. And another Psalm, David says, I will worship you forever. God is the one who is worthy of our worship. Let us worship him as much as we can in times of disruption, even grabbing the holy bread on the go. But may we long for regular worship, even in eternity, of our perfect Savior, Jesus Christ, and our holy God. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, We know that you are worthy of worship as we tarry here below. Help us to praise you through our weaknesses, including the weakness of our sinful nature.