“DESPERATE DAYS”

1 Samuel 21: 1-9

 DESPERATION

Defined as a loss of hope, or a

great need that can make you
act irrationally. When you are
absolutely starving and you
steal a loaf of bread because
you are feeling so hungry, this
 1 SAMUEL 21:1-9 

21 [a]David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek trembledwhen he met him, and
asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
2 
David answered Ahimelek the priest, “The king sent me on a mission and said to me, ‘No one
is to know anything about the mission I am sending you on.’ As for my men, I have told them
to meet me at a certain place. 3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of
bread, or whatever you can find.”
4 
But the priest answered David, “I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is
some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”
David replied, “Indeed women have been kept from us, as usualwhenever [b] I set out. The
5 

men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!” 6 So the
priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the
Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day
it was taken away.
7 
Now one of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the LORD; he was Doeg the
Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd.
8 
David asked Ahimelek, “Don’t you have a spear or a sword here? I haven’t brought my
sword or any other weapon, because the king’s mission was urgent.”
The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of
9 

Elah, is here; it is wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no
sword here but that one.”
David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.”
 I. DAVID IS DESPERATE

His young face decorates post office posters. 

DAV
D I His name tops Saul’s to kill
list. He runs, looking over his
shoulder, sleeping with one
eye open, and eating with his
chair near to the restaurant
exit.
 After the sixth attempt on his life, David gets the
point.

Saul doesn’t like him.

 Years ago, he was tending flocks in Bethlehem

Meaning?
PEACEFUL
SILENT
CONTENTED
HAPPY
FAITHFUL TO GOD
Sometimes in our DESPERATE DAYS, we don’t know where to
go.
 BUT WHERE CAN HE GO? 

Bethlehem and jeopardize the lives of this family

Into enemy territory and risk his own?

  FOR NOW, HE CHOOSES
ANOTHER HIDEOUT. 

CHURCH
 1 SAMUEL 21:1

21 [a]David went to Nob, to Ahimelek the priest. 

 There, Ahimelech, the great-grandson of Eli, headed up a

monastery of sorts. Eighty-five priests served in Nob, earning it
the nickname “the city of the priests” (1 Sam. 22:19). David
rushes to the small town, seeking sanctuary from his enemies.
David is desperate.
 II. DAVID IS DESPERATE FOR
FOOD.

What brings a warrior to Nob? What does the son-in-law of the king want?
David buys assurance by lying to the priest. David tells him that he is on
the king’s business and needs food (1Sam.21:2-3).

Desperation begets LYING

The priest has bread, not common bread, but holy bread. The bread of the
Presence. 
Each Sabbath the priest placed twelve loaves of wheat bread on the table
as an offering to God.
After a week, and only after a week, the priests, and only the priest, could
eat the bread.

David is no priest.
 WHAT’S AHIMELECH TO DO?

Distribute the bread

and violate the law?

Keep the bread and ignore David’s hunger?

A DILEMA STRIKE AGAINTS

AHIMELECH
  (1 SAM. 21:4).

 “There is no common bread on hand; but there

is holy bread, if the young men have at least
kept themselves from women”
 AHIMELECH MAY HAVE WONDERED IF HE
HAD DONE THE RIGHT THING

Did
Did he
he He decided
the hungry obey a
break stomach was
a higher call.
higher
law?
the
law? 
David still is in great need.
 III. DAVID IS DESPERATE FOR A
SWORD

David’s faith is wavering. Not too long ago the shepherd’s

sling was all he needed. Now the one who refused the armor
and sword of Saul requests a weapon from a priest. What
has happened to our hero?
He’s lost his God-focus
Goliath ,
As a
result

despe
ration
is on the big screen of David’s imagination.
ha s
set in.
 No place to hide.
No food to eat.
No recourse.
No resource.
Teenaged and pregnant, middle-age and broke, old-aged and
sick… 

Where can the desperate go?

 God’s
Sanctuary.
They can look for an Ahimelech, a church
leader with a heart for desperate souls.
Bread and blades. Food and
equipments?

The church exists to provide both. 

shades of gray, not between right and wrong but degrees of both.

They enter the church as fugitives, seeking shelter from

angry Sauls in some cases, bad decisions in others.
Ahimelechs of the church (leaders, teachers, pastors, and
the like) are forced to choose not between black and
white but shades of gray, not between right and wrong
but degrees of both.
 CONCLUSION

At the end of the sanctuary day, the question

is not how many laws were broken but
rather, how many desperate Davids were
nourished and equipped? Ahimelech teaches
the church to pursue the spirit of the law
more than its letter.
David teaches the desperate to seek help amidst
God’s people. David stumbles in the story.
Desperate souls always do. But at least he
stumbles into the right place – into God’s
sanctuary, where God meets and ministers to
hopeless hearts.
He brings bread for their souls. “Peace
be with you” (John 20:19. He brings
a sword for the struggle. “Receive the
Holy Spirit” (John20:22). Bread and
swords. He gives both to the
desperate.