King Saul was attacking David and his men when a messenger came to Saul and told him that the Philistines were invading the land.\u00a0 Saul had no choice but to pull his army and go back and defend his own cities. David wrote of this escape and God’s providential care in Psalm 54:4: “Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is with those who uphold my life.” David had prayed, “Save me, O God,” and then recognized that the hand of God had come to protect his life.<\/p>\n
In the last century this kind of protection was called the “Providence of God,” meaning that God provided<\/em> protection at just the right moment. The lesson here is that we should look for His \u201cprovidential coincidences\u201d in our own life and recognize it as the hand of God. We need to become more sensitive to these God-provided \u201cprovidential\u201d occurrences. They usually don’t come at the moment we want them, but always just in the nick of time. God provided all that was needed in David’s life even though there was trouble all around.<\/p>\n There is an example of God providing escape, even under the most radical circumstances, in the life of a man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi. His obituary read:<\/p>\n Died: Tsutomu Yamaguchi, 93, the only official survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, died and went to be with the Lord January 4. On August 6, 1945, Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for a business trip when the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city; two days later he returned home to Nagasaki where the second atomic bomb dropped on August 9.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This Japanese believer was protected from an atomic-bomb blast twice<\/em> within 4 days. Nothing is too hard for God. Call on Him right now just as David did so long ago.<\/p>\n “Save us, O God.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 Samuel 23 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshingfloors.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0Therefore David enquired of the\u00a0LORD, saying, Shall I go and smite these Philistines? And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto David, Go, and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0And David\u2019s men said unto him, Behold, we be afraid here in Judah: how much more then if we come to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?\u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0Then David enquired of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0yet again. And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand.\u00a05<\/sup>\u00a0So David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and smote them with a great slaughter. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.\u00a06<\/sup>\u00a0And it came to pass, when Abiathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Keilah,\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>he came down\u00a0with\u00a0<\/em>an ephod in his hand. 7<\/sup>\u00a0And it was told Saul that David was come to Keilah. And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars.\u00a08<\/sup>\u00a0And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. 9<\/sup>\u00a0And David knew that Saul secretly practised mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, Bring hither the ephod.\u00a010<\/sup>\u00a0Then said David, O\u00a0LORD\u00a0God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the city for my sake.\u00a011<\/sup>\u00a0Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O\u00a0LORD\u00a0God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said, He will come down.\u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said, They will deliver\u00a0thee\u00a0<\/em>up.\u00a0 13<\/sup> Then David and his men,\u00a0which were\u00a0<\/em>about six hundred, arose and departed out of Keilah, and went whithersoever they could go. And it was told Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth. 14<\/sup>\u00a0And David abode in the wilderness in strong holds, and remained in a mountain in the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God delivered him not into his hand.\u00a015<\/sup>\u00a0And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life: and David\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>in the wilderness of Ziph in a wood. 16<\/sup>\u00a0And Jonathan Saul\u2019s son arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God.\u00a017<\/sup>\u00a0And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth.\u00a018<\/sup>\u00a0And they two made a covenant before the\u00a0LORD: and David abode in the wood, and Jonathan went to his house. 19<\/sup> Then came up the Ziphites to Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself with us in strong holds in the wood, in the hill of Hachilah, which\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>on the south of Jeshimon?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a020<\/sup>\u00a0Now therefore, O king, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down; and our part\u00a0shall be\u00a0<\/em>to deliver him into the king\u2019s hand.\u00a021<\/sup>\u00a0And Saul said, Blessed\u00a0be\u00a0<\/em>ye of the\u00a0LORD; for ye have compassion on me.\u00a022<\/sup>Go, I pray you, prepare yet, and know and see his place where his haunt is,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>who hath seen him there: for it is told me\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>he dealeth very subtilly.\u00a0\u00a023<\/sup>\u00a0See therefore, and take knowledge of all the lurking places where he hideth himself, and come ye again to me with the certainty, and I will go with you: and it shall come to pass, if he be in the land, that I will search him out throughout all the thousands of Judah.\u00a024<\/sup>\u00a0And they arose, and went to Ziph before Saul: but David and his men\u00a0were<\/em>in the wilderness of Maon, in the plain on the south of Jeshimon.\u00a025<\/sup>\u00a0Saul also and his men went to seek\u00a0him\u00a0<\/em>. And they told David: wherefore he came down into a rock, and abode in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard\u00a0that\u00a0<\/em>, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon.\u00a0\u00a026<\/sup>\u00a0And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them. 27<\/sup> But there came a messenger unto Saul, saying, Haste thee, and come; for the Philistines have invaded the land.\u00a028<\/sup>\u00a0Wherefore Saul returned from pursuing after David, and went against the Philistines: therefore they called that place Sela-hammahlekoth.\u00a029<\/sup>\u00a0And David went up from thence, and dwelt in strong holds at En-gedi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" King Saul was attacking David and his men when a messenger came to Saul and told him that the Philistines were invading the land.\u00a0 Saul had no choice but to pull his army and go back and defend his own cities. David wrote of this escape and God’s providential care in Psalm 54:4: “Behold, God […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6518"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16176,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6518\/revisions\/16176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}