Gathered to Him - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him.
1 Samuel 22:2

Gathered to Him
There does not appear to be anything attractive about these four hundred men. We would not consider them respectable, reliable members of society. They did not seem to be men in whom we would have a great deal of confidence, nor would we think them capable of shouldering responsibilities. And we certainly cannot imagine how these four hundred would ever get along together in a cave! But they did. What was their secret? Was it something that they saw in one another? No, it was not, but the answer is not difficult to find. They gathered around David, and he became a captain over them.

These four hundred men found something in David which attracted them. He had the answer to their needs. David was the one who could understand all their distresses because he experienced the same. Although David had been anointed king over Israel by Samuel the prophet, yet the majority of the people of Israel still followed Saul, and David had to flee for his life because Saul sought to kill him. But God was with David and had chosen him as the man after His own heart. It was to this man that these four hundred were drawn.

This has lessons for us too. The Lord Jesus Christ is rejected by the world, and His rule and headship have been set aside. If anyone wishes to be in the company of the Son of God, he will, like the four hundred men, be in a despised place. 1 John 3:1 reminds us, "Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." But what a privilege it is to be His and to seek to leave behind the fragrance of Christ as we walk through this sad world. Let us take our place with Him: "Let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13).

Jacob Redekop