1 Sam 21:6, So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away. 
	This morning, we have the account of David as he was trying to run away from King Saul. He knew his life would be forfeit if Saul were to catch up to him. He and his men had been in hiding and were in the process of heading to the Philistine cities for the sake of saving their lives from the rage of Saul. In that course of escape, they needed food, so they sought their sustenance in the community of Nob and from the priest, Ahimelech. 
	The demand from David for food put the priest into a state of utmost fear. He had nothing to offer the men except that which was consecrated to Jehovah. This he gave, not freely, but with warning and with dread in the doing. David and his men then had some food to get them to Achish, the king of Gath, the home of the deceased Goliath. It was here that David sought asylum from the fury and the hostility of Saul, king of Israel, for a season.  
	We want to consider, for a moment, the fact of what David felt he had to force Ahimelech to do. As we will read later, this cost the priest, not only his life, but the lives of the entire community as the rage of Saul came to such a place that he ordered Nob to be entirely wiped out. 
Was this the consequence for the giving of the bread to David, as retribution from the Hand of God for the desecration of that which was holy? Some have dealt with this whole episode in such a manner. The argument could be seen as valid when we take into reflection the whole declaration by Jehovah, Himself, as to the manner in which this bread of the Presence was holy. It was put forth on the specifically and designed and ordained table as food that was to be reserved and offered up to the Lord, Alone.
	Please open to Ex 25:23-30, where we can follow along with exactly how even the very table that was to hold the bread of the Presence was detailed by God. It was for the single purpose of keeping that which was unto Yahweh as His continual portion in the hearts and the minds of His people.
	Ex 25:23-30, And you shall make a table of acacia wood, two cubits long and one cubit wide and one and a half cubits high. And you shall overlay it with pure gold and make a gold border around it. And you shall make for it a rim of a handbreadth around it; and you shall make a gold border for the rim around it. And you shall make four gold rings for it and put rings on the four corners which are on its four feet. The rings shall be close to the rim as holders for the poles to carry the table. And you shall make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold, so that with them the table may be carried. And you shall make its dishes and its pans and its jars and its bowls, with which to pour libations; you shall make them of pure gold. And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before Me at all times.
	This bread, after it was replaced by warm, fresh bread was to be eaten by the priests. It was to be considered especially reserved to those who ministered unto the Lord in His holy place. Even in this, the Lord set before the people, in Lev 22:10-16, that which was to be the governing entity of how and when and who could partake of the food that was offered up to God and then given by Jehovah for the sustenance of His priestly order.
	Lev 22:10-16, 'No layman, however, is to eat the holy gift; a sojourner with the priest or a hired man shall not eat of the holy gift. 'But if a priest buys a slave as his property with his money, that one may eat of it, and those who are born in his house may eat of his food. 'And if a priest's daughter is married to a layman, she shall not eat of the offering of the gifts. 'But if a priest's daughter becomes a widow or divorced, and has no child and returns to her father's house as in her youth, she shall eat of her father's food; but no layman shall eat of it. 'But if a man eats a holy gift unintentionally, then he shall add to it a fifth of it and shall give the holy gift to the priest. 'And they shall not profane the holy gifts of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, and so cause them to bear punishment for guilt by eating their holy gifts; for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.'" 
	…'And they shall not profane the holy gifts of the sons of Israel which they offer to the Lord, and so cause them to bear punishment for guilt by eating their holy gifts; for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.'" This is the clause that is used as the righteous justification for the carnage that would soon befall the priestly city of Nob after Ahimelech allowed David and his men to eat of the bread of Presence. This detailed statement of punishment is indicative of the seriousness with which the holy items of God are to be held in reverence. It is not the items themselves, but Who they represent. Yahweh, the Lord God Almighty is to be at the forefront of every consideration of what was done and why it was done exactly as He so ordained.
	Even the manner in which the bread of Presence was to be made was endued with the consideration of the Holiness and the Righteousness and the Reverence of Who God is and how He is to be fully honored. Please revisit Lev 24:5-9 in which this is fully recounted for us.
Lev 24:5-9, "Then you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six to a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord. And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be a memorial portion for the bread, even an offering by fire to the Lord. Every sabbath day he shall set it in order before the Lord continually; it is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the Lord's offerings by fire, his portion forever." 
	All of this was surely going through the mind of Ahimelech as he set the old loaves that were replaced before David for him and his men. This must have been a most horrible situation in which this priest found himself. We do not know exactly how consecrated Ahimelech was as a priest. We are not told very much in detail as to the manner in which he served the Lord. We do know that he tried to keep David from doing something that would further bring God’s hand of justice down upon him. The priest tried to dissuade David from the taking of that which was holy, but to no avail. He finally gave David the bread as well as the sword with which David had severed the head from Goliath.
Whether it was in fear for his life or in fear for the life of David, Ahimelech gave David the consecrated bread. He would face the consequence as we know that Doeg the Edomite, witnessed this exchange. He was Saul’s chief shepherd and thus when Saul came to this community in search of David, Doeg eagerly detailed what he witnessed in the next chapter of this book. 1 Sam 22:9+10. 
1 Sam 22:9+10, Then Doeg the Edomite, who was standing by the servants of Saul, answered and said, "I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. And he inquired of the Lord for him, gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine." 
	This so angered Saul that he commanded the death of the priest and the entirety of the city of Nob. The massacre was the direct result of what Saul considered to be complicity with David aimed at overthrowing the kingship of Saul. That is why he commanded Doeg to this dastardly deed again as recounted in 1 Sam 22:18+19. 
	1 Sam 22:18+19, Then the king said to Doeg, "You turn around and attack the priests." And Doeg the Edomite turned around and attacked the priests, and he killed that day eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod. And he struck Nob the city of the priests with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and infants; also oxen, donkeys, and sheep, he struck with the edge of the sword. 
	Whether the slaughter was because the priest had defiled the holiness of the bread by giving the loaves to David was not the true point of this incident. It was the unquenched anger of Saul that put the city of Nob under the sword of his wrath and his animosity and his jealous rage. 
The righteous wrath of God was not against this priest or the city. We know this because the Son of God so addressed this matter in the terms that David was not unjustified in his urgent request. Jesus highlighted as detailed in three of the Gospels of the New Testament. Therefore the priest was not guilty of doing anything against the commandment of God.
	Let us so consider these accounts, beginning with Matt 12:1-8. Here was the matter of the disciples of Jesus gathering grain on the Sabbath to feed themselves. The Pharisees, the keepers of the religious order of the day took great umbrage at this supposed breaking of the Lord’s Day. This was all according to man’s interpretation of what was allowed and what was not allowed to be done on the day of rest as given by God to humanity.
	Matt 12:1-8, At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grainfields, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, "Behold, Your disciples do what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath." But He said to them, "Have you not read what David did, when he became hungry, he and his companions; how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? "Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and are innocent? "But I say to you, that something greater than the temple is here. "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. "For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." 
	Jesus, at this point, was declaring that there was a greater truth in the heart of God toward His creation than what they were considering to be acts of sinfulness. There is a compassion in the heart of God that opens up the course of His loving kindness and His mercy and His grace to those who are in need. The fact is that Jesus came to earth to meet the needs of the disadvantaged, the sick, the widows, the orphans, the disenfranchised of society. Those who know that they need help are the ones who will freely and fully and with all their might seek after the grace and the mercy and the love of God. They, we, know that we need Someone to save us and are willing to set aside everything in order to be partakers of God’s saving grace.
	The fact that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath indicates that God’s heart for the needs of mankind, as indicated especially in the giving of the Sabbath as the day of rest in Him, is unto the needs of those who would otherwise work 7 days a week until it killed them. God knew the need of humanity’s rest in Him, so He modeled that for the sake of His love for us. That is what makes the day of rest the day in which we relish the opportunity to come together united in heart and mind and spirit in the purer worship of Him. 
	Jesus, as Lord of the Sabbath, was also highlighted by Mark in his gospel, Chapter 2, verses 25–28. In this passage Jesus refers to Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, the only one to survive the slaughter of Nob, as we will read in the next chapter of 1 Samuel. Abiathar subsequently became the high priest after the death of his father at the hands of Doeg the Edomite.
	Mark 2:25-28, And He said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and became hungry, he and his companions: how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he gave it also to those who were with him?" And He was saying to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." 
	This highlights the fact that God made the day of rest because of the need of humanity to have that time set aside in the course of the week in which to find that rest from all labor. This allowed time for God’s creation to fellowship with Him in a complete opportunity to find rest in The Lord. This did not mean that mankind was supposed to starve on that day. There is the need to meet the provisional requirements, such as the bread that was required to sustain David and his men. There is also that expressed forgiveness of God that is in place when those needs of mankind must be satisfied and dealt with, even if it is on the day of rest. 
	The religious leaders had taken this gift of Sabbath rest from God, and made it into something that became a burden and a hardship, rather than a delight and a refreshment. They had brought forth all types of punishment and regulations which were severely enforced, even unto the deaths of those who were accused of breaking the Sabbath. The day of rest and fellowship with God was reconfigured by the schemes of those who would use it as a means of the subjugation of others under their cloaks of religiosity. 
	This was in evidence in the third accounting of this episode by Luke. Please turn to Luke 6:1-11, where there was the greater measure of the religious superiority detailed as Jesus used the Sabbath to meet the needs, not just of the hunger of His disciples, but the healing of the man with the withered hand.
	Luke 6:1-11, Now it came about that on a certain Sabbath He was passing through some grainfields; and His disciples were picking and eating the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, "Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?" And Jesus answering them said, "Have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the consecrated bread which is not lawful for any to eat except the priests alone, and gave it to his companions? " And He was saying to them, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." And it came about on another Sabbath, that He entered the synagogue and was teaching; and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees were watching Him closely, to see if He healed on the Sabbath, in order that they might find reason to accuse Him. But He knew what they were thinking, and He said to the man with the withered hand, "Rise and come forward!" And he rose and came forward. And Jesus said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm, to save a life, or to destroy it?" And after looking around at them all, He said to him, "Stretch out your hand!" And he did so; and his hand was restored. But they themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what they might do to Jesus. 
	Note how this added to the anger and the frustration and the rage of the religious leaders against this One Who used the Lord’s Day as His own. They were incensed and thus were persuaded that this Nazarene had to be severely dealt with, all the way to the cross of His crucifixion. 
	Jesus came to meet the greatest need of every man, woman, and child, the need to come into the living relationship with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the way to the only means of paying the debt to sin that we all owed. 
In His death and resurrection, Jesus became the salvation, the Only Salvation for each person who will but call out to Him and receive that freely offered gift from the heart of God. He lavishly supplies the every need for those He came to save! This is the utmost joy of our Sabbath rest, to learn even more fully and intimately Who God is. This is as we set aside every binding task, every care, every worry and frustration, and just spend the time, as His church in fellowship with Our Lord God, Almighty! So be it!
So the priest gave him consecrated bread; for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence which was removed from before the Lord, in order to put hot bread in its place when it was taken away. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is John 12:26. "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. Amen.