The Logic of the Faithless

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Don Filcek; 1 Samuel 13 The Logic of the Faithless

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listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in 1
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Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in. Well, good morning.
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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And I take for granted that you all have gathered here with some level of faith.
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I think just the fact that you're here shows something. Not that you're so much better than everybody else in the world, but you got out of bed.
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I'm glad you came here this morning when there's a lot of other things you could have done, namely sleep. So I'm glad that you're here.
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But before we all dislocate our shoulders, patting ourselves on the back for coming together to grow in our faith, let's be sure that we remember the real reason that we're here, at least the real reason we ought to be here.
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It's simply this. We can't stay strong in isolation. We can't stay strong on our own.
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We need each other. We need others. And God brings us together in the gathering of his church for accountability because our hearts are prone to wander off into sin.
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We're prone to disconnect with him and walk away from our faith, and we need others in our lives.
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How many of you would admit that you need others in your life to call you back from time to time? You need others to kind of keep your leash short, so to speak.
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And so that's part of the reason why God has built his church. That's part of the reason why we gather together.
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We come together as a church as a statement that we need more. You're sitting here as identifying to those around you that you need more than you can provide for yourself those other six days of the week.
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You need the gathering together of God's people. That's a good thing. I hope that that is at least part of the reason that you've gathered together this morning is because you need something more and you know it.
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So a growing faith is a life lived out in community with others.
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And our text this morning is a portion of scripture that's broken up. It's kind of broken in its flow. If you were just reading through the
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Bible, you would get to chapter 13 of 1 Samuel and you'd be like, this is a little bit disjunct. It's a little bit disjointed.
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It shows disarray and disunity and disconnection in God's people. And all of that disarray and disunity begins with the faithless heart of their new king.
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The faithless heart of their new king. So in this text, we're going to see the anatomy of faithless disobedience.
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That's what we're looking at here. Not a huge uplifting kind of message. Not every single time that we turn to scripture can we find, do we find a message that's going to make us walk away feeling super great about ourselves.
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That's something that I don't have the privilege of offering you each week because I'm going to follow God's word and I'm going to follow the contours of what scripture wants to tell us and some of those contours take us through the dark valleys of real life experience.
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How many of you have gone through some dark valleys in your life? You've experienced that. Scripture speaks to those kinds of circumstances and those kinds of situations.
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So it's not that I get up here, get the opportunity to get up here and just give you all fluffy butterflies and happiness and rainbows and kittens and gummy bears.
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Sometimes it's the hard things that we look at and we see and we're going to look at that here as we look at the faithless heart of King Saul.
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And so we see this disobedience. King Saul shows up in our text finally as the second character of the sermon series title
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Timely Prophet, Tragic King. He begins to really show his colors as the tragic king.
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And as we read and study this text this morning, I want to make sure that your thoughts don't wander too far from yourself.
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There are times in messages where we're looking at the darkness of faithlessness, where we're looking at the darkness of sin and sometimes the elbow just naturally wants to shoot out and rib the person next to us.
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Or even better yet, often we're tempted to just let it settle on Saul, let him take the hit for us.
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This is a passage about Saul. We could just make it a historical activity and looking at the sinful life of the first king of Israel and leave it at that.
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But as we look at these characters, God is revealing something about the human heart through Saul, something about each and every one of us that he desires for us to take on.
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At the core of this text is the way that the human heart and obedience are meant to come together in a relationship with the
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Almighty and the way that disobedience interferes with that desired purpose of God.
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It looks like this. God is not merely, how many of you are glad for this? God is not merely looking for your obedience, did you know that?
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That's not the end game for him. But interestingly, I would also point out to you that he's not only looking for your heart.
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He's not looking for a heart and then you just go live your own life. It's stated better what
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God is looking for is a human with a new heart that demonstrates love for him by obedience.
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Obedience is a part of that equation, but it's after the new heart is given, after we have a change and a transformation that can only be brought about by his grace and mercy in our lives.
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And so King Saul serves as a model of a man that didn't have a heart after God. We're going to see that stated of him in the text.
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That God's going to have to pull out another king, he's going to have to bring somebody else forward who has a heart that desires
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God. You see, Saul wasn't pursuing God. He pursued victory, he pursued favor among the people, we're going to see that over the course of his life as we continue to march through 1
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Samuel. He pursued his own plans, but he did not have a heart that loved and pursued the things that God loves.
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He did not have a heart after God. And that will prove to be a fatal flaw in the life of this tragic king as we follow his life deeper and deeper into spiraling tragedy.
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So open your Bibles if you're not already there to Unlucky chapter 13, 1
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Samuel 13. You'll find that on page 134 if you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible.
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Grab the Bible that's under the seat in front of you and an easy way to find it is 134. If you brought your own
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Bible, chances are it's not page 134. So put that Bible under the seat in front of you, it is.
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And I want to say this too, if you don't have a copy, a paper copy of God's Word at home, I know that there's all kinds of devices
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I like to have, how many of you still like paper books? Anybody else dating yourself? If you don't have a paper copy of the
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Bible, take that one under the seat in front of you and take that home with you when everybody has a copy of God's Word. Sometimes a
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Bible can just sit on a shelf for years unread and then it tempts somebody to read it. That's a beautiful thing.
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But anyways, let's listen in, recast, this is what God has ordained for us to take in this morning.
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This is what he wants to speak into our hearts and lives, so let's listen in and give the Word of God the respect that it deserves this morning.
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I'm going to read the entirety of 1 Samuel chapter 13. Saul lived for one year and then became king.
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And when he had reigned for two years over Israel, Saul chose three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.
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And the rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent. Jonathan defeated the garrison of the
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Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying,
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Let the Hebrews hear. And all Israel heard it, said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the
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Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal. And the
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Philistines mustered to fight with Israel thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude.
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They came up and encamped at Michmash to the east of Beth -Avon. And when the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble, for they were hard -pressed, the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns.
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And some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling.
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He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him.
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So Saul said, Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.
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As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came.
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And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, What have you done? And Saul said,
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When I saw the people were scattering from me, and that you didn't come within the days appointed, and that the
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Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the
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Lord. So I forced myself, I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.
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And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the
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Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue.
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The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over the people, because you have not kept what the
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Lord commanded you. And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal.
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The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army. They went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin.
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And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about six hundred men. And Saul and Jonathan his son, and the people who were present with them, stayed at Geba of Benjamin.
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But the Philistines encamped in Michmash, and raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies.
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One company turned towards Ophrah, to the land of Sheol. No, that's not what it says. One company turned towards Ophrah, to the land of Sheol.
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Another company turned towards Beth Horon, and another company toward the border that looks down on the valley of Zeboim, toward the wilderness.
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Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel. For the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.
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But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle.
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And the charge was two -thirds of a shekel for the plowshares and for the mattock, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goad.
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So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan.
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But Saul and Jonathan his son had them. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much. There's a richness in your word.
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There is a depth that goes beyond just the surface level of what we can read and has the potential and power to penetrate to our hearts and to our core in recognizing this.
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We look at the way that you interacted with Saul here, and even if we were to confess we might see you as being somewhat harsh and unfair to him.
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But Father, we know that you are just. We know that you are good. You are the one who sees to the heart.
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We're so limited. We are so finite. We are so incapable of even judging our own motives, let alone the motives in the hearts of others.
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We are limited by our eyes and our ears and our sight, the things that we can take in with our five senses, but you take in the very heart.
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You know what was really going on inside of Saul in this text, things that nobody around us can see, but you see to our hearts.
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And so Father, I pray that you would be dealing with each one of us as individuals here, even as we've gathered together corporately to worship you, that you would help us to see what is true and real of us.
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Are we genuinely going to lift our voices right now and worship to you as an individual, or are we going to mouth some words, maybe even sing super sweet with our pipes, but not have a heart in it?
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So Father, I pray that you would be moving us to be people who are after your own heart, who love the things that you love, despise the things that you despise, and walk in obedience to you.
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And Father, I pray that right now, just in a simple act of obedience, so many times we are commanded in scripture to sing, to sing, to sing, to rejoice, to rejoice, to rejoice, and we, who have gathered here this morning, have every reason to rejoice because a way has been made for us.
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The greater king has come. And so I pray that in that place of rejoicing over his salvation that's been given to us, that you would move us to see beyond ourselves, to see you high and exalted and lifted up on your throne in glory and majesty, and that we would worship you in truth this morning.
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I ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, you can go ahead and, yep, find your seats, and then keep your
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Bibles open, please. If you lost your spot to 1 Samuel chapter 13, jump on your device and open your app so that you can see and follow along.
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And then remember, if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts, if there's any left back there, take advantage of that.
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You're not gonna distract me up here, so do that. Verse 1 of chapter 13, we're gonna walk right through this text, and that's really the focus.
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And verse 1 of chapter 13 has been interpreted in a variety of different ways, so if you have an NIV, if you have ESV, if you have a
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King James version of the Bible, different versions are gonna say different things there. I really prefer, and the only reason
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I'm saying this is because you might have identified already that distinction, so I wanted to make sure you get that clearly.
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I prefer the English Standard Version's translation because it makes sense of what is written without adding anything.
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The NIV adds some numbers in there to try to make more sense of what it thinks it's trying to say, or the
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King James version adds, but the ESV just tries to take down the gist of verse 1, is saying that the gap between chapter 12 and chapter 13 is about a year, and then the gap between verse 1 and verse 2 of chapter 13 is about two years.
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So all of that just to say, to set what that means, like I'm telling you the technical side, but what that means is that Saul was enthroned there for one year after Samuel's speech that we saw.
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There was a gap in leadership that we're being told here in verse 1, there was an actual gap where the judge
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Samuel steps aside from leadership and goes to pass the baton and Saul drops the baton, and there's a gap here of a year of leadership, and then two years, then he takes the throne and realizes this and ends up stepping up and being king, and then two years after this we see this battle with the
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Philistines ensue. So a lot changes in these three years, we're seeing a three year gap between the message last week and this week, and a lot has changed.
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Israel has become intensely subjugated by the Philistines during this three year period of time.
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The Philistines from the west have come in and have dominated the territory and are holding them subject, they're probably paying tribute to the
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Philistine kings, although the text doesn't state it, that's the kind of subjugation that happened during this era. The Philistines are technologically advanced and they are dominating the nation of Israel during this time.
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We read later in the text, by the way, that this domination was so strong that the Philistines kept the nation of Israel from having their own blacksmiths, they weren't able to forge their own metal weapons, this meant that they even had to go down to the coastal cities and pay the
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Philistines to sharpen their farm implements, to get sharper plows or to set the goads for their carts and different things like that, and so anytime that they wanted to sharpen a sickle in order to harvest wheat, they had to go down to the
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Philistines, pay them to sharpen their farm implements, let alone they weren't able to forge swords and spears and that kind of thing.
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So the implications are that the nation has been freed from the attack of the Ammonites, a couple of weeks ago we saw that, the
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Ammonites had attacked from the east, on the eastern front, and they repelled them under Saul's leadership and the spirit of the
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Lord rushed on him and he went out there and attacked and basically decimated the Ammonites and now they've been overrun by the
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Philistines on the west. And so that's the picture that we have of the nation of Israel during this time. So remember that Saul's calling his king, the very reason that the nation rose up and said give us a king, was for this very type of thing.
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It was that he was to be a deliverer, a savior of the people from the nations around them who might oppress them.
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So this is the reason that Saul was appointed king and so in verse 2 he begins to take that more seriously and he mustered an army of 3 ,000 men, divided them into two groups, 2 ,000 who camped in the hill country near Michmash with him and 1 ,000 stayed at his hometown with his son
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Jonathan in the area of Gibeah. The rest of the people were sent home to live as normal lives as possible but were basically put on notice, await the call, await the call to muster and come out in force if we need you.
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So verse 3 is sudden and without much explanation, you see kind of this setting up of just the fact that Israel is mustering some troops, probably got the attention of the
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Philistines to some degree but then all of a sudden verse 3, not much explanation, Jonathan the son of Saul attacked and conquered a
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Philistine garrison, a troop, a group of foreign occupiers that were garrisoned in a certain location in Gibeah and he went and he attacked them.
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Whether this was a strategic provocation on Jonathan's part, intentional to try to provoke them or whether it was just an incidental skirmish, the effects were ultimately the same, they incited, it incited the
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Philistines, it roused them to anger and therefore they are going to come out in force. So Jonathan was kind of like the little bee that stung the nose of the sleeping giant and we're going to see that when he rouses this, this is indeed a giant force that comes out.
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So the trumpet call went out throughout all the land to muster and then the word spread in both
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Israel and Philistia that Saul, look at the text, Saul had experienced victory over the
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Philistines. Now that Saul was credited with something that Jonathan did, isn't that crazy in that time and era to give the king the credit for something that somebody under him, even his son did, that's not that unheard of.
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But I still believe that there's indication of things to come that it's Jonathan who acts,
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Saul gets the credit, I don't think Saul at all at this phase is acting kingly. I don't think he's taking leadership and we're going to see that as a case study of his life is identifying him as poor in leadership, unwilling to take the reins and here's the funny thing, at times taking the reins when he shouldn't and then when he should he doesn't and so we see that in this passage the first victory over the
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Philistines comes by Jonathan. Next week we're going to see victory over another garrison of the
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Philistines come through Jonathan. In a few weeks we're going to see victory over the
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Philistines come through a little shepherd boy while the king is hiding a little shepherd boy goes out to battle.
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Saul will not prove to be the deliverer that the people of God were looking for and this text will indicate that the nature of Saul's lack of leadership was his heart.
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His heart was the problem and that's what this text is all about here, it's identifying where does faithlessness in the life of Saul come from and it comes from his heart.
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So all the armies muster at Gilgal instead of Michmash, the map I don't know if you can really see where you got
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Michmash up there, you actually don't have Gilgal over there but Gilgal is closer over towards Jericho so it's to the east.
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So he musters his army at Gilgal instead of Michmash and that can be understood when you read verse 5, why would he muster away?
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He was already at Michmash, the Philistines are going to come out to Michmash but he moves his troops further east about 10 -15 miles.
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You see originally Saul had 2 ,000 troops at Michmash and it would make sense for him to rally his troops there but the
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Philistines muster there first, they muster opposite him and he doesn't want them to see what a paltry force he has so as a good military strategist he moves his troops further towards the border of Israel so that they can't see eye to eye across the valley how weak the
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Israelites are, if they could see that with their eyes they would be over right away. So he moves there and remember that the trumpet sounds and so he's got these 2 ,000 troops out there and then he's bringing in more troops are coming in from the countryside with armed with what?
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Farm implements, pitchforks and hoes and sickles and that kind of thing, they don't have any spears they don't have swords or anything so that's what this muster looks like and so the
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Philistines begin to muster at Michmash and they don't come out to play, they're not playing around, 30 ,000 chariots, 6 ,000 horsemen and obviously it's hyperbole but the number of sand grains on the seashore is the number of infantry, the number of ground troops, this is a huge force and they come up to oppose the
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Israelites but the Israelites muster again about 10 -15 miles east of there out of sight, of course they have scouts and they're looking and they're observing this and you can imagine the people of Israel saw that they were in trouble, the text tells us, they were hard pressed, they recognized that they were in trouble, they realized what a giant
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Jonathan has provoked and they did what many of us would do and choose to do when we find ourselves facing odds vastly against us, they hid, they ran and they hid and that's often,
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I think that's human nature right, how many of you might recognize that there are times in your life where you've just wanted to run and hide, two of us, two of us and the rest of you are just like rock solid,
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I want you on my team okay if you're that bold but there are times when in our honesty, in our hearts we want to run and hide and the text gives annoying details, it goes over the top to express this hiding, it's actually
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I think somewhat humorous, it probably wasn't at the time but it is now looking back, I mean they hid in caves, they hid in holes among the rocks and tombs and cisterns and bouncy castles and semi -trailers, they hid in tree forts and under tables, you know
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I mean it just goes on and on, obviously I added a couple in there just for dramatic effect but it goes on and on with a list of places that they might hide, you know among the rocks, in holes, in cisterns, in tombs,
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I mean wherever they could find a hide they were terrified and I want to point out that nobody musters an army to hide, like that's not the reason, you know what
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I mean, well you don't blow the trumpet and call the troops so that you can all disperse and hide out, hide in a hole, you know it's to muster the troops to come out to battle, to fight, to wage war is the reason for a muster but that's what happens here in the text, he calls, blows the trumpets, people coming from the countryside they see what they're up against and they're out instantly and further it says many of the
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Hebrews fled east across the Jordan opposite from the way of battle, they went over to the east there and so they're crossing the
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Jordan River, Philistias to the west, they're heading east, they're literally deserting
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Israel, they're leaving homes, some of them might even be leaving families, they're out, they're like we'll be over here in Gad, we're going to head that way, so it's this desertion is happening, there's terror, there's hiding and those that didn't hide, it says that some remain strong and even the strong ones who remain loyal to Jonathan, what does it say is their nature, they're trembling as they go, even those who are the most brave and willing to take the battle and go forward they're trembling as they follow
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King Saul into this, now I want to point out these are not the wimps, these are the strong men, these are the tough ones, why would they be responding this way,
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I mean are they just completely wimps in this, I believe that it's because they realize that the force amassed against them is an extinction force, the
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Philistines didn't come out to just kind of say hey I think we might be able to beat you guys, we're out to show and to demonstrate to the people of Israel we're more advanced than you, we've got the technology on you, we can destroy you, now
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I want to point out you might be asking why is this not the end of Israel, why is this not the end of the Old Testament, why doesn't this end right here, okay and part of it is certainly all in the plan of God, his sovereignty, his plan, the things that he's doing, but the fact of the matter is also on the part of the
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Philistines they don't want to wipe out Israel, they want to show that they can, but they don't want to wipe out
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Israel, why, well they're probably getting significant tribute in grain, in food, in labor from Israel and so that's part of their livelihood, they just want to say hey you guys get back in line, get back in line, get back to giving us the grain for our armies, get back to paying the tribute to our kings, don't muster troops against us, we're going to show you how much we can dominate you, how much we can own you, cut out the little playing war thing with your wooden toys, that's kind of what the
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Philistines are attempting to do here, so they're not attempting here to wipe out Israel, they're attempting here to say get back in line and we've got you.
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And so Saul as the leader is in a position, a desperate situation and he desires to motivate his troops, he needs to encourage them, he wants to give the great speech before he marches out to battle and shout freedom, you know, and he wants to give that but he can't yet because he's been told to wait, now you've got to go back to chapter 10 verse 8 and again the context and the way that 1st
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Samuel is put together is a little bit funky in its order and its chronology so you're going, well chapter 10 didn't come just previous to this, it was chapter 12 was prior to this, but back in 10 verse 8 you can go back there if you've got a
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Bible open and look at this, Samuel is told specifically in chapter 10 verse 8 to go down before me to Gilgal, Samuel speaking to Saul, Samuel the prophet, the judge at the time, and he says and behold
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I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings, same thing that we see in this context, seven days you shall wait until I come to you, until I come to you, he wants to make sure, you know, you need to be waiting and sit tight, it's going to be about seven days but I'm coming to you and then
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I will show you what to do, I'm going to show you, Saul, what your next steps are, in this context obviously
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I'm going to give you the military strategy, I'm going to tell you what God desires of you next but you just have to wait, and although that was several chapters ago it's clear that Samuel and Saul understood that command that we read back in 10 verse 8 applies to this situation in chapter 13, neither of them are going, wait that was a long time ago that God said that so I don't have, they understand that to be applying to this context, this situation right here right now and you've got to understand that in the context of the flow of the book.
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So Saul was waiting for Samuel to come, that's what's going on here, the Philistines are completely mustered, all of these troops, they're ready for battle, there's nobody opposing them, there's nobody across the way, they're mustering 10 to 15 miles away and Saul was waiting for Samuel to come and make the offering before the
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Lord and to seek his direction for the people. And here we're going to take a break from the narrative for just a moment because that's a whole lot of narrative that you just got, a whole lot of storytelling but I want us to bring this into our lives now,
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I'm not going to give a big application at the end, we're going to come right into a landing for communion at the end of this message but I want us to think about the application to our lives throughout this message, listen, listen, listen
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Recast, listen church for the Spirit to talk to your heart about what you need to take on for your life from this.
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But as we take a break I want to just ask all of us, how many of you like to wait?
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How many of you enjoy waiting? Go ahead and raise your hand if you like to wait because I'm going to ask you to go the next time I need to get something at the
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Secretary of State's office. So go ahead and raise your hand if you like waiting. Nobody, okay. I kind of had a hunch that that was the case but I was hopeful that somebody might raise their hand because I would let you go wait for me.
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But in all honesty I think that all of us know what it's like to wait. How many of you have had a season of waiting?
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Whether that's at the Secretary of State's office or a longer term but there's a couple different types of waiting and I want to just point out what maybe is obvious but we haven't thought about it this way.
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There is a temporary waiting where you have known results. Now I would suggest to you that in the impatience of our culture we can't stand either kind of waiting.
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But there's one where you know what you're waiting for. There's one where sometimes we're waiting and we're holding ticket number 84 and they're currently serving 47.
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Do you know that kind of waiting? Do you know the one that I'm talking about? You can see them marching through the numbers. You see the number go up, you know that your time is coming.
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But even if they're serving just 13 we can still see the progress and we know exactly what it is that we're waiting for.
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But there are seasons of life that are a different kind of waiting, right? Sometimes those seasons turn into years and for some of us it turns into decades of waiting.
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And we don't truly know whether or not our number is ever going to be called.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? And you don't even necessarily know what it's going to look like if your number is called.
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So we watch an adult child descend into drugs and alcohol and we wait and we pray and we wait and we pray and we wait and we pray.
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Will God show up? What will He say when He gets here? Or we wait for years for that big break professionally and we don't even know what that big break looks like.
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We just hope it comes. And we think we might know it when it shows up but we're not sure. And it seems like it'll never arrive.
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I don't want to belabor this point because Saul's waiting, I want to point out, is much more like the first type. It's not that second type.
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It's not the really harder, the harder kind of waiting when you don't know what the result is and you don't know what the time frame is.
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He's given a time frame. He's been told to wait for how many days? Seven. He knows what will show up at the end of seven days.
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He's already been told. It's going to be Samuel. It's going to be the prophet of God. And he knows what he's waiting for.
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The word of the Lord and the sacrifices. God's going to tell him what to do in just seven days.
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In this sense Saul has been given a great gift that I think many of us would probably appreciate. How many of you could endure all kinds of difficulty this next week if you knew that God was going to meet you next
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Sunday and tell you what to do next? How many of you think that you could endure quite a bit? You could put up with a lot this week knowing that God was going to literally tell you what to do next a week from now.
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But I think that betrays a little bit of our arrogance to think that we would do better than Saul in this circumstance.
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Because my goodness he is enduring a lot. Remember the immense size of the Philistine army arrayed against him in verse five.
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Remember the hiding of his troops. Running and hiding in tombs and holes in the ground and among the rocks.
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Remember the desertion in verse seven. Remember that for seven days Saul is consigned to walk among his trembling troops.
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People that he knows. People who have stood beside him strong in battle against Nahash the Ammonite. Now trembling.
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Terrified of the battle to come. And later in the text in verses 19 -20
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I already mentioned this but we find out what was already clear to Saul certainly foremost in his mind as a military leader during this time.
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He has bows and arrows to go up against panzer tanks. And at the end of verse eight even those who stayed with him trembling were starting to scatter.
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Even the most bold among the troops are now beginning to scatter. Now three years prior to this
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Saul was able to rouse the people of Israel. He brought them to unity.
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Remember he was out in the field and heard word that Nahash the Ammonite had besieged
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Jabesh Gilead and he catches wind of that and the spirit rushes upon him and he literally takes apart the oxen that are there, butchers them and sends out meat to the four corners of Israel saying this is what's going to happen to your oxen if you don't join me in battle and they mustered the forces and pushed back
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Nahash and defeated his troops through God's direction and military strategy that God gave to him.
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That was three years prior to this, but not today.
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Not this day. On this day God's recipe is different. How many of you have seen that God doesn't work through patterns and templates in your life?
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He doesn't work the same way in you as he does in your wife, as he does in others around you, as he does in your co -workers.
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He has a different plan and sometimes that plan looks different today than it did yesterday. Do you know what I'm talking about?
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And so his recipe for Saul in this case isn't divide up your oxen, send them out and get unity.
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His job is wait. His job is wait.
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Obedience for Saul in this text looked like inactivity.
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And that is a calling that I would suggest to you is just a little too much for human pride. It's a little too high of a calling for us if we're honest.
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The call to wait. Tell me to charge the gates?
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Good. Tell me to write out the pros and cons list and use my intellect and my mind to come at the right solution?
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Awesome, I'm on it. Tell me to develop my own battle plan? Got it.
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Tell me to lecture and scold my children? I can do that. But the command to wait?
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Does your heart feel what I feel on that? No thanks. No thanks.
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Waiting is just a little too hard, isn't it? Saul, Saul can't wait.
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Saul's heart is not designed to wait. His troops are falling away. I mean, give the guy some credit,
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Don. His troops are falling away. His chances of success are fading. All human wisdom would dictate that he just do something.
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Do you see that in the text? Do you see the worldly wisdom in this? I mean, just raise your hand if you actually see the wisdom in that.
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Be honest. It's there. That's just the wise thing. That's what military strategists would tell him to wait right now.
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Maybe retreat. Maybe come up with some other plan, but my goodness, wait? No way.
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Saul can't wait. God's recipe says wait, but nobody in their right mind would wait in this situation.
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And so Saul does what any human would be tempted to do in this situation. In verse 9, he's waiting for Samuel to show up to do the burnt offerings.
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And in verse 9, he says, bring to me the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. He says both. He's planning.
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He's got full intention of offering both of these offerings. And I just want to let,
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I want to make sure that we lay bare what Saul is doing. I want to make sure that you're understanding the spiritual, religious, military implications in that old covenant of what
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Saul is doing by making these offerings because it's something that's so removed from where we live in our religious context that it's beneficial for us to see this.
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What is he doing? Let's look at it, let's look at the skeleton of what this offering looks like for him.
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He is seeking to unite the troops in his own strength. He is acting where God has called him to inaction.
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He is believing that the battle is up to him and his troops.
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He is dismissing God's role and God's wisdom and God's word to him.
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But maybe even more fundamental is his attempt to use the religious symbolism of the offering without the word of the
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Lord. He's going to use the religious symbols to try to rally his troops. And let this, let this sin sink into your mind.
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Let it expose you. And let, let's, let, let God's word shine into your heart to identify where you have accepted this idea of action when
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God has called you to inaction. Let's consider our own propensity to act when
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God says to wait. You see, I would suggest to you the church can be a really busy thing.
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Our lives can become so busy that we push out all chance for God to speak into us.
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We don't listen to him through his word but instead rather than getting up and taking in his word and listening to what he desires for us today, we barge out into our days without waiting to hear for his guidance, his wisdom, his instructions for us.
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Dale Davis, who wrote the commentary that I recommend, some of you have bought one. There's a couple more that are left on the shelves back there.
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Those, we don't make money off those books. Those are at cost but I try to get good resources out to you. They're behind the welcome table.
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There's still a couple there. I love Dale Davis' commentary on this. This is what he says about this passage. Quote from Dale Davis, quote,
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I cannot help but think that Saul's predicament is very like that of middle and upper class churches in our country.
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He's referring to America. A church may provide all the trappings people crave, hyperkinetic programs for all ages of children, fun filled activity or fun activities for youth, support groups for diverse needs, counseling services for people in crisis, aggressive visitation, a high quality music ministry for the talented and or interested, and yet for all the activities and programs, that church is fundamentally alone if it lacks the faithful preaching and teaching of the word of God.
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The presence of glitz cannot substitute for the absence of the word.
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The real hope of Israel was found in the one thing that Saul skipped over. And I want to point out that we will never know what
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God intended to tell him because he acted faithlessly. We will not know the victory that God wanted to bring forward to his people in this context because Saul lacked the patience to listen, to wait and hear.
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What am I talking about? I'm talking about specific victory. I believe that God had victory on that day for his people where Saul to listen and pay attention.
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Remember that he defeated, God had defeated a huge army of Midianites through just 600 Israelites led by Gideon.
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How many is Saul going to have in his presence at the end of this text? How many soldiers are still faithful to him by the end of this text?
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I don't think it's an accidental number. It's the same number that Gideon defeated the Midianites with, just 600.
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I think Saul, I think God was paring down the army through fear, desertions and hiding.
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Just like he pared down the army of Gideon through the drinking, drinking the water and all of that kind of stuff and fear and people who didn't want to be a part of it and he got down to 600 then, he got down to 600 here.
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God had a plan, but so did Saul. And I can assure you that Saul's plan didn't hold a candle to what
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God wanted to do in this context, but Saul just couldn't wait.
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And as soon as he had finished the burnt offering but hadn't even moved on to the peace offerings, behold, one of my favorite biblical words,
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I mention this all the time, behold means check this out, pay special attention to this, behold
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Samuel showed up. He hasn't even moved on to the peace offerings yet, he just offered the burnt offerings when
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Samuel shows up. Saul went out to greet him and I imagine an awkward start to this conversation. Samuel walks up,
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Saul greets him and I picture Samuel kind of going, something smells like barbeque, something smells like delicious roasting meat.
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Surely Saul, that's not the sacrifice I'm here to offer. And the hammer drops really hard on Saul in verses 11 through 15.
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So hard that we might be tempted to accuse God of being unjust. Samuel shakes his head, what have you done?
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Saul, what have you done? But Saul, of course, has his rationale.
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Our faithless actions always have their reasons. Don't you always have a justification for the foolish things that you've done?
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Reasons that made sense to us at the time. This is what Saul says, the people were scattering.
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Samuel, you're late. I mean, I waited the seven days, I didn't wait, I mean, you're here, seven and a half days.
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I waited the seven, it's seven and a half. You're late. The Philistines are mustered in the very heart of Israel and I'm the king of Israel, I mean, we can't have this.
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Does it sound familiar, the justifying? The problem's too big. Justify.
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Others let me down, you weren't here on time. Justify. It's their fault.
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It's your fault, Samuel. I had to do something or else it was going to reflect poorly on me. I can't let a foreign military force just camp out in the middle of my country.
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I had to act. You see, he even goes on to say, I feared that the Philistines would attack me at Gilgal, and so look with me at verse 12.
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Look at the text. Look at verse 12. I forced myself. I didn't really want to, but I just had to arrest my own will and do the right thing.
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And the right thing in this context was disobey
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God. You had to do this? He makes it look like he had to do it.
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Consider how convoluted our own justifying looks. We live in a culture that will certainly turn obedience on its head and make it seem like sometimes disobeying
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God is a virtuous thing. That's how convoluted our culture has become.
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I don't want to point out an extremely important part of this text that could be lost on us. It has to be said,
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Saul disobeys God. Are you ready for it? He disobeys
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God by doing something religious. He disobeys
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God by his religious actions. What Saul does at face value is a religious activity.
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Would you agree with me? Offering sacrifices. How could that ever be wrong, you might ask. You might wonder, what in the world?
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He makes a sacrifice to the Almighty. Something that costs him something. Isn't God pleased with him?
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I mean, he at least made an offering. He does the very thing that shows dependence upon God while not depending upon God.
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Man, this is a contemporary issue. Wow, we have to take this in. Church attendance, tithing, attending
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Bible studies and community groups, having a quiet time in the morning with the Lord and all the very excellent spiritual disciplines that are beneficial and good for your life can be done with a wrong motive and a wrong spirit.
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All religious activity can be a damning activity when it is done with a proud attitude or even further and worse the wicked notion that we can control
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God with our behavior. That we can demand that he side with us because we had a quiet time this morning.
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I attended church this week. God, you owe me. Oh my goodness, that is dangerous thinking.
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And I would suggest to you that often that's the heart of religious thinking. The idea that I can do certain things to garner the favor of the
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Almighty is the danger of religion. Saul here is treating God like a puppet and his religious activity is the way that he thinks he can get
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God to do what he wants. And further, he's even using religious ritual to attempt to calm the people just give them what they want so they'll hang in there and fight for the cause.
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Just do the stuff, do the things that the people will love so that they'll stop trembling and they'll believe that God has come in our midst when we make these sacrifices.
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Samuel calls Saul, what Saul has done exactly what it is. He says, this is foolish.
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You see, in a technical sense, scripture uses the word fool. Technically, the fool is the person who acts like there is no
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God. And Saul has made sacrifices while acting like there is no
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God. It's just the externals. He has not kept
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God's command to wait and now his kingdom will be taken from his family line and Samuel reveals here so early on in Saul's reign that God is preparing a man to take over his kingship.
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And the contrast between this future king and Saul shows that the issue is deeper than impatience.
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It's not just that he acted impatiently. If we're honest, God seems harsh to us here in this text.
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I mean, one incident of impatience that we read recorded in Saul is done, his kingship is removed, that seems, does anybody agree with me that seems super ungracious?
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Does it seem like that at face value? I mean, it does, doesn't it? But we must read this text with faith and trust that God is the one who knows hearts and minds.
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He knows what's really going on. We only see actions and behaviors. You see, to our eyes, there really is zero difference between Saul and King David.
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Really, in the end, actually, to our eyes, probably, if you know the life of David, David's life looks like he's the worst offender.
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He's going to be called a man after God's own heart. Saul is going to be told that he's not a man after God's own heart.
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What's the difference? We trust that God sees their heart, that he knows the difference between the external.
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When we look at the outside, how many of you know that you're a poor judge of people? You think you're a good judge of people, but you're not.
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We're not. We have a hard time judging, but do we trust the
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God who sees into the heart of Saul and knows what he's made of? God knows Saul better than anyone.
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He knows his motives. He knows his faith or, really, the lack thereof. God gives us a glimpse of Saul's heart.
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He is not a man after God. He is not a man who loves the things that God loves. He has no desire to live for God, no desire to please him or honor him in his role as king, so God will raise up a king who loves him and seeks to please the very heart of God.
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The biggest kicker is that Samuel now leaves Saul alone. Without guidance, without direction, he has come to offer the sacrifices.
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He's come to speak to the king on behalf of God, but the king didn't want that, so Samuel moves on.
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Saul was left with 600 men, and they moved to the former garrison of the Philistines that had just been conquered by Jonathan at Geba.
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The Philistines sent out three raiding parties. Geba's to the south, and Michmash's to the north, and so the
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Philistines send out three raiding parties to basically have their way with Israel, and they send them to the west, they send them to the north, and they send them to the east, and these three raiding parties basically show
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Israel who is boss without being impeded at all by Saul or his military.
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They pillage, they subjugate, they probably kill and steal on their way.
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The logic of the faithless is not often to do too little. I want you to see that in this text.
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Often we think that faithlessness before God looks like not doing enough for Him. Faithlessness, if you're faithless, you just don't do enough for God.
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But faithlessness often looks more often like doing too much, or at least giving ourselves too much credit for the things that we do, acting like we get brownie points from God when we do good.
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But I want to point out here in conclusion, the economy of grace always runs the other direction.
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It doesn't run like us giving something to God. Never. It never runs that way.
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It always runs the other direction. God has the goods, all of them, and our role is to hold out empty hands for His gifts.
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That's the economy of salvation. That's the direction of grace. That is the only way it ever goes.
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Saul did not live with hands out and head bowed. He had the wrong -minded thoughts that he had something to give to God.
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And so we see in this text that God pledged to send a man after his own heart, who we will find out throughout the text is obviously
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King David. But even that great king was imperfect in his faith to show us, and I believe the imperfections of David are recorded for us in Scripture that our hope wouldn't be placed on an earthly king, in a king who purely comes from our line.
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But even the life of David points to another life, a deeper need. And in the fullness of time,
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God sent forth the only human who has ever been fully after God's heart.
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The only one who has ever truly had the heart of God. And his name was Jesus. And Jesus came among us as a giving person.
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We come to communion to remember that our past, our present and future is all wrapped up in this one gift of God.
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His victory is already offered. It's already provided. We cannot act to receive this deliverance.
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We cannot give enough to earn this deliverance. We cannot behave enough to be worthy of this deliverance.
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We cannot attend church enough to come in. We can't even love enough to earn this deliverance.
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And so we await that deliverance with empty hands, outstretched, saying,
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Come, Lord Jesus, as we sang earlier. And we live in a way, unlike Saul, who when
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God says, Wait, we wait. When he says, Charge, we rush forward.
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When he says, Stand, we stand strong. And we respond this way because he is our
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Lord and King who has loved us and who has rescued us. We love him because he has redeemed us.
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And so if you're among those who are all in with Christ and you're trusting in him for deliverance, then
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I'd encourage you to come to the back of the church to one of the tables and take the cracker and the juice to remember his great victory, which was won for you at the cross.
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And if you're all in, then go out from this place with a simple encouragement. Obey God's word with the joy and delight of his spirit that resides in you because he has loved you and he is the one who has delivered you.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and your mercy. Without it, we would have no hope.
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Without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we would have nothing. And so, Father, I pray that as we come to communion that you would be honored and glorified in our hearts as we reflect on the great sacrifice that was made by our
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King on our behalf. So selfless, so faithful, so giving.
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And Father, I pray that that would reflect over and over in our hearts. And Father, if there's anybody here who is not all in with Christ, I pray that you would give them the strength and the boldness if they have questions to come and talk with me, to skip communion, take in the song, and just think this through and think about your great love poured out for them.