1 Samuel 13 The Logic of the Faithless

Of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series in First Samuel, Timely Prophet, Tragic King. Let's listen in.

The Need for Community and the Danger of Faithlessness

Well, good morning, 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. 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, 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.

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.

It's simply this, we can't stay strong in isolation. We can't stay strong on our own. 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.

We're prone to disconnect with him and walk away from our faith, and we need others in our lives. 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.

And so that's part of the reason why God has built his church, that's part of the reason why we gather together, 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.

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.

So a growing faith is a life lived out in community with others. 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 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.

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, the faithless heart of their new king. So in this text, we're gonna see the anatomy of faithless disobedience.

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 gonna make us walk away feeling super great.

About ourselves.

That's something that I don't have the privilege of offering you each week because I'm gonna follow God's word and I'm gonna 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.

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. 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.

It's, sometimes it's the hard things that we look at and we see and we're gonna look at that here as we look at the faithless heart of King Saul. And so we see this disobedience. King Saul shows up in our text finally as the second character of the sermon series title, Timely Prophet, Tragic King.

He begins to really show his colors as the tragic king. And as we read and study this text this morning, I wanna make sure that your thoughts don't wander too far from yourself. 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.

Or even better yet, often we're tempted.

To just let it settle on Saul,.

Let him take the hit for us. 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. 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.

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 Almighty and the way that disobedience interferes with that desired purpose of God.

And 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? 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.

He's not looking for a heart and then you just go live your own life. Better, it's stated better, what God is looking for is a human with a new heart that demonstrates love for him by obedience. 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.

And so King Saul serves as a model of a man that didn't have a heart after God. We're gonna see that stated of him in the text. That God's gonna have to pull out another king. He's gonna have to bring somebody else forward who has a heart that desires God.

You see, Saul wasn't pursuing God. He pursued victory. He pursued favor among the people. We're gonna see that over the course of his life as we continue to march through 1 Samuel. He pursued his own plans, but he did not have a heart that loved and pursued the things that God loves.

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. So open your Bibles if you're not already there to Unlucky chapter 13, 1 Samuel 13.

You'll find that on page 134 if you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible. 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 Bible, chances are it's not page 134.

So put that Bible under the seat in front of you. It is. And I wanna 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 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 Bible, take that one under the seat in front of you and take that home with you when everybody have a copy of God's word.

Sometimes a Bible can just sit on a shelf for years unread and then it tempts somebody to read it. That's a beautiful thing. But anyways, let's listen in. Recast, this is what God has ordained for us to take in this morning.

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. I'm gonna read the entirety of 1 Samuel chapter 13. Saul lived for one year and then became king.

And when he had reigned for two years over Israel, Saul chose 3 ,000 men of Israel. 2 ,000 were with Saul in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and 1 ,000 were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.

And the rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent. Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, 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 Philistines and the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal.

And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, 30 ,000 chariots and 6 ,000 horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude. 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. 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. He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, bring the burnt offering here to me and the peace offerings.

And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him. Samuel said, what have you done? And Saul said, when I saw the people were scattering from me and that you didn't come within the days appointed and that the 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 Lord.

So I forced myself, I forced myself and offered the burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, you've done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the 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.

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 Lord commanded you. And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal.

The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army. They went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were present with him, about 600 men. And Saul and Jonathan, his son, and the people who were present with them stayed at Gibeah of Benjamin.

But the Philistines encamped in Michmash and raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. 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.

Another company turned towards Beth Horon and another company toward the border that looks down on the Valley of Zeboiim, toward the wilderness. 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. But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his ax, or his sickle. 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.

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. But Saul and Jonathan, his son, had them. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much. There's a richness in your word. 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.

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. But Father, we know that you are just. We know that you are good, and you are the one who sees to the heart.

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. 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.

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. 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.

Are we genuinely gonna 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. 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.

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.

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.

I ask this in Jesus' name.

Well, you can go ahead and, yep, find your seats, and then keep your Bibles open, please. If you lost your spot to 1 Samuel chapter 13, or jump on your device and open your app so that you can see and follow along.

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. You're not gonna distract me up here, so do that.

Saul’s Weak Leadership and the Philistine Threat

Verse one of chapter 13, we're gonna walk right through this text, and that's really the focus. And verse one 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 King James version of the Bible, different versions are gonna say different things there.

I really prefer, and the only reason I'm saying this is because you might have identified already that distinction, so I wanted to make sure you get that clearly. I prefer the English Standard Version's translation because it makes sense of what is written without adding anything.

The NIV adds some numbers in there to try to make more sense of what it thinks it's trying to say, or the King James Version adds. But the ESV just tries to take down the gist of verse one, is saying that the gap between chapter 12 and chapter 13 is about a year, and then the gap between verse one and verse two of chapter 13 is about two years.

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, therefore, one year after Samuel's speech that we saw, there was a gap in leadership that we're being told here in verse one.

There was an actual gap where the judge, 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 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. Israel has become intensely subjugated by the Philistines during this three-year period of time.

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 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. 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 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 Philistines, pay them to sharpen their farm implements, let alone they weren't able to forge swords and spears and that kind of thing.

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 Ammonites had attacked from the east, on the eastern front, and they repelled them under Saul's leadership and the Spirit of the Lord rushed on him and he went out there and attacked and basically decimated the Ammonites, and now they've been overrun by the 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.

It was that he was to be a deliverer, a savior of the people from the nations around them who might oppress them. So this is the reason that Saul was appointed king. And so in verse two, 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 Micmash with him, and 1 ,000 stayed at his hometown with his son 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. So verse three is sudden and without much explanation.

You see kind of the setting up of just the fact that Israel is mustering some troops, probably got the attention of the Philistines to some degree, but then all of a sudden, verse three, not much explanation, Jonathan, the son of Saul, attacked and conquered a 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.

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 Philistines,.

It roused them to anger, and therefore they are gonna come out in force. So Jonathan was kind of like the little bee that stung the nose of the sleeping giant, and we're gonna see that when he rouses this, this is indeed a giant force that comes out.

And so the trumpet call went out throughout all the land to muster, and then the word spread in both Israel and Philistia that Saul, look at the text, Saul had experienced victory over the 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. It's not that unheard of.

But I still believe that there's indication of things to come that it's Jonathan who acts, 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 gonna 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 Philistines comes by Jonathan.

Next week, we're gonna see victory over another garrison of the Philistines come through Jonathan. In a few weeks, we're gonna see victory over the Philistines come through a little shepherd boy. While the king is hiding, a little shepherd boy goes out to battle.

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. 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. So all the armies muster at Gilgal instead of Micmash. The map, I don't know if you can really see where you got Micmash up there.

You actually don't have Gilgal over there, but Gilgal is closer over towards Jericho, so it's to the east. So he musters his army at Gilgal instead of Micmash, and that can be understood when you read verse five.

Why would he muster away? He was already at Micmash. The Philistines are gonna come out to Micmash, but he moves his troops further east, about 10 to 15 miles. You see, originally Saul had 2 ,000 troops at Micmash, and it would make sense for him to rally his troops there.

But the 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 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 armed with what? Farm implements, pitchforks and hoes and sickles and that kind of thing.

I mean, they don't have any spears, they don't have swords or anything, so that's what this muster looks like. And so the Philistines begin to muster at Micmash, 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 Israelites, but the Israelites muster again about 10 to 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 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, 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. I want you on my team, okay, if you're that bold. But there are times when, in 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, 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, in tombs and cisterns, in bouncy castles, in semi-trailers. They hid in tree forts and under tables. You know, 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, 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 I mean? Well, you don't blow the trumpet and call the troops so that you can all disperse and 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 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 Jordan River.

Philistia is to the west, they're heading east. They're literally deserting 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 gonna head that way. So, 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 King Saul into this. Now, I wanna point out, these are not the wimps.

These are the strong men. These are the tough ones. Why would they be responding this way? 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 Philistines didn't come out to just kinda say, hey, I think we might be able to beat you guys. We're kinda parody here, and let's see who wins. They came 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, I wanna 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 Philistines, they don't wanna wipe out Israel.

They wanna show that they can, but they don't wanna wipe out 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 wanna 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 gonna 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 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.

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!

And he wants to give that, but he can't yet because he's been told to wait. Now, you gotta go back to chapter 10, verse eight, and again, the context and the way that 1 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 eight, you can go back there if you've got a Bible open and look at this.

Samuel was told specifically in chapter 10, verse eight, to go down before me to Gilgal. Samuel speaking to Saul, Samuel the prophet, the judge at the time, and he says, and behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings.

Same thing that we see in this context. The 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 gonna be about seven days, but I'm coming to you.

And then I will show you what to do. I'm gonna show you, Saul, what your next steps are. In this context, obviously, I'm gonna give you the military strategy. I'm gonna 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 eight 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 gotta understand that in the context of the flow of the book. 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 Lord and to seek his direction for the people.

And here, we're gonna 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.

I'm not gonna give a big application at the end. We're gonna 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, Recast. Listen, church, for the Spirit to talk to your heart about what you need to take on for your life from this. But as we take a break, I wanna just ask all of us, how many of you like to wait?

How many of you enjoy waiting? Go ahead and raise your hand if you like to wait, because I'm gonna ask you to go the next time I need to get something at the Secretary of State's office. So go ahead and raise your hand if you like waiting.

Nobody, okay. I kinda 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. 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, 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 wanna just point out what maybe is obvious, but we haven't thought about it this way.

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. 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.

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. 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.

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. And we don't truly know whether or not our number's ever going to be called.

Do you know what I'm talking about? And you don't even necessarily know what it's gonna look like if your number is called. 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.

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.

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. I don't wanna belabor this point because Saul's waiting, I wanna point out, is much more like the first type.

It's not that second type, 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,.

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.

He's already been told.

It's gonna be Samuel.

It's gonna be the prophet of God.

And he knows what he's waiting for, the word of the Lord and the sacrifices. God's gonna tell him what to do in just seven days. 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 gonna meet you next 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 gonna literally tell you what to do next a week from now. But I think that betrays a little bit of our arrogance to think that we would do better than Saul in this circumstance.

Because my goodness, he is enduring a lot. Remember the immense size of the Philistine army arrayed against him in verse five. Remember the hiding of his troops, running and hiding in tombs and holes in the ground and among the rocks.

Remember the desertion in verse seven. Remember that for seven days Saul is consigned to walk among his trembling troops, people that he knows, people who have stood beside him, strong in battle against Nahash the Ammonite.