1 Samuel 11 (Boldness & Righteous Indignation)

Saul as a Type of Christ in 1 Samuel 11

1 Samuel chapter 11. King Saul is probably not a character in the Bible you would view as a Christ figure, which is understandable, more on that in a moment. But in this chapter, 1 Samuel 11, the superscription above the chapter is Saul saves Jabesh Gilead.

Now the town of Jabesh, east of the Jordan River, was really not all that significant, but this is a significant moment in Israel's history. This battle really helps to establish Saul as Israel's commander.

And when I say or read that title, Saul saves this town, remember the word save also means to deliver. So Saul's leadership, now that he is empowered by the Holy Spirit, his leadership secures the victory for the nation.

And what does that do? It delivers the people from sure destruction. So in this, you can see a picture of the gospel. I know there's some people listening, well, I don't see, I don't see it. Well, we'll get into that.

And you even see Saul now potentially being portrayed as a Christ figure. Now there's going to be someone who reacts to that. Saul can't be a Christ figure. He was too wicked. Well, not at this moment, he's not.

And besides the word Christ, what does the word Christ mean? Christ means anointed or the Lord's anointed. And Saul is definitely that he has been chosen by God and anointed king by the prophet Samuel.

Remember in the last chapter, Saul was filled with the spirit of God. He was given a new heart. He was changed into a different man, the scripture says. So if the whole Bible is about Jesus and these other old Testament figures are types of Christ, I think we can say the same here for King Saul, despite what happens to him later on.

So let's get into it and we'll see what we can learn from this chapter and get into the application towards the end. So let's begin reading first Samuel 11, starting in verse one says, then Nahash, the Ammonite came up and encamped against Jabesh Gilead.

And all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, make a covenant with us and we will serve you. If you've been following along in our study through the Old Testament, you will know that the children of Israel were commanded by God to make no covenant with the other people groups, the other tribes in Canaan.

So this was wrong from the start. Verse two in Nahash, the Ammonite answered them on this condition. I will make a covenant with you that I may put out all your right eyes and bring reproach on all Israel.

Then the elders of Jabesh said to him, hold off for seven days that we may send messengers to all the territory of Israel. And then if there is no one to save us, we will come out to you. So the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and told the news in the hearing of the people and all the people lifted up their voices and wept.

Now there was Saul coming behind the herd from the field. And Saul said, what troubles the people that they weep? And they told him the words of the men of Jabesh. Then the spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news and his anger was greatly aroused.

So he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hands of the messenger saying, whoever does not go out with Saul and Samuel to battle, so it shall be done to his oxen.

And the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent. Okay, so verse seven says they came out with one consent, meaning they were united up until this point. Remember, Israel was under the system of the judges.

So the nation was a loosely connected network of tribes. And sometimes the tribes fought and refused to recognize a universal leader. So all of that's changing now. Saul with God's help is bringing all of the tribes together.

They came out with one consent. This was no small accomplishment. If not for Saul's bold move, which was also sort of a threat, it wouldn't have happened. And we're already seeing the difference in Saul.

Remember how at first he was timid when Samuel told him he would be king. Saul is like, who me? Are you talking to the right person? And when they were ready to present Saul to the people, remember he hid among the luggage.

Now, however, he is just calling upon everyone, rallying them together under his leadership. And hey, you have to do this. And really this boldness, this is what the spirit of God will do to a person.

Proverbs 28 verse 1 says, the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. So if you see a weak, soft-spoken, timid leader, you can pretty much bank on the fact that he is not filled with the spirit of God.

Saul is filled. I almost said spilled, but no, there's no spill. The spirit's going to spill later on out of him, but he is filled. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. And you see the result. It is boldness.

So the king of the Ammonites is ready to invade this Israelite town. The Ammonites were descended from Abraham's nephew, Lot, if you trace it back. So you said, well, there's some relation. Yeah, but at this point it doesn't even matter.

The Old Testament keeps these records and genealogy. So the Israel knew who was who and what was what, but it really makes no difference at this point. All of the tribes that surround them, relation or not, at this point, they are their enemies and they're fighting over the land.

God had promised the land to Israel and they needed to embrace that. They needed to walk in faith and at times fight for the land. The people of Jabesh must not feel like they have a chance. So what do they do immediately?

They request, make this request for peace. Verse one says they make a covenant or they offer to make a covenant. So they probably offered the Ammonites something to appease them. But Nahash was not interested in peace.

He wasn't interested in getting along with the Israelites. Nahash we see was really a vile man. He's a vile leader. He just wants to humiliate the people. He wants to bring reproach on God's people. So he says, he asked for something totally unreasonable.

He says, okay, I'll make a deal with you if I can gouge out everybody's right eye. And because they don't feel like they can win, everyone starts to weep. But they also send word across the Jordan into Israel, hoping that their brethren might come out to rescue them.

Because without backup, without help, again, whether it's true or not, they at least feel like they don't stand a chance. So if Saul is going to be a type of Christ, and that's the argument that I'm making.

If Saul is going to be a type of Christ, who does Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, represent? Well, the name Nahash, it might interest you to know, Nahash means the serpent. So he would clearly represent the devil or Satan who is called that serpent of old.

So in this battle between Saul and Nahash, you see a picture of the battle between Christ, the anointed, and Satan. So the symbolism is starting to make sense. And you see this is really the depth of the word of God.

You know, if I read this past, and I have read this chapter before, and daily Bible reading, and you probably read it, you probably never even thought of that. But this is something when you stop and study the scriptures, and you know the symbolic nature.

And you know, there's people that use symbolism, and they just want to spiritualize or make the whole Bible symbolic to where it doesn't mean what it says. That's not that type of, that's a bad type of symbolism.

This is types and foreshadows. This is legitimate, a legitimate way to interpret the Old Testament. So once you understand that, and you start to study these Old Testament stories, they're so much more rich.

So Nahash, remember, Nahash means serpent. He wants to maim and humiliate the people of God. And so does Satan. The enemy wants us to feel backed into a corner. He wants us to feel defeated before the battle has even begun.

And here's the thing. If we give into that, then yeah, we will live a defeated life. And the enemy, like Nahash, he wants to cause damage to our lives. And the sad thing is, many Christians allow the devil to get away with it.

And the Israelites seem like they're going to compromise and let him get away with it. So we have to realize there's a spiritual war in the Old Testament. It's physical war, but it's symbolic of the New Testament spiritual war that we all face today.

The enemy wants to hinder us, and we should not allow this. Do not stand for it. What does the scripture say? Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Some people want to rebuke the devil. Well, that's unbiblical.

Read the book of Jude.

No, we resist the devil. So we, like the people of Jabesh, we should not compromise, but we should do what? Call upon the Lord for help. And that's what they're doing. They're calling upon the Lord's people.

They're calling upon the Lord's anointed for help. So this message reaches Saul. The people were in need. Saul hears of it, and he's going to step in and deliver them. Verse 6. It says, when this happened, when Saul heard, the Spirit of God came upon him.

And it says his anger was greatly aroused. So you notice when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit, they receive boldness and also at times it can arouse anger. Now that might seem odd to you. We say, well, the fruit of the Spirit is love, not anger.

Well, but there is a righteous indignation, right? So, and this is the problem. Many Christians today are not taught the Old Testament. So because of that, this might strike some as odd. So the Holy Spirit comes upon Saul.

And one of the results of that is he gets angry.

So yeah, yeah.

I thought the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace. How can the Spirit bring anger? That's the question. Well, here's the thing. Here's the misunderstanding. Love and anger are not opposites of one another.

Because again, there is a righteous indignation. Here's the thing. If you truly love God, if you truly love righteousness, you are going to hate or be angry at lawlessness. I don't know about you, but what I see today is a whole bunch of Christians.

They're very much indifferent. They're apathetic.

I don't get it.

How can you know the scripture and know what's true and say that you love the truth, but evil and lies don't really seem to bother you? Not so with Saul. Later on in the story, it's true. Saul, later in his life, he will express a wrong type of anger.

Of course, there is a wrong type of anger. But this again, for a third time, it is righteous indignation. And we need a little bit more of that today. Again, this is what the Holy Spirit is producing in Saul.

Number one, boldness. And number two, a righteous indignation. Much like the Lord has. Do you know that Jesus Christ has a righteous indignation? Jesus Christ is angry about some things. Again, love and anger are not opposites of one another.

Hebrews chapter one actually says about the Lord. This is God the Father speaking to God the Son. He says, a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. Hebrews 1 .9, you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

So what does the Bible say about Jesus? What does God the Father say about Jesus? That Jesus loves righteousness. And as the result, he hates lawlessness. Jesus is angered over lawlessness. And the Old Testament type of Christ at this point, King Saul, is angered over evil.

Over lawlessness.

So Saul is angry at how this wicked king is treating the people of God. And Saul, God bless him, he isn't going to sit idly by and allow this to happen. Now again, in the Old Testament, we read about physical battles.

We're not to take up the sword today. We have the sword of the Spirit. So today it's a spiritual battle. But now it's a physical battle here in 1 Samuel 11. Keep in mind, Saul, he becomes a warrior. But at this moment in his life, he's not a warrior.

We see that Saul is living in Gibeah, basically as a farmer. That's what verse 5 tells us. So he hears about this and he comes in, it says, from behind the herd from the field. So while he's been anointed as king and presented to the people as king, nothing has really happened beyond that.

But now comes the moment of truth. How will God's anointed respond? Will Saul rise to the occasion and fight the good fight? Or will he shrug his shoulders and just, you know, pray about it? And this is what some people, oh, well, you know, let's just pray and seek direction from God.

No, you already have a word from God that Moses gave. So Saul is going to move forward and do what God says. And praise the Lord that Saul was a man of action. This is unfortunately another problem today.

What many modern Christian leaders do or fail to do, they don't want to fight today's battles. They just want to sit around and talk about it, sit around and pray about it when God has already given the answer in his word.

The answer is clear. Earnestly contend for the faith. And the answer here in the Old Testament is clear. Fight the Canaanite tribes. Dwell in the land. Possess the land. So Saul didn't need to pray about it.

Now, praying is good, obviously, but he didn't have to pray for an answer is the point. So fight the spiritual battle. I mean, this is the takeaway. This is the application for us. We're reading about Saul fighting a physical battle.

That's the application for you. Fight the spiritual battle. There's a spiritual war going on today. And God's people, like Saul, we must face the issues. Head on, do what God's word says. But again, the people, they don't have this direction.

They need a leader. They need someone to tell them. They're ready to compromise and make this deal with the Ammonites. Wrong thing to do. Remember, the word of the Lord given to Moses and to Joshua gave clear instructions to the Israelites.

Fight the tribes. Fight the Canaanites. Drive them out. The Hivite, the Jebusite, drive them out. Do not make any covenants with them. And the application for us, always making application. If you don't make application, reading the Bible is kind of pointless because it's some story that happened 3 ,000 years ago.

And what does that mean for you today? We must make application. So God told the Israelites, do not make covenants. Do not make agreements with the enemy. Same thing today. Do not compromise with the enemy.

We have to fight the enemy. Fight temptation. We have to confront open sin. We need to battle against heresy. Those who have the spirit in the Old Testament picked up the physical sword. We pick up the spiritual sword, which is the word of God.

The sword of the spirit. 1 Samuel 11, verse 6, again says, Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news, and his anger was greatly aroused. So he took a yoke of oxen, and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hands of the messengers, saying, Whoever does not go out with Saul and Samuel to battle, so it shall be done to his oxen.

So we see here that Saul and Samuel were a team. And the children of Israel were behind them. When the people heard this word from Saul, the fear of God fell upon them, and they came out united. The word translated fear means exactly that.

Terror or dread. Now there is, just like we said, there's a healthy kind of anger, righteous indignation, and a bad type of anger. Well, there's a healthy kind of fear and an unhealthy type of fear. And it really depends on who or what you are fearing.

A fear of man is bad. Fearing threats that don't exist or paranoia, that's bad. Fearing God, however, is good. Jesus said, you know, don't fear man. What can man do to you? He can kill the body. Fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.

That's what Jesus said. But again, this is another thing that's not, often not taught in churches today. This is why the apostle Paul said, I did not shun from preaching the whole counsel of God from you or to you.

So we need to preach the whole counsel of God. And then we see all of these biblical truths. So the fear of the Lord, what does the Bible say? It's the beginning of wisdom. So the children of Israel, when Saul sends this message, the fear of God falls upon the people, and it's seen as a good thing because he unites the people.

All too often today, people don't fear God. Instead, they view God as sort of like their buddy. He's sort of like Santa Claus or a permissive grandfather. He's, you know, if he's upset, he might kind of give you that look.

But, you know, he's a pushover and he's not, he'll let it slide. He's not going to do anything wrong. That's not the God of the Bible. The children of Israel had a lot of problems. But at least at this moment, they understood who God was.

They understood who they were, and they came out in one consent. When God's anointed king gave the order, they stood behind the leader. And what is the order given by God's anointed king today? The Lord Jesus Christ, Acts 17, 30 and 31, says that God now commands all men everywhere to repent because he has appointed a day on which you will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained.

And he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead. The great commission is to go out and make disciples of all the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to teach them all that Christ commanded.

Again, that's the whole counsel of God. So the only question is, for the people back then and people today, are we going to listen to the Lord? The children of Israel came out.

The Victory Over Nahash and the Fear of the Lord

What do we see?

They came out in numbers, 300 ,000 men, 30 ,000 from Judah alone. When the men of Jabesh heard that their brethren were coming out to their defense,.

They were glad.

They were relieved. Salvation was on its way. And it was all because of King Saul's strong leadership. Saul not only showed strength, he showed smarts. Using military strategy, he put the people into three companies and launched a surprise attack in the morning hours.

So it says that no two of them were left together. In other words, Saul totally routed the enemy. So great was this victory. The men that spoke ill of King Saul back in the last chapter, I mean, the soldier, I mean, the people love Saul so much.

This really solidified everything for Saul. And now his supporters are like, who are those guys that were speaking against Saul back in chapter 10?

Let's go get them.

What did they say? That we, well, they say, yeah, let's kill them. You know, because if Saul has any enemies among the Amorites, okay, they're gone. If he has any enemies in Israel, let's get rid of them too.

But we read in verse 12, then the people said to Samuel, who is he who said, shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. But notice Saul's response in verse 13. He says, not a man shall be put to death this day.

For today, the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel. So in conclusion, Saul, picturing Christ, brought salvation to Israel by crushing Nahash, whose name means serpent. All of this is what? It's a picture of the gospel.

How Christ has defeated the devil. He has defeated the kingdom of darkness. And by rising from the grave, he has defeated the final enemy, which is death itself. So we should have nothing to fear. Just as God through his anointed fought for the children of Israel, so the Lord will fight for us.

All we need to do is listen. All we need to do is obey. So at this point in history, are we like the men of Jabesh? You know, they were going to wait seven days. Defeat was staring them in the face until Saul and his army arrived.

And that's sort of what we're doing right now, right?

We're waiting.

The way things look, certain defeat, the world, the flesh and the devil have us beat. That's kind of the way things look right now. And the temptation for some of us is because of that to compromise, maybe strike a deal with the enemy.

That isn't going to work. Remember, the enemy isn't interested in deals. The enemy only wants to kill and destroy. But thanks be to God that just as Saul was on his way. So today Jesus is coming back.

And when he does, he will put every enemy under his feet. So with that, be encouraged. The chapter closes with verses 14 and 15. It says,. Then Samuel said to the people, come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there.

So all the people went to Gilgal and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord. And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.