The Sovereignty of God: Lessons from Saul's Kingship

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Well, we're going to pick up in our study in 1st Samuel.

I know it's been a little while, and maybe for some of you, you haven't been with us in this study.

And so we ended at the end of chapter 10.

Last time we were here, it's been a few weeks.

And so that means we'll start in chapter 11.

And so if you can turn with me to First Samuel, chapter 11, we'll go ahead and get started in our study tonight.

And I will do my best to recap you.

But really, where we're at in the narrative here in First Samuel is Saul, Israel's first king, has been anointed by God and by Samuel.

And we know that that was literally done through a vial of oil being poured out upon Saul's head.

And that was not only a visual picture of God choosing him, but also that the.

The Spirit of God would be upon him.

And we know, and in this chapter we'll see that the Spirit of God does come upon Saul.

And so Saul sometimes gets a very negative testimony, rightfully so, for many of the bad decision that he makes.

But there are people, periods of time in Saul's life where he does obey the Lord.

And even though seemingly it looked like Saul was the people's choice, even though they did have a choice in that, but God ultimately is in control.

And that's really in our own life.

A spiritual lesson that we all can understand is that no matter what decision we make or no matter what inclinations that we have or our opinions, ultimately God's in control.

And everything that does happen is allowed by him, whether we consider it to be good or bad, whether we consider Saul to be a good king or a bad king, God was ultimately in control.

And we're going to see a good example of King Saul when he follows God's obedience here in chapter 11.

So if you have your Bibles, again, look at with, with me, chapter 11, verse 1, it says then Nahash.

Now we're going to stop there.

There's this guy named Nahash in this chapter, and you need to know a little bit about him because he is an ammonite.

An ammonite was The a group of people that came against the Israelites, one of the many people that came against the Israelites here in first Sam.

But the name Nahash actually has a really important meaning.

The name Nahash means serpent or snake.

And what we can tell through this passage is that Nahash was a real person.

We understand that, but we also understand that Nahash is a picture of Satan and the way that he works in our life as he attacks.

And so a lot of times we'll see that in the Old Testament, we'll see someone who is literally there in the story, in the narrative, doing there, that work as a human, but also a symbol or a picture of something else.

So, for example, some people consider Joseph to be a type of Christ.

There's other examples of Joshua being a type of Christ.

And we see in this case, Nahash is a type of Satan.

Now, I'm not saying that there's different Satans in the world.

What I'm saying is this an example of Satan.

So then Nahash the Ammonite, came up and encamped against Jabash Gilead.

So he and his army circles this place called Jabash Gilead.

And it says, and all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, make a covenant with us and we will serve thee.

And so what we see here is that the people of Jabesh Gilead were struck with fear.

And.

And there's an.

A response here, a fleshly fearful response.

And that is a response of compromise, meaning this, this Ammonite, this man named Nahash, is evil.

He causes us to fear because he's going to come and he's going to take us.

He's going to kill us.

And so what we need to do is instead of standing up against him and trusting in our Lord, we're going to submit to him.

And as we see, there's two things that they do.

It says that they want to make a covenant with him.

And so making a covenant with him would.

Would essentially be this.

We're going to agree upon some kind of terms and will allow you to tell us what to do.

And essentially they say that at the end of the verse, they say, yes, we want to make a covenant with you, and in that covenant we will serve you.

And what we see in verse number one is a picture of spiritual compromise.

When the attack is there, when Satan comes and he throws fiery darts, as the book of Ephesians says.

And when Satan comes and lies to us, as the Bible says, he's the father of lies, he's A the great deceiver when he comes in.

And.

And he is really what he's trying to do here, what Nahash is trying to do is he's trying to intimidate.

And that's what Satan does.

And if we.

We sang it tonight, there's no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.

So Satan cannot condemn us and Satan cannot steal our souls.

He cannot take away our hope.

But what he can do is he can intimidate us to act like we have no hope, to act like we have no confidence, to act like we have no future.

And that's what we really see happening here.

So the Ammonite enemy Nahash surrounds this Israelite city.

And by doing this, his demands are clear.

He wants to completely destroy them.

He wants to take over.

He wants them to surrender and he wants to conquer them.

And that's what Satan wants to do with us.

He wants to conquer us.

He wants to have us to a place of surrender in our life to him.

And so the.

The people there in Jabesh Gilead felt like their only hope for survival was compromise.

And I think that there's a lot of people in this world today that respond in similar ways.

They.

They are faced with a trial, they're faced with a temptation, they're faced with some type of evil in their life.

And they believe that the only response is to give in.

The only response is to really submit to the.

The enemy.

And that's what we see happening here.

They.

They say, we want to surrender and we will serve you.

Please make a covenant with us.

And they think that really the only two options are this surrender to this evil person or be killed.

And really that's a false dichotomy because what we see here is that there's another choice.

The other choice would be to submit to their God and to say, no, we're not going to compromise.

We're not going to give in.

We're not going to allow ourselves to serve you.

We're going to serve our Lord.

And that's sometimes what we see within our own spiritual lives.

We think that there's only really two options.

It's either give in to the temptation or die.

Really, the Bible says that there's another path, and that's trusting in the Lord.

And so let's see what Nahash's response is here.

Because essentially what they're doing is saying, nahash, we'll do anything.

Please give us some type of peace, some type of mercy.

And they're asking the wrong person for mercy.

Verse 2 and Nahash the serpent, the Ammonite, answered them.

And he says, okay, on this condition.

He's a schemer, just like our enemy.

And he says, on this condition will I make a covenant with you.

So he says, I'll make a covenant with you.

I'll make some type of promise with you.

But then what's the condition?

And by the way, we need to know the conditions of the promises that we're making to the enemy.

We need to know the conditions.

Because a lot of times people are jumping right in and accepting this temptation, accepting this type of sin, but yet they don't understand what comes along with that.

So here we see Nahash telling them what the condition is.

He says, that I may thrust out all your right eyes and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel.

So he says, okay, this is what we'll do.

I will spare your life if you allow me to take out your right eyes.

All of your right eyes.

And so when the, the men of J Bash Gilead asked for a covenant, I don't think they were expecting this, but what they did basically was come to a place in which they were allowing Nahash to be the one who dictates the terms.

And so it says here that he says, I want all of your right eyes.

And, and what does that mean?

Well, he's, he's being serious about this.

And what it.

There's, there's a couple of, I think, layers to this request.

One, obviously the first and foremost indication of his heart is this.

He wants to take out their right eye so that they're not able to fight.

Right?

They, that.

That would make them somewhat lame.

Their depth perception is going to be gone.

He doesn't make them completely blind because he wants to use them for something, but he doesn't want them to be fighting against him or having any type of aggression back towards him.

So one thing would be the right eye would limit ability.

But then also we see at the end of verse number two, he says, really the ultimate goal would be to lay it for our approach upon all of Israel.

And so, so by making this move of gouging out their right eyes, it would, yes, it would bind them physically, but it will also bring humility to the nation of Israel and humility to the Lord.

And so it would.

It would make the testimony of the Lord shrink.

And that's the, that's the mindset of, of Nahash here.

And so this is, I believe, a picture of, of many people in this world that think that there is no other way so there ha.

They have to be like the best of two or three evils, so to speak.

And so that's exactly what's happening here.

They say, well, we want to make a covenant with you.

We, we want to serve you.

And he says, fine, but I'm going to take your right eye.

And we can see a similarity of how Nahash is working this temptation into their life.

As, as Satan works in our life, Satan attacks us.

And he wants us to think that there's no other hope.

Satan wants to steal our hope.

Satan wants to steal our joy.

Satan wants to steal our clarity.

And so Satan attacks us.

But really, really, in this case, Satan wants complete surrender.

Just as God wants us to surrender to him, Satan wants us to surrender him.

And that's what Nahash is saying here.

Obviously, Satan wants us to serve him.

Satan wants us to do the things that he wants us to do.

And so he does that through intimidation.

And that's exactly what Nahash is doing here.

Satan wants to humiliate us, and that's what Nahash is doing by taking out their right eye.

And ultimately he says, I want to do it not just to harm you, but to bring reproach upon all of Israel.

And so there's a mention here of complete destruction and I think even another picture.

Satan wants to blind us.

Satan wants us to not see the things that are going on around us.

I mean, obviously he can try to deceive us and, and, and try to pull us away from where the truth is.

But ultimately what Satan might try to do is just try to blind us or get us to look a different direction.

Sometimes that's how we live our lives.

We live with blinders.

And so that's essentially the, the parallel we see between Nahash and Satan.

Verse 3.

And the elders of Jabesh said unto him, give us seven days respite and that we may send messengers unto all the coast of Israel.

And then if there be no man to save us, we will come out to thee.

And so obviously they're thinking, that's a big ask for us to give up our right eye.

And so please give us seven days to think about this.

And basically in these seven days we're looking for a Savior.

But we see even in verse three that there's hopelessness because they said maybe, maybe there's someone to save us.

And so the, the men of this city were in a difficult spot.

They're in fear.

They're petrified by fear.

They know that they, in their minds, they know that they have no other choice.

And they have already submitted to Nahash.

And Nahash has said, okay, I'm going to take your right eye.

And really their question was, is there really anyone that can save us?

Now we know the answer.

We know that there's someone that can save them.

Obviously, they're God, the one who got them out of Egypt and brought them to the promised land.

We know the God who's been faithful to them, the one that sent manna from heaven, the one who provided, the one who's guiding.

But in their minds, they have lost their hope in their Savior.

And they put it to basically a sense of, well, is there anyone out there that can save us?

And that's their desire.

And I think that's.

Sometimes as Christians in our own life, we look away from what God has given us.

By way of example, throughout history, God has been faithful after 1, 2, 3, 4 instances.

And he's been faithful probably in more instances in our life.

But yet in this case, they're looking for some other type of survival, some other type of salvation.

And so they knew that there was no hope for themselves, and they knew that they must be saved by someone else.

And so it says in verse number four that then came the messengers to Gibeah, and that's where Saul is.

And so Saul hears the message.

Saul hears what's happening over in this other place with this guy named Nahash.

And it says, and told the tidings in the ears of the people.

And all the people lifted up their voices and wept.

And behold, Saul came after the herd out of the field.

So this is very interesting because Saul has already been anointed king, but yet he really hasn't been coronated.

Yet he hasn't really come to a place where he's sitting on the throne.

He's out in the field working.

This shows at this point in time, Saul's humility.

And Saul said, what Aileth?

The people that they weep.

And they told him the tidings or the news of the men of Jabesh.

And so Saul hears what's happening, and he hears that his people are submitting to evil.

He hears that there's spiritual compromise, and there's a lot of ways that he could respond.

But we see in verse number six that he gives a proper response to his people compromising spiritually.

And he says in verse six, and the Spirit of God came upon Saul.

So that indication right there at the verse, verse 6, the start of verse 6, tells us that Saul is working in the guidance and in the power and in the wisdom of God.

Because what we're about to read at the end of verse six might look like he's acting in his own flesh.

But because verse six tells us that the Spirit of God came upon Saul, we see that the way that he's acting is righteous.

We see that the way that he's acting is obedient.

And so the Spirit of God comes upon Saul and it says, when he heard those tidings, and his anger was kindled greatly.

So we all know that the Bible says, be angry, but sin not.

That's in the book of Ephesians.

And there is a time and a place for us to get angry.

There is a time and a place for us to stand up against evil.

But most of the time when we get angry within our Christian lives, and you know, you might say, speak for yourself, Pastor, I'm always righteously angry.

But let's be honest with ourselves here this evening.

Most of the time when we're angry about something, it's about a selfish thing that we are hung up on.

So for me, when I get angry, it's when someone doesn't do things my way.

Or sometimes when I get angry, someone, they insult me or, or they come against me, or they question me, or they.

They don't meet my expectations.

But we see here in this specific scenario that righteous indignation is.

Is anger against sin.

It's anger against unrighteousness.

It's anger against this shame that Nahash wants to bring upon the people of Israel and ultimately the God of Israel.

And so this was a good spirit led anger within Saul.

So there is a time and a place for us to get angry at sin, angry at things that go against the Lord's word and his will.

But I do want us to take a note here that most of the time we should not be angry.

Most of the time we should be filled with grace and joy and patience.

But there is a time and a place to stand up against evil.

And so Ephesians 4.

26 Says that we can be angry and not sin, but in most cases, our anger does lead to sin.

So we have to be very careful that even righteous anger doesn't lead us to a place of sin in our life, because that's sometimes how it can start.

Sometimes it starts with a righteous indignation against sin.

But many of you seen in throughout history that an individual might be angry at a sin, but then eventually be angry at the person and eventually be angry at a whole group and eventually lead to a place of bitterness in one's heart that leads to selfish anger.

And so in this case in verse 6, it's the Spirit of God driving Saul in his anger.

And it's going to lead him to obedience and lead him to do something that he should be doing.

It's a.

It's in a righteous concern for the cause of the Lord and his people.

So if you wanted a good definition of righteous anger, it would be this.

It would be anger in.

In a righteous concern for the cause of the Lord and his people.

So I. I think that that could be a whole other lesson in and of itself.

When should be.

When.

When should we be righteously angry?

And when should we just extend patience and let things go?

And I would say in most cases, if it's against me in a personal slight, Jesus spoke to that turn the other cheek, right?

That's.

If it's a personal slight against me, I don't need to get righteously angry.

But when it's about the will and the word of God and his people, that's when we should stand up.

So let's see what he does here, because what he does here is pretty shocking.

I mean, this seems like something that someone would do in a movie, the, you know, threaten another person.

And this is exactly what he's doing.

He's trying to really turn around and challenge the people of Israel to stand up against Nahash.

Verse 7.

And he took a yoke of oxen and hewed them in pieces.

So you guys know what he did?

He took a bunch of oxen, cut them up, and sent them throughout all the coast of Israel by the hands of messengers.

So he tells these messengers, take these to all the places in Israel and say this, whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, and meaning Saul and Samuel are in the way of God, we're going to go defend the truth.

We're going to go defend righteousness.

We're going to go defend our land.

We're going to defend our God.

He says, so if.

If you don't come with us, and.

And it says in verse seven, and the fear of the Lord fell upon.

And this is the response of it.

He says, if you don't come with Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.

Meaning this, if you don't stand up with me and with Samuel and with God, this is what's going to happen to you.

I mean, Nahash is not just going to stop with Gilead.

He's going to go on to every other place.

And if we don't stand up now, spiritual compromise is going to spread throughout all of the land.

And we got to stand up and cut it out right now.

And the response is, it says, the fear of the Lord fell upon the people and they came out with one consent, meaning they respond properly to the preaching of the Word of God.

They respond with a fear of God.

And I think that's important to note there in verse number seven, the fear of the Lord fell on the people.

Not.

Not the fear of Nahash, because that would be.

That would be another way to respond would be, wow, if Nahash is coming, man, we need to maybe make a compromise with him.

Maybe we need to make a covenant.

Maybe we're willing to give up our right eye for our safety, but instead we see it's the fear of the Lord.

And really that's what we can do in our life.

We can either fear the enemy, we can fear the world, we can fear sin, or we can fear the Lord and respond properly.

And that's what they do.

And we know that they respond properly because it says in verse seven, and they came out with one consent, meaning they were unified.

They're.

They're coming together in unity to fight for the Lord.

And so Saul's message to them worked.

When those pieces of oxen went out unto them and Israel saw what was at stake, they knew that the Lord called them to unite against the enemy.

And that really, that's the message for all of us as Christians, we should pray, as Jesus prayed In John chapter 17, to live a life within the church with unity.

Why?

Because Jesus understood and experienced what happens when God's people fight against each other.

Because if God's people are fighting against each other and not unified, they're not going to be able to fight against the real enemy which is coming like Nahash, from the outside.

And what we can see within the church and what we can see within one Samuel with the people of Israel, is that when God was at work and the fear of the Lord was in their presence, and when they realized truly what they were fighting against, they unified themselves together.

Now we see a world today that's really characterized by division.

We see a country divided, we see a world divided.

And oftentimes we see a church divided.

We're not just talking about our church, but I'm talking about Christians at large.

And really what we see here is that the reason why many times, I believe, and I think scripturally it's true, the reason why we're divided is because we're not unified with the Fear of the Lord.

We're not unified with the same purpose, and we're living in the spirit of fear instead of a fear of man, the fear of the enemy instead of the fear of God.

And so I love the way that verse seven ends because it says that as the message goes out, there's this realization that there's a real threat.

And by the way, the Bible tells us in the book of Ephesians that there's a real threat.

We're not fighting against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and all these different types of things in this world that's spiritually coming to attack not only the unsaved, but also to attack the church.

The Bible says that Satan is firing his darts at us and that ultimately what he wants to do is he wants to discourage us and he wants to divide us.

And that's why Jesus prays in John 17 to the Father that it is his will that the people walk in unity.

And so that's the idea here.

In verse number seven, it says they walk with one consent, with a unified spirit, with a unified heart against the common enemy.

And let me tell you here this evening, all of us have a common enemy.

You say, yeah, I have a common enemy.

It's this person.

Well, no, that's, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the common enemy of, Of Satan, of.

Of.

Of sin, of the evil one.

And therefore we must be unified together so we're able to fight against the one who is coming after all of us and wanting us to be separated.

You know, an interesting part of the armor of God, if you do a study in the armor of God, one of the interesting parts of the armor of God is studying about the shield of faith.

And most of you know what the shield of faith is.

But the shield of faith is, is our.

Is our salvation.

It's our foundation of believing in God and what he says.

And literally, the, the.

The shield.

Paul was describing the shield as a Roman shield.

What they would have done is they would have covered the shield with animal skins and they would have drenched it in water so that as the fiery darts came, they would stick into the shield and they would be extinguished.

And that's really the hope that we have in faith is that those fiery darts can be extinguished when we're able to use that in faith, when we're able to lean into what God has called us to do by trusting in him.

And, and I also will say this.

One of the other aspects of the shield of Faith, which often doesn't get talked about, is part of Roman defense, was that when they would get together and there would be people firing darts at them, they would all lock their shields together.

There was a way that all their shields would interlock, and then they would be able to basically build what they called a turtle shell or a tortoise shell.

They would all lock their shields and they would all stand together so that no one could get them from behind, no one can get them from the top, no one can get them from the front.

And so a part of the shield of faith is not only having individual faith, but it's having corporate faith together with other people in unity so that we can lock shields and have a defense.

So that I've got your back and you've got my back.

Ultimately, God's got all of our backs.

And that's the idea that we see here in verse seven, is that they came together with one consent.

They came together in one accord.

And that's the idea of the shield of faith.

And so we go a little bit further, verse 8.

And when he had numbered them in Bezek, the children of Israel were 300,000 and the men of Judah 30,000.

And they said unto the messengers that came, thus shall ye say unto the men of Jabesh, Gilead, tomorrow, by that time the sun will be hot.

Ye shall have help.

Meaning this.

There's we're coming.

Help is on the way.

Don't give up.

And I think that that's a message, too, that some of us need to hear that, that I've needed to hear in many cases in my life.

I don't know if you've ever been going through a trial and you've been tempted to quit, you've been tempted to give in, you've been tempted to surrender to the enemy.

The advice that we all should have to one another, and the advice that God gives us is, just stand fast.

Help is on the way.

Rest in the goodness of God.

Look to the hope that you have in him.

And that's what he says in verse eight.

Tell them that help is on the way.

Verse eight and nine, he says, it's coming.

And so verse number nine, he says, and the messengers came and showed it to the men of Jabesh, and they were glad.

So with encouragement comes joy, with encouragement comes peace.

And I think that's one of the things that we need to think about as well.

We sang tonight.

I've got the joy of the Lord in my heart.

I got the peace that passes all understanding in my heart.

And oftentimes we think about those things and we think about them as circumstantial joy and circumstantial peace.

So, for example, I think of think about your happy place and I don't know if any of you guys have a happy place.

You know what I mean?

Some of you it might be the mountains or some people, it's the beach.

Some people it's the city.

I don't know how in the world the city could be your happy place.

But that's.

That gives me anxiety and stress.

But whatever it is, you have a place where you're like, okay, that's my place of peace.

And I'm not saying those are wrong.

But what I'm saying is biblical peace is not just getting away and being in your happy place.

Biblical peace is being in the midst of the battle and having the calmness and the serenity of God in your life so that you don't panic and that you don't run away, that you don't give up.

It's the same thing with joy.

I used to think that, well, that means that God's going to remove me and give me peace.

That's going to mean that God's going to make all these joyful things happen in my life and I'm never going to have any problems.

But that's not biblical peace and joy.

Biblical peace and joy is I'm in the battle, but I can have joy.

I might have something not happy happening to me right now, but I also can have joy.

I can have a sense of contentment in the midst of trials.

And so that's what we see there at the end of verse nine.

Nahash hasn't left yet, by the way.

The guy, the people there, the guys in J. Bash Gilead did not find gladness when Nahash left.

They found gladness to know that God was coming with help, with the support of others.

And I think that's important to note at the end of verse nine is that their gladness is.

Didn't come from a circumstance changing.

It came through understanding that there's support in the Lord that he is coming and that they have victory in him.

And I want to extend that to you here this evening, that encouragement that things might not get better tomorrow.

Circumstantially.

I know for me when I. I recently had a situation and some of you agree and know what I mean by this, you have some physical pain.

What's our immediate ask to the Lord, Lord, take this pain away.

I completely wholesale think that it's okay to ask the Lord to take the pain away.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying we should stop asking God to heal us.

I'm not saying that either.

But what I'm also saying is this.

In the midst of the pain, don't doubt that God is real.

Don't question him if he doesn't immediately take it away.

And I think that's the idea here, is that Nahash is not gone, but they know that there is support.

And we must understand that.

The advice is this.

Don't look to your outcome as your joy, as your confidence.

Look to your Savior as your confidence.

Verse 10.

Therefore, the men of Jabesh said, tomorrow we will come out unto you, and you shall do with us all that seemeth good unto you.

And so the idea here is this, that they're going to be submissive to the Lord, and ultimately Saul is going to come with that support.

Saul is going to be the figurehead in showing them the power of God.

And so before, they didn't know if anyone was going to save them.

Remember, back all the way, they're like, give us seven days.

I don't know.

We don't have any hope.

Who's going to save us?

They went from that type of hopelessness.

Now they have someone on the way to save them.

And so really, it's this.

Knowing that they have salvation brings them joy.

And that's the way it should be for us, knowing that we have ultimate salvation, we have a Savior.

That's what brings us joy.

And so there's going to be this.

Essentially they kind of do like a deception to Nahash.

They say, tomorrow, by that time we're gonna come out and we're gonna be there.

Verse 11.

And it was so on the morrow that Saul put the people in three companies.

This shows his leadership.

He breaks them, breaks them up into three different groups.

And they came in the midst of the host in the morning watch and slew the Ammonites until the heat of the day.

And it came to pass that they which remain were scattered so that the two of them were not left together.

So this speaks again of a complete defeat through.

Through Saul's action, through his obedience to the Lord, and ultimately through God's power and his blessing, we see that the.

The army of the Ammonites and Nahash really had no hope to have victory.

And that's the same thing with Satan.

Satan is a defeated foe.

And I think we have to go back and remember that oftentimes we think evil is winning.

We think Satan is going to come out on top.

And sometimes it looks that way.

But Satan is a defeated foe.

The defeat happened.

I mean, you could argue it happened from the very beginning.

He had no hope.

But really, you could really, I believe, argue that the defeat was on the cross, the feet, the feat was through the resurrection.

Just what we celebrated this past weekend.

But Satan is a defeated foe, just as Nahash was a defeated foe.

And we have to live that way.

We have to stay confident in that.

Verse 12.

And the people said unto Samuel, who is he that said, shall Saul reign over us?

Bring the men that we may put them to death?

Now, you might not.

If you.

If you haven't been with us in the study, you might not understand what was just asked to Samuel.

But if, if you do remember in chapter 10, where we just left off, there were people, they were called the children of Belial, which means they were the children of emptiness, children of vanity, children of worthlessness.

They questioned God and Samuel and Saul and basically said this, how can this man save us?

How can Saul be our leader?

And it says that they despised him and brought him no presence, and Saul held his peace.

And so now the people that are excited about this victory turn to Samuel and say, Samuel, who are those people that were questioning Saul?

We need to bring them in and we need to put them to death because they had no right to question Saul.

Look how great Saul is.

And then let's see what happens.

Let's see what Saul does.

Verse 13.

And Saul said, there shall not a man be put to death this day, for today the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel.

So Saul has another good response.

He says, no, no, let's not put them to death.

Let's have grace on them.

Why?

Not because they need it.

Not because they earned it, but because why the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel.

So it was essentially their salvation in that moment that allowed for Saul to extend grace and mercy to them.

So the lesson that we can learn through that is as we experience God's grace and mercy, we should turn and extend grace and mercy to other people.

It's like this, you know, if.

If you're for.

God's forgiven you of everything, right?

There's a.

There's a parable about this in Scripture, but God's forgiven you of so much, and then you're not willing to forgive.

God's given you grace and mercy and patience, but you're not willing to have grace and mercy and patience with other people.

There's a disconnect there.

So how do we tap into being more gracious?

How do we tap into being more peaceful and patient and merciful and forgiving?

Well, we don't just try harder.

Because then, you know, everything I've ever tried to do in my life, just by trying hard, I eventually fail because I'm inadequate in those things.

So the way that we grow in all the things that God has called us to do is by looking to his example, by understanding his forgiveness.

And there's so many parallels to First Samuel, chapter 11 and Ephesians chapter 4.

And I think that it's a verse that all of us should look to as a sense of a challenge in our life.

For me, it's such a challenging verse.

Ephesians, chapter 4.

If you look at the very end of the chapter, it tells us the reason why we should forgive one another.

Essentially, Saul is forgiving those people that question him.

Saul had every right in the eyes of the people in Israel to say, you know what?

They questioned me.

They're dead, they're gone.

Forget them.

You know, get off the truck or you're going to get run over.

That's what essentially Saul could have said.

But as he's resting in the spirit of the Lord, he responds with what Ephesians 4:32 says, and be kind, one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.

Why?

Because it's good for your health.

Well, some people say that.

Some people say the reason why you should forgive is just because it's this burden upon you and it's going to make you sick.

Well, maybe true, but that's not the theological reason why we are supposed to forgive other people.

It says here, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you.

Meaning the reason why we forgive is not because it's good for my health.

The reason why we forgive is.

Is not so that people will be nice to me and forgive me.

The reason why we forgive is because we've been so forgiven by the Lord through Jesus Christ.

And that's what Saul is essentially doing.

Even though Saul in his mind is probably not thinking about all of those implications of the Messiah, he's looking here and he says, hey, let's not put them to death.

Why?

Because today we experience salvation, and that's really how we should respond to people that are coming against us.

You know what?

I'm not going to respond.

Evil for evil.

Why?

Because God has given me something better than that.

That vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.

And so S. Now, now I will tell you, Saul is not a master at this.

Because later on, Saul does take opportunities to get revenge.

We even know that with David, right?

Some of you know, the Saul that chases after David and has no reason to kill him, but wants to kill him because he's jealous.

That's what the picture of a person who isn't walking in the Spirit acts like.

But someone who is walking in the Spirit is filled with what we've seen.

Unity, gladness, forgiveness.

And so verse 14, then, then said Samuel to the people, come and let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there.

And as many of you know, Gilgal is that picture of strength.

It's the picture of.

Of trusting in the Lord.

And so through this military victory and really through the spiritual victory, we see them have unity, gladness, forgiveness.

And even what we see here is motivation and strength.

He says, and renew the kingdom.

There's.

There's that renewal, that revival.

We.

We hear many people within our church.

You know, I. I think of Pastor Carlos all the time.

He says we're praying for revival.

Where does revival come from?

Because sometimes we just say that word revival or renewal.

What revival used to mean for me was that there was a tent outside of our church and there was a guy who would preach all week and that.

I don't know.

Like, we got fired up that week and we got excited.

Next week we went back to normal.

That's not revival.

That's not renewal.

Renewal and revival is a change of heart, really.

If you think about renewal and revival, it's always linked to repentance because repentance is physically turning away from something and turning to something.

So.

So for the Christian, it's turning away from sin and compromise and hopelessness and my own works and turning to Christ and longing for his grace and his mercy.

So I think about that when it comes to renewal.

For the repentance for them was at the very beginning of this chapter.

They were hopeless.

They were thinking that there is no hope because, hey, this guy Nahash is right out in front of us.

He's about to kill us.

So we gotta compromise.

They went from that type of hopelessness now to having complete spiritual victory.

And now they say, okay, now it's time for renewal.

Now it's time for revival.

And if we want revival within our church, we have to start thinking differently, start believing differently, and start acting differently and saying this, you know what?

I'm not going to be hopeless.

I'm not going to act like the world, every other country in the world at that time, every other land in that world at that time, it would have been completely understandable for them to act like this because they say, hey, there's an enemy against us.

We got to compromise, we got to save ourselves.

We have no other hope.

We have no God that can save us.

But Israel was different because they had a God of salvation that had already proven himself.

So Israel was called to act differently than the world.

If you don't know, know that.

Read the whole book of Leviticus.

The whole book of Leviticus.

A lot of people think it's just a bunch of laws, which it is, but it's also a distinction from all the other nations of the world to be different, to not be like the world.

And so God's plan for his people has always been to be different.

So what does that mean?

That means this.

When the Nahash comes against us, whoever, whoever Nahash is for you, when, when that situation comes up in our life, we don't act like every other person in the world that doesn't have hope.

We act like a person who has a savior, who has hope.

And that's, and that's the idea of victory.

We have, we have, and I've been there.

We have too many Christians that are acting like the world acts.

When temptations and trials come our way.

We feel like there's no other choice but to choose the way of evil.

And, and then ultimately, hey, well, we just have to compromise.

We're not going to completely deny God, but we're going to give up a ground.

We're going to give our right eye.

And that's really what we see here in this passage.

And so they push forward in belief and God gives them renewal.

Verse 15.

And all the people went to Gilgal.

So they go to this unified place.

And there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal, and there they sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord.

And there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

So this is the product of the renewal or the revival.

It would be this, that there were sacrifices and peace offerings before the Lord.

What's that?

That was the way that they worshiped.

So, so link to renewal and revival is a heart of worship to the Lord and, and folks, we have so many reasons to worship.

I would encourage you to sit down.

We did a little bit about this.

If some of you were here on Saturday and you remember, we just sat down and thought of reasons that we should worship the Lord for his character, all the character traits that he has, his characteristics for what he's done.

I mean, you could sit there and you should be able to sit there and think about all the reasons to worship him.

And I've often been in a church service where worship is happening through songs or through prayer or through preaching.

And I have not had the heart of worship.

And I think all of us could identify a time in our life where we were going through the motions and we had everything in our mind but worship.

You know, thinking about all the problems that we have at home or at work, or thinking about how chaotic it was just to get into church that day, or thinking about the job that we have to do on Monday, or thinking about, you know, that person across the room that harmed me.

And we have everything in our minds and in our hearts other than worship.

Folks, that's.

That's not a place of renewal and repentance and revival.

We're never going to find rejuvenation in the Lord if our hearts are placed somewhere else.

So what we have to do is, what they did in this place is they came to the Lord and they submitted themselves to him and they said, here's our offerings, here's our sacrifices.

And then the result would be this.

And they all rejoice greatly.

And there's that joy of the Lord.

Joy of the Lord is our strength.

And so, you know, I wasn't looking.

I purposefully didn't turn around and look.

But I've been the one that's singing a song in church.

The joy of the Lord.

You know, I got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.

And my face is like, I've got the joy, George.

You know, it's.

I know we're.

I know we're tired.

I know it's Wednesday.

I know we got a lot going on.

I look, so I. I don't know, but I've been the one that's been singing the song about how great my father's love for me is.

And I'm sitting there just like, not thinking about it, really.

And I think that what we have to do is truly, if we don't have the joy of the Lord, I'm not here to condemn you if you don't have the joy.

I'm not like those Christians that say, if you don't have the joy, there's something wrong with you.

But.

But truly, in my life, where.

Where I have come to a place of understanding is this.

If I don't have the joy of the Lord, I need to inspect my life.

There's something that has taken the Joy of the Lord.

And, and even David says, renew in me the joy of my salvation.

So, so if there is no joy in the Christian's life, what should we do?

We'll just get more upset, find more reasons to complain.

No, we inspect our life and ask the Lord to give us clarity.

As David said.

Search me, oh God.

Know my thoughts.

Try me.

Try me.

Know my thoughts.

And, and what I would encourage you to do is if.

If there is a place in your life where you lack the joy of the Lord, inspect your thoughts, inspect your beliefs, inspect.

Inspect your intake, inspect your.

Your output.

Inspect everything and say, well, you know what?

Maybe the reason why the joy of the Lord is not my strength is because at this point in time, my focus is on something else.

Maybe, maybe I don't have joy right now because I have a harbored sin in my life.

Maybe I don't have the joy because a physical thing is pulling my attention away.

And so think about it this way.

You have the attention, the affection, the orientation.

These are all things that we need to get back to in coming to a sense of joy of the Lord in our lives.

And so, First Samuel, Chapter 11, I believe, is a great story, a great account of a guy named Nahash who is a picture of Satan who's coming against the people of God.

There's the temptation to quit, there's a temptation to compromise, there's a temptation to serve him.

But ultimately, it's the Lord and the obedience of God's people and truly the righteous indignation of God's people and the action of God's people that cause a sense of understanding of the salvation that God can provide.

And that brought about gladness, that brought about unity, that brought about worship, that brought about all these things that we mentioned here this evening that ultimately brought renewed revival and rejoicing in the Lord.

And so I hope that's a challenge and encouragement for you here this evening.

I will say that I wish I could tell you that the rest of the story for Saul was that he stayed in this path, but he didn't.

And we know that there were certainly some things in Saul's life that causes him to turn away from the joy of the Lord.

And you see him in the story with David where he has no joy at all.

He's.

He's plagued by all of these torturous things of darkness, sadness and anxiety, depression.

And I'm not saying that all those things are stemming to a spiritual aspect, but what I am saying is that we know Saul's was.

We know, Saul's was connected to where his heart was connected to.

And in comparison, Saul and David sin.

I think we all understand that Saul had sins in his life, David had sins in his life.

One could even argue that some of the things that David did were more egregious than Saul.

But what was the difference?

We're going to get to David.

David was a man after God's own heart.

And so it's not always a matter of what we've done in our life, but it's a matter of where our heart is connected.

And David's heart, though he sinned, was always a repentant and contrite spirit.

Where Saul's did not respond in a contrite spirit, it actually was more pride and more ego.

And that's where we see his demise.

And so it's not a matter of perfection because David wasn't perfect, but David was a man after God's own heart.

And that was the delineation between the man of Saul and the man of David.

And we'll talk more about that as we continue on in the study.

Well, let's go ahead and pause there and we'll come back, Lord willing, next week and look at chapter 12 in First Samuel.

And there will be an urge to follow God in the land of Israel, and hopefully we will grow in our understanding of how to do that in our own lives.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.