Latest / Wetumpka Church of Christ Online / Saul: When Partial Obedience Becomes Disobedience

Transcript

Saul: When Partial Obedience Becomes Disobedience · Wetumpka Church of Christ Online

0:01
All right, good morning, everyone.
0:03
Everyone's doing, everyone's doing well this morning.
0:06
We're going to keep going on with our our look at biblical
0:10
kings and get to Saul today. Now I did not.
0:15
Now I'm not really doing a chronological, it's going to
0:20
look chronological, but but I'm not.
0:24
But we're skipping a lot of guys.
0:26
And so some of them we won't, we won't touch on, but most of the
0:31
the important ones we will. And when I say important ones,
0:35
ones that we can really learn lessons from, good or bad.
0:39
And so today we're going to look at Saul.
0:41
And Saul doesn't start out like a terrible guy really.
0:44
I mean, starts out, you know, some commendable qualities, it
0:48
seems like. But as you know, it ends up
0:53
very, very unfortunate at the end.
0:58
So we'll, we'll look at this guy and, and see what, see what we
1:02
can do. Last week we looked at God and
1:05
basically just looked at God as king and covenant maker.
1:11
And then we've kind of finished up with it's, you know, when you
1:16
look at God as a king, it sort of makes his word kind of gives
1:20
you a different, gives you a different perspective or an
1:23
angle on it because you look you look at the Bible and this isn't
1:27
just, you know, a holy book. This is actually a royal decree.
1:32
And so that that kind of gives you an extra dimension of
1:35
appreciation for the authority of God's word.
1:40
And so today we're going to look at Saul and the basic idea is to
1:48
obey is better than sacrifice. Of course, you guys know that
1:51
that's very famous statement that Samuel makes after Saul has
1:55
royally messed things up. You could argue three times in a
2:00
row. Big two big ones, right?
2:02
And then a really rashed vow with with Jonathan in in chapter
2:08
14, chapter 13 and 15 is where we're going to spend a lot of
2:11
time today in first Samuel. So if you want to turn there
2:16
with me, we'll we'll just kind of kind of go through there now.
2:23
Kings in the ancient world, I think we're sort of like leaders
2:26
today. I mean, I mean, we have certain
2:28
expectations of leaders. And when you think of folks who
2:35
are, who are leadership material, we were public
2:44
servants, public authorities, we usually have several things in
2:48
mind. We usually think of them as
2:50
being very 1 is very tall, right, and charismatic and
2:53
sometimes attractive, right? You look at the biblical text
2:56
and they're actually Saul, Absalom, David, his, I mean,
3:00
David's family, right? They're all described as
3:03
attractive people, you know, and, and there was a study that
3:07
came out quite a while back. It's, it's been, it's been a
3:11
while back. I read in the paper, so I can't
3:13
even remember when, but it was looking at the the symmetry of a
3:18
person's face. And the more symmetrical a
3:22
person's face is, the more attractive they tend to be.
3:26
And so there was there this, this, this is at the sports
3:30
page. It was, which is kind of like an
3:32
odd place to look for it, but it was looking at quarterbacks in
3:35
the NFL. And interestingly enough, I
3:39
think they did a top ten list. And of all the top 10
3:43
quarterbacks with the most symmetrical faces, almost every
3:48
single one of them had at least played in a Super Bowl.
3:52
Many of them had won it, Not all of them, but some.
3:56
Some of them got close, but but all of them were very successful
4:03
professional football players. For some reason we think of our
4:07
leaders as being very tall, right?
4:09
And so if you look at at presentations of like American
4:15
heroes in, in film and television.
4:18
So like this is when I was just a little guy, I remember reading
4:23
the we I lived in near Nashville and grew up near Nashville.
4:26
And so The Tennessean was the paper we had.
4:29
And I always like to read the, the the media section, like the
4:32
TV set. I forget what it was called, but
4:35
but, but when you would open that section of the paper on the
4:38
very first inside page, there was a, a, a whole page given to
4:44
this one guy who was like this expert in television and movies.
4:49
And now, now today he would be completely obsolete because all
4:52
you got to do is like go like Wikipedia and like have
4:55
everything that this guy ever knew.
4:57
But, you know, people would write in and say, Hey, you know,
5:00
I remember this TV show like, I had maybe like had this
5:02
character in it. Can you help me out?
5:04
And, and he would like know like exactly like what episode of
5:07
what television show this was in.
5:09
And so he just had like this encyclopedic knowledge of TV
5:14
shows and movies. And I remember in one of the 11,
5:20
you know, of the, of the issues of this, they, they talked about
5:25
some actor that had played, I think it was Davy Crockett.
5:28
I want to say it was Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone, either
5:31
one of the two. In fact, I think one guy did
5:33
both of them and he was very tall.
5:37
This particular actor was like 6-6.
5:40
And it was really weird because both Davy Crockett and Daniel
5:44
Boone were probably about 5-8. And so this this actor that
5:50
played these guys was about almost a foot taller than the
5:54
historical figures he was portraying.
5:57
But it fits right? And now 5/8 for their time
6:01
period was actually slightly above average, but this guy was
6:05
like, you know, this, this man mountain of a human and, and
6:09
but, but, but we, we think of that, right?
6:11
You know, George Washington, you know, about 6-2, you know, and,
6:15
and I think most of the people who have played these
6:17
characters, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone's cave, all, almost
6:21
all of them over 6 feet, right? None of them the actual, the
6:24
actual height. And so we just want to think
6:26
about that, you know, height as being very important to being a
6:29
leader, you know, having a man posing presence, Right?
6:32
And so in the ancient world, it was no difference.
6:37
You look at various presentations of Pharaohs in
6:43
Egypt, for instance. So this guy is Seti the First,
6:49
if you've ever seen the 10 Commandments, right?
6:51
Ramses the Great is the pharaoh in that.
6:53
This is his dad. OK.
6:54
So Seti the first, you see him riding in his chariot.
6:58
He's huge. You got all these little teeny
7:00
tiny prisoners of war, right, that's standing in, you know,
7:03
kind of kind of going in front of and they've got their hands
7:05
tied behind their back because they're PO WS.
7:08
And so, you know, this is not Gulliver's Travels.
7:11
He did not conquer the island of Lilly Peucha or whatever that
7:13
that place is where all these Midget people.
7:16
No, he no, he's he's depicted as this giant, right.
7:19
And so Ramses the great same way.
7:22
This is a place called the Battle of Kadesh, and he's
7:26
fighting the Hittites. And if you look really closely,
7:30
you can see them all getting trampled by his horses.
7:33
It's all these little people. Here's another shot of of
7:36
Ramses. And so you got all these all
7:38
these little folks. And so leaders were you tended
7:42
to be depicted as very tall, even when seated, they're taller
7:45
than everybody else, right? And so now we get into First
7:51
Samuel 9 and we see that Saul looks the part, right?
7:59
He is the guy who looks like he should be a leader.
8:03
So First Samuel 9, starting in verse one, there was a man of
8:09
Benjamin whose name was Kish, son of Abielle, son of Zeror,
8:13
son of Bekorat, son of Aphia, A Benjamite, a man of wealth.
8:17
OK, so he's a man of means. His dad is.
8:21
That tends to go with it as well.
8:24
You you see here he says he had a name whose son was had a son
8:28
whose name was Saul, a handsome young man.
8:31
There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome
8:34
than he from his shoulders upward, he was taller than any
8:37
of the people. So he looks the part comes from
8:40
a wealthy family kind of a small tribe.
8:44
That's OK Oh, but tribe that had had problems right, because you
8:50
go back to the end of judges and there's some issues there.
8:55
If you this is one of those things if you pay really close
8:58
attention to Saul, you see sprinkled throughout his life
9:02
are some big problems and you and you kind of get that not
9:06
just from his his big mistakes that he makes, but the biblical
9:10
writers will do things that will tell us all along the way that
9:14
Saul maybe isn't so good. And if you notice, if you, if
9:20
you go and you read the story of Samson and you read the story of
9:23
Saul, their stories are told in very similar ways.
9:26
And so there, there's a lot of parallels between those two.
9:30
So Samson, arguably the worst judge in Israelite history, does
9:36
almost nothing, almost nothing religious.
9:40
He's always hanging out with Philistines, always.
9:43
He's, he's a very hedonistic kind of fellow, just has a
9:47
little glimmer of something at the end of his life and that's
9:50
about it. You know, I praise 2 prayers.
9:53
One of them is very self-serving.
9:57
And then Saul's story is told in a very similar way,
10:01
unfortunately. Well, David, so David is a
10:05
break. So David is told in a very
10:07
positive way. But then you get that Solomon
10:11
Solomon's story is told in a very similar way as Saul's
10:15
story. And So what you find is Solomon,
10:21
if you really look closely at his life with an objective eye,
10:25
he's not such a good king either.
10:26
I mean, he ends the end of his life fighting wars constantly,
10:30
which is a covenant curse. And he makes shrines for the
10:37
gods of his wives and he goes and he worships there, right.
10:40
So you've got, you've got these like little echoes of things
10:44
that you see with Samson and Saul and Solomon.
10:47
And so that kind of gives you a little bit of a clue where this
10:50
guy is. Well, he looks the part, right?
10:54
He looks the part. Unfortunately, he is introduced
10:59
in a way that is very unflattering.
11:03
But I want to get to that in just a minute.
11:05
All right, So what I'd like to start out with is where the
11:10
Israelites come from. All right, so we're going to
11:13
talk a little bit about the Israelite monarchy and what I
11:17
want to do is I want to, I want to give us maybe kind of like a
11:21
little Bible trivia quiz here and, and I want to see what you
11:26
guys come up with. All right, so we're going to
11:28
look at four different peoples that's up here in the Bible and
11:34
I want to ask some questions about those.
11:36
All right, so we got the Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians,
11:40
and Babylonians. OK.
11:42
We actually do have quite a few references to these guys in the
11:46
Pentateuch, the book of Joshua, not so much in the book of
11:51
Judges, although there's a couple in there.
11:55
But I want to ask a question, and that is, does anyone
11:58
remember? Oh, and by the way, with my
12:02
glasses on, I see things up close, but everything is very
12:06
fuzzy. So if you have a question or a
12:08
comment, please put your hand up high so that I can see it.
12:12
Because if you know, if you're very, you know, petite like
12:15
that, you know, I'm not going to see that man.
12:17
All right, so, so if you do have a question or comment, please,
12:20
please do put your hand up pretty high.
12:22
OK, so Assyrians remember where any Assyrians are in first and
12:27
Second Samuel. OK, trick question.
12:37
There are none. Do you remember where the
12:40
Babylonians are in first and second Samuel?
12:47
Tipped by hand, Same thing. No Babylonians.
12:51
OK, what about Egyptians? Solomon with Mary?
12:54
An Egyptian? I'm trying to remember.
13:09
OK, We're going into first kings on that one.
13:13
Yeah. First and second Samuel.
13:15
We're just, we're just sticking to those two.
13:19
You can remember. No, no.
13:21
But that that is that is a yeah, she is listed as she is his
13:24
first wife and the most and the most frequently mentioned wife,
13:29
which is also a problem for Samuel.
13:31
Right. Not supposed to go back to
13:32
Egypt, Right. What are you doing?
13:34
Marrying Egyptian princesses. All right.
13:37
So there is an Egyptian warrior that is killed by Banaya, who
13:43
was who's going to become the general of the Israelite army
13:46
after David dies. And then there is an Egyptian
13:51
servant that David, I think David picks up.
13:54
He got sick. His master leaves him behind,
13:58
but and and and David kind of kind of picks him up.
14:02
But only two individuals. We're not talking about
14:04
Pharaohs, we're not talking about armies.
14:06
Just two individual guys. OK, what about Hittites?
14:12
One, you absolutely know. It's like that's like his last
14:17
name, Uriah the Hittite, right? So you got that?
14:21
There's actually one more, but he's only mentioned in one
14:25
verse. So if you get this, you get,
14:27
like, Bible trivia king slash queen prize for today.
14:31
It was like hitting ChatGPT real fast.
14:40
Where's the Hittites? Yeah.
14:42
So Abhi Melek, the Hittites, He's only mentioned one time.
14:45
He apparently is one of David's. Like Uriah is one of David's
14:48
elite officers and warriors. I only mentioned one time.
14:52
OK, so we've got 2 Egyptian individuals, 2 Hittite
14:57
individuals, no Assyrians, no Babylonians.
15:02
I thought these were the big empires of the of the ancient
15:06
worlds. I thought I thought these guys
15:08
were the were the big boys on the block.
15:11
Well, I am going to going to solve that that that question
15:18
for you. So, so why are there so few of
15:20
these people running around in first and second Samuel?
15:25
This is one of those moments that I think is the Providence
15:28
of God working in history. All right.
15:30
And sometimes you see this and it seems to be absolutely
15:32
unmistakable. So like one big example would be
15:35
if you go to the New Testament and you ask the question, why
15:40
did the early church grow so quickly?
15:42
Why was the gospel able to spread so quickly?
15:46
And that is because about 300 years before, Alexander the
15:50
Great had come in and, you know, bulldozed everybody and given
15:54
Greek culture to everything. And, and so over those 300 plus
15:58
years, people began to speak Greek, mostly elite people, but
16:02
average people sometimes too. And so the New Testament's
16:06
written in Greek. Most people speak Greek.
16:09
OK, so you're not going to have a language barrier.
16:13
Same thing with the Roman roads. Romans came in, they were very
16:16
good Rd. builders. I mean, there are places today,
16:19
I mean you still see Roman roads some it's a very few places are
16:22
still in use. And so, you know, they they
16:25
built roads everywhere. So there's there's a reason why
16:27
we have that statement. All roads lead to Rome, right?
16:30
They were very good about that. Well, they also they also got
16:35
rid of pirates. So Poppy the Great, who was one
16:38
of Caesar's buddies before they became frenemies, he got rid of
16:45
pirates in the Mediterranean. So no pirates, roads that go
16:49
everywhere, everybody speaks Greek.
16:52
All these things come together right at just the right time for
16:57
the Gospel to spread all over the Roman Empire, right?
17:01
That would be one of those moments where you, I think you
17:03
can see the providential hand of God working in history.
17:06
I'm going to give you another one, an Old Testament example.
17:10
All right, so it all has to do with this event right here.
17:15
OK, so I don't know how many people have heard of this.
17:19
This is a very mysterious, was a very catastrophic event.
17:25
And it happened around 1177. I mean, it's not like, you know,
17:28
you pick up, you know, the Jerusalem Times from January
17:31
1st, 1177. It's like, Oh my word, the late
17:34
Bronze Age collapse hit today. But but this is something where
17:40
the great civilizations all sort of came to an end briefly.
17:45
And so if we look at a map of this, what we've got is you can
17:52
see in what what is Turkey, right?
17:55
So there's the Hittites. You got the Egyptians, they're
17:58
down in Egypt. You've got the Greeks.
18:00
They're in the green color right there in the center of the map.
18:03
And you see all these arrows going everywhere.
18:06
All right, Those are invading peoples.
18:08
Those are the Sea Peoples. The Philistines were one of the
18:10
sea peoples. There's also another group in
18:13
the in the first and second Samuel called the Karathites.
18:18
They were one of these groups of people.
18:20
They came from the island of Crete, OK.
18:22
The Philistines came from the realm of the Aegean.
18:25
So if you look, I mean, I mean dead center in the map, the
18:28
Aegean Sea, this is where the Philistines come from, OK.
18:31
So they're more like European people.
18:33
And so so they all come in and they bulldoze everything, right.
18:39
And at the same time, there were droughts, there were
18:44
earthquakes, there were famines, trade routes were disrupted.
18:49
We don't really understand, scholars don't understand
18:53
exactly what all made this perfect storm.
18:57
But in the 12 early 1200s, which is right around the time that
19:03
Israel is still, you know, getting going in the promised
19:07
land, all of these other great empires are falling apart.
19:11
And so the Egyptians, they stay at home.
19:14
The Assyrians, you know, they're around, they stay at home.
19:16
The Hittites are basically done. If you look at their, at their
19:19
map up there, almost every single one of their cities on
19:23
this map was destroyed. And it's weird and, and we don't
19:27
really know what happened to them.
19:28
These cities were destroyed and totally abandoned.
19:32
A lot of these places, there's there's one if you look where
19:34
Cyprus, if you look at Cyprus, kind of like a little finger it
19:38
points if you go straight over, there's a city called Dugarat,
19:41
very, very important city. It's actually where we get a lot
19:44
of myths from the God Baal. So so part of our understanding
19:48
of the Old Testament and the and the myths that, you know,
19:50
Elijah's attacking come from that, from that city.
19:54
It was it was totally destroyed. And so a lot of these places
19:58
are, and of course some of these Ashdod Ashkelon.
20:03
Gaza, which of course makes the news fairly frequently these
20:07
days. They were all Canaanite cities
20:09
before the Philistines come in and settle all of them.
20:12
OK, so all of this stuff happens.
20:15
And of course, the Hittite empire, by the time you get to
20:18
the time, like Saul, I mean, they're they're gone, basically.
20:21
I mean, you got a few Hittites running around, but the empire's
20:23
gone. And So what happens is you have
20:27
all these people staying home. They're not going to war.
20:30
They're not fighting with each other.
20:31
They're not imposing their will on smaller kingdoms and
20:34
everything. And So what happens is that
20:36
leaves a vacuum in Israel and it allows Saul and David and
20:45
Solomon and all the other kings to build up Israel and it
20:50
becomes a powerful little Kingdom.
20:52
And you've got other kingdoms like Moab and Ammon and Edom and
20:56
all that. And that's why they're able to
20:58
become powerful because the Egyptians aren't coming and
21:01
hammering them every year and the Syrians aren't coming in to,
21:04
you know, get tribute from them and all that and all that stuff.
21:07
And So what? So what you have is a little
21:09
vacuum. And so God's people are able to
21:11
grow in this vacuum into a pretty nice powerful, rich with
21:16
Solomon, very rich little Kingdom.
21:20
And so that's why you never see any Babylonians, Assyrians,
21:26
almost 0 Egyptians, almost no Hittites in these books because
21:33
those the kingdoms were either gone or or they were staying
21:36
home. Yeah.
21:39
Given the time frame of this curiosity question, would this
21:44
kind of lead into the beginning of the Book of Exodus?
21:47
If this isn't the start of this particular time period, as to
21:50
why Pharaoh might be so concerned with the Israelites
21:54
siding with their enemies or siding with the invaders coming
21:58
in? Or is this later than that?
22:00
So this is going to be right in the 100 years before Saul is
22:06
born. So.
22:07
So we're looking at the like the, the sort of middle or end,
22:10
tail end of the Book of Judges. Yeah, Yeah.
22:13
But that's why the big enemies of the Book of Judges, there's
22:17
no Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites running
22:19
around. It's all local people, right?
22:21
Because they're all like, it's like a big family.
22:23
They're all wrestling with each other.
22:24
And so and so and so that's, that's why this happens.
22:28
Now I look at that as an example of the Providence of God, these
22:35
incredible, you know, Titanic events happen, droughts and
22:40
famines and, and, and earthquakes and, you know,
22:44
society's falling apart all so that God can grow his his people
22:49
in this in this area. And this is where Saul takes
22:52
over. All right.
22:53
So now to get back to Saul, I mentioned he's introduced in a
22:59
way that is not so great. And what I'm going to say here
23:04
is that Saul is introduced as a donkey Wrangler who's not very
23:09
good at his job. All right, so, so it says verse
23:17
3, the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost.
23:20
So Kish said to his son, take one of the young men with you,
23:23
arise and go look for the donkeys.
23:26
And he passed through the Hill Country of Ephraim and passed
23:28
through the land of Shalishah, but he but they did not find
23:32
them. And they passed through the land
23:33
of Shalim, but they were not there.
23:35
And they passed through the land of Benjamin.
23:36
But he's looking all over creation for a bunch of lost
23:39
donkeys and he can't find them. And of course you wonder like
23:42
how do they get lost to begin with?
23:44
I don't know. I mean, I got a one person I can
23:46
kind of like point a finger at, you know.
23:49
And then it says they go to the land of Zoof.
23:51
Saul says to his servant who was with him, Come, let us go back
23:54
lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and to come
23:57
because anxious about us. OK, so Saul's Saul does not seem
24:02
to be very good at his job. Now this was important because
24:06
in the ancient world kings were described as shepherds.
24:10
So if you look at Hammurabi, you know Hammurabi that you
24:13
Hammurabi's law code, he describes himself as the
24:16
shepherd of his people. If you think about and I should
24:20
have put I forgot to put a picture of this on there.
24:21
But if you look at like a sarcophagus for like an Egyptian
24:25
king, a pharaoh, you got the arms crossed, He's got the flail
24:29
in one hand and the shepherd's crook in the other, right?
24:31
So they thought of themselves as shepherds.
24:33
And in the Bible that is very much the case.
24:36
Of course, ultimately, what do you see?
24:38
Like Psalm 20, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, right?
24:42
The Lord isn't just king of kings, He's also like the
24:46
shepherd of shepherds too. And he's going to take care of
24:49
his people, right? And so, so kings thought of
24:53
themselves as shepherds. If you remember in a story where
24:56
Ahab his, his, his, his, his, his, his counterpart in Judah,
25:03
Joshua Fat, he says you should I go up in all of Ahab's.
25:06
Yes, men go. Yeah, yeah, go up.
25:08
You know, you're going to take care of these Syrians.
25:11
Joshua Fat says, tell you what, man?
25:14
Is it there like a like a prophet of God anywhere around
25:16
here? So, so all, all you got like
25:19
these 400 guys on Ahab's payroll or like, Oh yeah, man, you're
25:22
going to do it. And, and, and Ahab says, yeah, I
25:26
got this one guy, but he only prophesized evil about me.
25:29
It's like, really, that's kind of tracks.
25:32
But so my Kaya gets pulled in and at first he's kind of a
25:36
smart aleck with Ahab. Ahab says you should I do this?
25:40
And he's like, Oh yeah, sure. Go up, go up.
25:41
You'll be victorious. And you know he's being
25:44
sarcastic because Ahab says no. Tell me.
25:46
Really Tell me. Tell me the truth.
25:48
Right. And then.
25:49
And then what do you do? You remember what he says then?
25:51
Yeah, I saw the people victorious without a shepherd,
25:57
in the heat with the shepherd like sheep without a shepherd.
26:00
Right. So what he's telling you is
26:03
Ahab, you know, you go to battle and that's it.
26:07
That's curtains for you, right? And so and so, you know, that
26:11
kind of imagery is all over the place.
26:13
Well, Saul gets introduced as a guy who doesn't really seem to
26:17
be so good at the job. That's a little bit of
26:19
foreshadowing because when we look at some of his other stuff
26:23
today, we're going to see that Saul was OK, but he was just OK.
26:30
The thing that he really fell short on was obedience and he
26:34
was obedient to a degree, but he's never fully obedient.
26:41
And we'll look at a few of those, a few examples of that.
26:44
All right, One other, one other potential problem is his servant
26:49
seems to know about this man of God that we know.
26:53
Samuel Saul doesn't seem to know about this guy.
26:56
He's like, who's this, who's this right.
26:57
So I, I know that there there's a man of God in the city and,
27:00
and all that. Well, Samuel wasn't an, you
27:03
know, an unknown commodity, right?
27:06
I mean, he had a circuit that he travelled when he judged he was
27:09
a very famous prophet. And Saul doesn't seem to know
27:11
anything about him. So, so we've got got Saul here
27:17
our our donkey Wrangler and doesn't really seem to be so
27:24
great. Now he is at 1st and, and, and
27:28
you can see this a couple of ways.
27:29
You can see it as him being humble.
27:31
I choose to see it as him being humble.
27:33
Some people might be more cynical and say, well, you know,
27:36
when Paul, when Saul has chosen to be king, if he doesn't want
27:39
to do it, he goes and he hides. He's shirking his duties.
27:42
I don't, I actually don't read it that way.
27:44
I, I give, I give Saul the benefit of the doubt on this
27:47
one. I think he's I think he's humble
27:49
to start, to start with, before he becomes, you know, an
27:52
egomaniac. But, you know, he starts out OK
27:55
and any, any, any protests. But other famous leaders did
28:01
that too, right? So Gideon is not comfortable, it
28:05
seems, with leadership. In fact, his Saul's objections
28:08
sound a lot like Gideon's objections.
28:10
Hey, you know, I'm just come from this small, small tribe and
28:14
my father, you come from a small clan, you know, And so it sounds
28:19
like Gideon, Moses, Moses objects.
28:22
Jeremiah. You know, Jeremiah has some very
28:25
strong words about being chosen as a prophet.
28:28
And so the so, so there are other people who have, who have
28:33
those kinds of, of, of objections.
28:35
But when we get to Saul here, you know, he, he, he, he gets
28:40
announced, he, he becomes a leader.
28:42
He seems to be good at some things.
28:44
So the text does tell us that when he would go out, he would
28:51
find capable people and pull them into his administration.
28:55
OK, well, that's the son of a good leader.
28:57
You, you want to surround yourself.
28:58
You want to just surround yourself with your yes men,
29:01
right? Or surround yourself with
29:02
political, you know, people you owe political favors, but actual
29:07
talented, capable people, right? That in some ways that was the
29:11
difference between Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln.
29:15
Abraham Lincoln did go with successful people.
29:23
Thomas Jefferson Davis tended to favor, I think, friends and and
29:29
political appointments. So that that did make a bit of a
29:32
that did make a little bit of a difference, I think.
29:36
But but when we look at Saul here, if we go to go to chapter
29:40
13, right. So we've got this Philistines
29:45
are have have landed there on like the southwest corner of of
29:51
Israel, thereby the Mediterranean.
29:54
So so Gaza was one of their cities, Ashkelon, Ekron Gatz,
30:02
Ashdods were the 55 Philistine Pentapolis is what it's called.
30:07
And so this is where they lived. And of course, Samson make some
30:13
some trips over there, make some visits to Philistine territory
30:16
from time to time. Just can't stay away from the
30:18
Philistines. But but, but, but these guys in
30:22
Israel, of course, they're, they're neighbors.
30:24
They're, they're going to fight each other, you know, border
30:26
disputes and all that. And Saul as kings do, right,
30:32
Because this is what the the Israelites wanted.
30:35
They wanted a king like all the nations invisible guy go out in
30:38
a battle and and so they're going to to fight the the
30:43
Philistines chapter 13. We get down to about verse 8 and
30:53
it says he waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel,
30:57
but Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were
30:59
scattering from him. So Saul said, bring the burnt
31:03
offering here to me in the peace offerings and he offered the
31:06
burnt offering. As soon as he had finished
31:08
offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came.
31:11
Oh, busted hand in cookie jar, right And Samuel said, And
31:21
Samuel came. So I went out to meet him and
31:23
greet him. Samuel said, what have you done?
31:27
Saul said When I saw that the people were scattering from me
31:30
and you did not come within the days appointed Philistines had
31:34
mustered it Mickmash, I said now the Philistines will come down
31:38
against me at Gilgal and I have not sought the favor of the
31:41
Lord. So I I forced myself.
31:44
I forced myself to do it and offered the burnt offering.
31:49
OK, well, you you notice that this does not does not go over
31:56
with Samuel. He says you have done foolishly.
31:58
You've not commit the kept the command of the Lord your God,
32:01
which he commanded you. So Saul is in the right time.
32:07
He waited right place, proper sacrifices, wrong person.
32:16
He is like 80% obedient. But partial obedience isn't all
32:26
that much different from disobedience, the term we used
32:30
today. Ask forgiveness, not permission.
32:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and in some ways we say,
32:43
well, I could spin that. I could say that that actually
32:48
shows that I have initiative, right?
32:50
I see something that needs to be done and I do it and all that.
32:55
OK, Saul could have said that, but that would not make him any
32:59
less disobedience, right? And so because Samuel's supposed
33:04
to offer it. So but but we do, right?
33:07
We have those those ways that we rationalize things.
33:10
Now, if we go to first Samuel 15, I'm going to jump over a
33:14
little bit. We're going to see something
33:16
similar, I think here. And so this is one of those
33:21
stories that I have always wanted someone to do well.
33:27
So I like, so like, I really enjoy thinking about biblical
33:33
stories in my mind's eye. And then we normally do that,
33:36
right? We, we kind of like have this,
33:37
this movie screen in our head while we're reading this stuff
33:40
and, and all that. But I, but I, I tend to think
33:43
more like in movies and TV shows and memes like upstairs.
33:46
And so I've always wanted this to see this being done really,
33:50
really well. And if you watch, if you have
33:52
Amazon Prime, there's ATV show called The House of David.
33:57
I think it's second season now and it follows the story of
34:01
David in the Bible. Now.
34:03
I've just seen most of the first season.
34:07
Of course they're going to take creative liberties.
34:09
There's some very, very strange choices that they make.
34:13
Like they say David's mother is dead, was killed, and it kind of
34:19
kind of like becomes a big sticking point in the family.
34:22
But if you actually read the text, when David's already
34:26
married, already a general in the army, already into his
34:30
career and fleeing at the point where he's fleeing from Saul.
34:34
So like he is years into his career, he goes and takes his
34:39
mother and father and deposits them with the king of Moab to
34:44
keep them safe. And so no, David's mom is still
34:48
around, you know, way after this.
34:52
And so, you know, they make some really, really odd choices.
34:56
But I mean, I mean, you know, I guess that comes with the
34:59
territory. But but this scene in the, in
35:03
the, in the House of David, I think it's done very, very
35:07
interestingly that the guy who plays Samuel does a marvelous
35:13
job. And you can see the, the, the
35:18
despair in Samuel when he, when he confronts Saul over not
35:23
having done what God told him to do.
35:26
And so a lot of that, a lot of that is done really, really
35:31
well. If you have, if you have Amazon
35:33
Prime, you might want to check that out just to just to kind of
35:36
see how, you know, some folks who I don't think it's like the
35:40
chosen where, you know, the producers of the chosen really
35:44
seem to like try to kind of fit the Bible in there pretty well.
35:48
These guys are less interested in that, I think, but it's, it's
35:55
worth watching. I think so.
35:58
So you've got this moment, Saul. Saul is told to go out and
36:05
destroy the Amalekites, right? So you've got this, this, this
36:10
wicked people. They have, they've opposed
36:12
Israel at various points throughout their history.
36:15
And so Saul is supposed to go take care of these guys.
36:18
And so he does. And I mean, sort of, I mean, he
36:24
takes spoils of war that he's not supposed to take.
36:26
You know, you got a gag as a POW, not supposed to have.
36:31
And so Samuel gets this divine communique from God and says, I
36:42
regret. I don't like that translation.
36:45
It would be better if I were sorrowful because if you say God
36:49
regrets doing something, it's like, man, you know, I really
36:52
regret that I did this. Oh, well, shouldn't an
36:54
omniscient being like be able to do things where you don't regret
36:58
them? So that I think is not a good
37:01
translation. I think it's more sorrowful, but
37:05
which which kind of takes that, that that out of it.
37:08
But I'm sorrowful that I made Saul king.
37:10
He's turned his back from following me as not perform my
37:13
commandments. I mean, he performed like 90% of
37:15
what you wanted, except that partial obedience isn't really
37:22
all that much different from disobedience when you look at at
37:25
Scripture. And so he's not performed my
37:28
commandments and it tears Samuel up, right.
37:31
So you 15 verse 11 verse into verse 11, Samuel was angry and
37:37
he cried out to the out to the Lord all night.
37:41
And so he gets up in the morning, goes to visit Saul, and
37:45
you can see this in your mind, right?
37:47
He goes to visit Saul, bleary eyed, tired, worn out, furious.
37:53
And he goes up to Saul and Saul. Saul says, blessed be you to the
38:01
Lord, I have performed the commandments of the Lord.
38:06
And Samuel says, what then is this bleating of the sheep in my
38:12
ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?
38:18
I, I envisioned Samuel just being beside himself again, I've
38:24
got to deal with this guy, right?
38:26
You ever have like a like a problem employee or somebody
38:29
that like always runs afoul of management?
38:32
Again, I'm with this guy, right? And so his first, his first
38:38
defense, they, he doesn't really say who the they is, but they
38:43
have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared
38:45
the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice, to sacrifice
38:50
to the Lord your God and the rest we have devoted to
38:52
destruction as you wanted, right?
38:54
So Samuel said to Saul, stop, I will tell you what the Lord said
39:02
to me this night. Samuel has some lines in this
39:09
chapter that are absolutely cold, which is what I like in
39:14
movies. I could, I could not care less
39:16
about special effects. I couldn't care less about so
39:19
many things. But good dialogue is, you know,
39:22
so memorable. And he says, let me tell you
39:25
what God told me last night. And he said, Speak though you
39:31
are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of all the
39:35
tribes of Israel? There is a certain
39:37
responsibility you have in the position that you occupy, and
39:42
that makes your obedience a model of obedience for everyone
39:45
else. The Lord said you on a mission,
39:50
and said, Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the
39:52
Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.
39:54
Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord?
39:56
Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the
40:00
sight of the Lord? And Samuel and Saul said to
40:04
Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.
40:07
I've gone on the mission which the Lord sent me.
40:09
OK, He went on the mission, that is true.
40:17
But then he says I've brought a gag, the king of Amalek, and
40:20
I've devoted the Amalek. I just did, oh, I just got the
40:23
one guy I just brought. I just disobeyed with like this
40:26
one person partial obedience, right.
40:32
So he, he, he, he's devoted all the rest of it.
40:36
He got got rid of all the other rest of the stuff.
40:38
Oh, but the people took it that they they did it and then Samuel
40:42
has to rebuke him with this. It's it's very poetic.
40:45
It is it's it's listed as poetry has the Lord as great delight in
40:50
burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the
40:53
Lord. Behold to obey is better than
40:55
sacrifice. It's better than going and
40:56
checking your box right? Really giving wholehearted
41:00
obedience to God is better than just checking off the boxes on
41:02
your spiritual To Do List and to listen again, better than the
41:07
fat of Rams or rebellion is as the sin of divination and
41:10
presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
41:14
Disobeying God is no different than these crimes that carry the
41:19
death penalty. It is is it writes because sin
41:23
right? What does what does Paul say
41:26
wages of sin are death? He doesn't say, you know, here
41:30
is the list of exceptions, white lies.
41:34
You know, I got tricked into doing it.
41:36
You know, somebody I I was peer pressure, right.
41:39
There's like this list of it. No, there's no list of
41:41
exceptions. He says because you've rejected
41:44
the word of the Lord. He has also rejected you from
41:47
being king. And then Samuel in this again,
41:53
you know, amazing moment, he says, bring here to me a gag,
41:57
king of the Amalekites. And a gag came to him
42:00
cheerfully. Well, this is this seems to be
42:02
going around, right? And a gag, A gag says, surely
42:07
the bitterness of death is past. Samuel says, as your sword has
42:11
made women childless, so sure shall your mother be childless
42:15
among women. And then he, it says, hacked a
42:22
gag to pieces before the Lord. And Gilgal.
42:26
Now that is literally what the Hebrew says.
42:28
I, I looked at it this morning. It means literally to cut into
42:32
pieces. And the particular use of that
42:36
word is an intensive use of it. This is the I don't know, you
42:42
know, Samuel takes a sword and turns into the, you know,
42:46
Amalekite Chopper 9000. I mean, this guy is like done
42:52
when this guy, this guy is done when Samuels finished with him.
42:59
But you know, this, this these things come out.
43:06
But but anyway, you've you've got we just got like a couple
43:10
minutes left. I'll, I'll give you a couple of
43:12
of four things, four things very, very quickly that Saul
43:14
does in his excuse making. OK, So one, let me see if I got
43:20
a slide for it. OK.
43:22
Problems of part. OK.
43:23
Yeah. So Saul's tips on how to avoid
43:26
personal responsibility, number one, blame shift, right.
43:29
They did it. Who?
43:31
Oh, the people. The people did it.
43:34
That's an excuse that's as old as Genesis chapter 3, Right?
43:39
Have you eaten of the tree that I commanded you not to eat?
43:44
The woman that you gave me did it, you know, and Adam only has
43:50
two hands. He just blames the woman and
43:51
God, if he had a third hand, he'd point at the snake, you
43:53
know, So everybody else is responsible.
43:57
I'm, you know, I'm just, I'm just a backseat driver here.
44:00
And so you've got that blame shifting, minimizing sin, right?
44:04
It really wasn't that bad after all.
44:06
I, I obeyed the voice of the Lord.
44:08
I went on this mission. I just, you know, I just brought
44:11
back one dude, just just the king, right?
44:16
Reframe disobedience as devotion.
44:20
The people took the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of all these
44:23
things to sacrifice to the Lord. There was a good purpose for
44:28
them taking all of this stuff, right?
44:31
And then finally you make this insincere admission of guilt.
44:35
OK, OK, OK, I did it. OK, I sinned.
44:39
And, you know, you look at other people who have other people who
44:43
have done that, and you got Pharaoh, right, who seems very
44:47
insincere because I think it's after plagues 7 and eight that
44:51
he makes those two admissions, and there's two more plagues to
44:54
come after that. And then you've got the very
44:56
tragic story of Judas in Matthew 27, which is, you know, I have
45:02
sinned by betraying innocent blood.
45:05
But Judas, of all the heartbreaking stories of
45:08
Scripture, he apparently does not really seem to be able to
45:14
embrace forgiveness. He's not going to live the
45:16
consequences of this. And so when you recognize what
45:20
sin is and you know who God is and you know how forgiving God
45:23
is, then you know that sin can be forgiven.
45:28
Judas, I think, comes from a different place where his ego
45:31
simply will not allow him to exist in a world where people
45:35
might whisper and talk about him as the one who betrayed the
45:37
Christ. So anyway, so this is this is
45:41
Saul. Partial obedience eventually
45:42
becomes full obedience. Full disobedience.
45:46
He goes and he consults the witch at Endor, which is a
45:48
capital crime, to go talk to necromancers, which is what she
45:52
is. And then he and his sons are
45:54
going to die on Mount Gaboa along with a big part of the
45:58
Israelite army. But that is where partial
46:00
obedience will get you because partial obedience is just as
46:05
good as no obedience at all. All right, thank you so much.
46:10
Next week, Adam is going to be in here for a couple of weeks.
46:14
We're going to be out for a couple of weeks.
46:15
So we'll be missing you guys, but come back in a couple weeks
46:19
after spring break. So thanks so much.