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Saul-A-Study-in-Tragedy · INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Book of God is a book that includes stories
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  Speaker 1: of heroes as well as fools.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: It paints its subjects warts and all.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: We all love that about the Bible because it is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: full of reality. That is one view of King Saul.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: That is a lovely view of King Saul. And in
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  Speaker 1: spite of the misery and havoc he brought into David's life,
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  Speaker 1: there is another side of Saul we need to know
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  Speaker 1: and remember, and that side of his life could be
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: best described in one word, erosion.
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  Speaker 2: You see, Saul did not start as a fool.
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  Speaker 1: We read of him first and first Samuel, chapter nine,
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  Speaker 1: the son of kish A Benjamite, who stands well, head
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  Speaker 1: and shoulders above all of the others in the land
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  Speaker 1: of Israel. Don't know if you've ever been around professional
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  Speaker 1: basketball players, but that's the closest I can use to
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  Speaker 1: describe how much taller he was than everyone else.
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  Speaker 2: I once was at a Laker.
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  Speaker 1: Game in Los Angeles in the days when Kareem Abdul
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  Speaker 1: Jabbar was the center, and happened to be seats a
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  Speaker 1: friend of mine who was right down near the side
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  Speaker 1: where the Lakers sat. One occasion, I was standing up,
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  Speaker 1: and then I was suddenly in the shadow of a giant,
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  Speaker 1: and I looked right at his chest. Happened to me
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  Speaker 1: a little later when we were in Hawaii and Kareem
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  Speaker 1: Abdul Jabbar was staying down down the hallway of the
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  Speaker 1: same hotel where we were. The hallway was a little
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  Speaker 1: lower than the rooms, and I walked out of my
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  Speaker 1: room and there he was standing like this looking for
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  Speaker 1: his key.
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  Speaker 2: Saul was tall, Saul was handsome.
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  Speaker 1: Saul was the people's choice to be the king, and
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  Speaker 1: God permitted them to select him, and he was coronated
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  Speaker 1: and it all began so well. But you know, the
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  Speaker 1: thing about erosion is that it is. It is slow,
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  Speaker 1: and it is silent, and it is subtle, never fast,
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  Speaker 1: never loud, never obvious. You couldn't take quick snapshots of
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  Speaker 1: Saul the first few months or years of his reign
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  Speaker 1: and see a fool in the making. It took years.
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  Speaker 1: He made major mistakes along the way. That's the way
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  Speaker 1: it is with erosion. That's the way it is. And
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  Speaker 1: perhaps some life represented here as we've gathered for this tour.
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  Speaker 1: No one around you knows that it's going on, but
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  Speaker 1: you know it. However, you can be mesmerized by the
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  Speaker 1: fact that it's slow. Nothing fast occurs.
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  Speaker 2: As F. B.
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  Speaker 1: Meyer put it in one of his writings, no man
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  Speaker 1: suddenly becomes base because it isn't loud or obvious. No
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  Speaker 1: one around you is warning you. But you know in
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  Speaker 1: your heart that you're beginning a long drift away from
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  Speaker 1: where you should be. The cracks in Saul's life began
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  Speaker 1: to show up. There was one occasion where he the
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  Speaker 1: king should have waited for the priest Samuel to offer
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  Speaker 1: the offering on the altar. Chapter thirteen of First Samuel
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  Speaker 1: tells us that he waited a number of days and Samuel.
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  Speaker 2: Didn't show up, and so Saul.
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  Speaker 1: Rushed into the role of a priest and he offered
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  Speaker 1: the offering. Doesn't seem important to us, but in those
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  Speaker 1: days it was disobedient, to the point where the Lord said,
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  Speaker 1: I will find a man after my own heart. First
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  Speaker 1: hint of David. Saul almost passed it off as if
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  Speaker 1: it were nothing. In the fourteenth chapter of First Samuel,
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  Speaker 1: he makes a rash vow that is well, at the moment,
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  Speaker 1: it seemed to make sense, no one eat anything until
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  Speaker 1: we have won this war. No one and the men
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  Speaker 1: were famished, and they were fighting his son was away
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  Speaker 1: when the command was given and the vow was taken,
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  Speaker 1: and his son, longing for food as he's finishing the battle,
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  Speaker 1: finds honey on the ground, and he and his men
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  Speaker 1: take the honey. And it took the friends of Jonathan,
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  Speaker 1: Saul's son to save Saul from killing his own son
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  Speaker 1: for breaking.
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  Speaker 2: That rash vow. By the fifteenth.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter, Samuel now has it about up to here with Saul,
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  Speaker 1: and so he's now warning him very clearly, when you
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  Speaker 1: come and you fight a gag, be sure that you
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  Speaker 1: kill everyone in the camp. Kill the king, kill the
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  Speaker 1: king's family, kill the women, kill the children, kill the oxen,
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  Speaker 1: kill the cattle, kill every living thing. Saul heard that
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  Speaker 1: as clearly as you've heard it. But the fifteenth of
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  Speaker 1: first Samuel tells us that he won the battle, but
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  Speaker 1: he preserved the life of the king.
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  Speaker 2: King Agag, and he also preserved the best of the
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  Speaker 2: sheep and of the cattle.
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  Speaker 1: And when Samuel showed up to confront him, Saul said
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  Speaker 1: to him, but I've saved them for an offering to
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  Speaker 1: the Lord.
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  Speaker 2: I did. Samuel said, stop. Stop.
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  Speaker 1: When God says no, take it as no again. It's
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  Speaker 1: almost passed off as nothing. His life is eroding. By
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  Speaker 1: the seventeenth chapter of First Samuel, Saul is on one
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  Speaker 1: side of the valley of Elah, and there was a
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  Speaker 1: giant named Gath or Goliath from Gath on the other side.
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  Speaker 1: Saul is in his tent, unwilling to face the giant.
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  Speaker 1: The men therefore take their cues from the king, and
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  Speaker 1: they're reluctant.
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  Speaker 2: And you know the story. Out of a little sheepfold
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  Speaker 2: and Jesse's.
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  Speaker 1: Place in Bethlehem, a young lad appears and he comes
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  Speaker 1: to bring a meal to his brothers who were fighting
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  Speaker 1: the battle, and he sees that what's going on?
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  Speaker 2: And David says, what is this? Is there not a cause?
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  Speaker 1: David, you remember, goes down and picks up have smooth stones.
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  Speaker 1: And this is after Saul tried to put his armor
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  Speaker 1: on David.
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  Speaker 2: What a funny sight that was.
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  Speaker 1: Saul war about a fifty six long and David was
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  Speaker 1: a thirty four short. I mean it just wouldn't fit.
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  Speaker 1: And the helmet you could turn it sideways and he
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  Speaker 1: could look out the year hold. It was a silly sight.
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  Speaker 1: David says, I can't fight with these.
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  Speaker 2: This is your.
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  Speaker 1: Armor, it's not mine, which reminds us you cannot win
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  Speaker 1: battles that your teachers have won. You must win them
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  Speaker 1: on your own. As God works through you and your life.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot wear another's armor. David wins the battle, and
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  Speaker 1: everything's wonderful and we all applauded, and it's still to
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  Speaker 1: this day one of the great moments in Israeli history,
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  Speaker 1: except for Saul, because by now this young man who
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  Speaker 1: has been for him a soothing comfort in the darkness
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  Speaker 1: of his depression, is now a threat because the women
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  Speaker 1: in the communities are now singing. Saul has slain his thousands,
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  Speaker 1: David his ten thousand. With that song that became like
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  Speaker 1: a folk song in Israel. Something shifted in Saul's mind.
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  Speaker 1: He became twisted by suspicion, which turned to anger, which
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  Speaker 1: eroded into murder, and he began to hunt David.
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  Speaker 2: From that day forward.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine you will see the caves of Engeddi in our
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  Speaker 1: journey down south. David lived in the caves. David survived
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  Speaker 1: in the field one year after another. As madmen's Saul
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  Speaker 1: wants the pride of Israel. Now be rotating into a pathetic,
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  Speaker 1: paranoid fool, He reaches an all time low, and by
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  Speaker 1: the end of the First Samuel Book, chapter twenty eight,
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  Speaker 1: he seeks the counsel of a witch of Indoor, disguises himself,
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  Speaker 1: and goes through all of that. I've often thought how
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  Speaker 1: that must have looked in the eyes of God, how
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  Speaker 1: far he had drifted.
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  Speaker 2: From what he could have been.
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  Speaker 1: Whittier's words are right of all the sad words of
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  Speaker 1: tongue or pen, the saddest for these.
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  Speaker 2: It might have been.
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  Speaker 1: Finally they reached the mount and the battle again with
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  Speaker 1: that implacable enemy.
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  Speaker 2: The Pelistine Saul sees.
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  Speaker 1: The end in view, and, unwilling to face the truth,
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  Speaker 1: he falls on his own sword and dies, a suicide
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  Speaker 1: tragic beyond words. The man who once stood head and
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  Speaker 1: shoulders of all all the other israelis the pride of
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  Speaker 1: the nation.
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  Speaker 2: The first king of the land.
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  Speaker 1: Falls on his own sword, and a runner gets the
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  Speaker 1: word to David, who hasn't heard. Now put yourself in
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  Speaker 1: David sandals. David, for twelve or more years has been
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  Speaker 1: haunted and haunted by Saul. And a runner comes and.
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  Speaker 2: Says, he's gone. He's gone now.
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  Speaker 1: Unless I miss my guess, most of us would feel
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  Speaker 1: a great sense of justice at least whispering to ourselves. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: finally I can crawl out of the cave and live
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  Speaker 1: like a human being. Finally I can take the throne
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  Speaker 1: that was promised me as the oil from Samuel's flask
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  Speaker 1: drain down his head in the home of Jesse, but
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  Speaker 1: you read nothing of it. I love this about David
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  Speaker 1: as much as anything. David never stopped respecting Saul. David
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  Speaker 1: never let Saul's paranoia turn him. David into a spirit
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  Speaker 1: of retaliation. As a matter of fact, when you read
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  Speaker 1: of the account in the first part of the Book
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  Speaker 1: of Second Samuel, you read David's words as he in
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  Speaker 1: fact writes a song that appears in verses nineteen to
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven. You'll see it in your Bible in Second
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  Speaker 1: Samuel one. It's in a different meter, it's in poetry.
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  Speaker 2: It's a song. David writes a.
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  Speaker 1: Song in honor of his once respected, tall, handsome king,
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  Speaker 1: and the theme of the song is how the mighty
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  Speaker 1: are fallen in the midst of a battle. David's heart
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  Speaker 1: a as he looked back over a life that could
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  Speaker 1: have been marked by greatness, but it was a hollow,
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  Speaker 1: empty life. By the day Saul died of his own hand.
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  Speaker 1: A British pastor of yesteryear put it in words that
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  Speaker 1: I can never forget think of your own life when
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  Speaker 1: you hear his words. This is the bitterest of all
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  Speaker 1: to know that suffering need not have been, that it
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  Speaker 1: is the result of indiscretion and one's own indecision, that
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  Speaker 1: it is the harvest of one's own sowing, that the
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  Speaker 1: vulture which feeds on the vitals is a nestling of
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  Speaker 1: one's own rearing.
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  Speaker 2: Ah me, this is pain.
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  Speaker 1: You're not rearing that vulture, are you. You're not nursing
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  Speaker 1: that silent spirit of retaliation, are you?
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  Speaker 2: You're not beginning to view people with suspicion? Are you?
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  Speaker 1: If you are without even realizing it, erosion is taking
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  Speaker 1: place in your life even.
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  Speaker 2: These days. The message of Saul I believe for all
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  Speaker 2: of us.
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  Speaker 1: Take God seriously, Take God seriously, don't play.
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  Speaker 2: With sacred things.
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  Speaker 1: Examine your life. Make certain that what people are seeing
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  Speaker 1: is truly who you are. This journey is a wonderful
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  Speaker 1: time along the way as you watch the landscape pass
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  Speaker 1: and we move from the green and beauty and valley
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  Speaker 1: of the Galilean area down to the flat lands of
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  Speaker 1: Judea for the wilderness and the heat mixed together, almost
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  Speaker 1: as if to describe a life that has eroded from
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  Speaker 1: a tall, handsome possibility to the empty shell.
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  Speaker 2: Of a bitter soul. The body hung on the wall
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  Speaker 2: of Bethshan, how tragic, no head hanging on meat hooks.
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  Speaker 1: David not only lost his implacable enemy, but his intimate friend.
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  Speaker 2: Jonathan in that final day of battle.
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  Speaker 1: We must pray the Father, we recommit ourselves to you today.
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  Speaker 1: How easy it is to walk to traffic and unlived truth,
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  Speaker 1: to know the songs by heart, to be able to
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  Speaker 1: turn wherever in our bibles and give a simple statement
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  Speaker 1: of what is contained on that page.
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  Speaker 2: How easy it.
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  Speaker 1: Is to play a role as an elder, or a pastor,
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  Speaker 1: or a pastor's wife, or a member of a choir,
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  Speaker 1: or a Christian businesswoman or businessman. How easy it is
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  Speaker 1: to live one way knowing that our hearts are far
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  Speaker 1: from you.
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  Speaker 2: Stop us this day from that slow and.
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  Speaker 1: Subtle and silent, tragic path, and hear us confess to you,
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  Speaker 1: our Father, that we want to be all you would
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  Speaker 1: have us be. Well everyone is watching, or even while
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  Speaker 1: no one is looking. Thank you for the lesson we
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  Speaker 1: learn from this, this.
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  Speaker 2: Hero who became a fool in the name of the Savior.
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  Speaker 2: We thank you and we all say amen.
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  Speaker 1: The preceding message, Saul a Study and Tragedy, was copyrighted
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight and the sound recording was
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  Speaker 1: copyrighted in twenty fifteen by Charles R. Swindell, Inc. All
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: rights are reserved worldwide. In the preceding message, Charles R.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Swind All, Inc. Is grateful to Stonebrier Community Church for
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: permission to use their twenty fifteen performance of Amazing Grace
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  Speaker 1: lyrics by John Newton, music to a traditional American melody
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  Speaker 1: arrangement by Paul Thompson, copyrighted in twenty thirteen by p
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  Speaker 1: T Music