I have been, I have been listening to a lot of history
podcasts lately. In particular, there's this one
woman named Sarah Payne. Does anyone know, does anyone
recognize her? Yeah.
She's a retired college at the US She's a retired professor at
the US College of Naval Warfare. But she says this term called
pivotal error. A pivotal error is a fatal
mistake made by a leader or a nation that creates a point of
no return. It destroys any hope of things
going back to normal the way they were.
Pivotal errors that are something that a nation can
never come back from. The status quo gets ruined so
badly that any sort of turn around, it'll never be what it
once was. Most pivotal errors lead to
ruin, and an example of this would be Japan at Pearl Harbor,
right? Operationally, Pearl Harbor is a
resounding success. Japan inflicts maximum
casualties, 21 ships destroyed, 188 aircraft, over 1000 wounded
Americans, and 2000 dead. Japan loses fewer than 100 men
and 29 planes. That is insane.
But in terms of grand strategy, Pearl Harbor was a catastrophic
failure. Pearl Harbor was meant to be an
attack that would dishearten the American people from entering
the war, and it was supposed to create a peace deal.
Instead, the entire nation gets enraged.
It unites the American people in such a way that it's not
politically viable for the president to declare war.
And we all know how that went for Imperial Japan.
Pivotal error, Terrible move. Pivotal errors are a terrifying
concept. A mistake so bad it's the point
of no return. And our scripture today leads
heavily into this concept. We're continuing in our series
today in First Samuel. Samuel has grown to be a wise
and faithful judge. And normally in Israel, the
judge is the person who acts as the connection point between God
and his people. He's not really the leader.
The judge is only the leader because he talks to God.
But God still calls the shots, and the people have to wait on
God before making a move. Israel will complain about this.
It's a system that takes too much time and too much
dependence on God. So they say we want a king like
everyone else. We want this guy to lead us into
battles. We want quick, quick response
times. We want to be able to to flip on
a dime. We don't want to do this thing
where we got to wait on God's judgment, wait on God's
decision. They don't trust this current
system where they have to wait on Yahweh.
And God tells them, look guys, it's a bad idea.
Hey, God tells them that the king system is a terrible
mistake. It is not going to go well for
Israel. They want it anyway.
So God meets them halfway. He adds a king to the judge
system. Samuel hears from God and
appoints King Saul. So the judge is still this vital
connection point, but now they have this king who's going to
lead them into battle and govern the nation.
And for a while, things to be seem to be going well.
They're winning battles. They're charging into battle
with their king. Everything is awesome until
today. King Saul will make a pivotal
error. That is the beginning of his
end. And what Saul does in this
account leads to his ruin. He will never come back from
this. In fact, he's going to make more
of these errors in the following chapters.
And its decisions will threaten the future of Israel and the
relationship with God. So why is this in here?
Why do we have accounts of failed kings?
His error is meant to serve as a cautionary tale for us to see it
and watch closely for us to see Saul and say, don't make this
mistake. Do not fall into this.
So my question for today is what are we meant to learn from King
Saul's pivotal error? What are we meant to learn?
Turn with me to first Samuel 13. There's going to be a lot in
here about battle strategy and, and just like so, so just try,
try to follow along. I'll try to contextualize it as
much as as possible, but it, it, it's a bad situation.
It's an ugly situation. You do not want to be Israel
here. So Saul was 30 years old when he
became king and he reigned 42 years over Israel.
He chose 3000 men from Israel for himself. 2000 were with Saul
at MC Mash between Oh and in Bethel's Hill Country, and 1000
were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin.
He sent the rest of the troops away, each to his own tent.
Jonathan attacked the Philistine Garrison in Gibeah and the
Philistines heard about it. So Saul blew the ram's horn
throughout the land, saying let the Hebrews hear, and all Israel
heard the news. Saul has attacked the Philistine
Garrison and Israel is now repulsive to the Philistines.
Then the troops were summoned to join Saul at Gilgal.
Moving on. The Philistines also gathered to
fight against Israel. 3000 Chariots, 6000 horsemen and
troops as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
They went up and camped at Mcmash, east of Beth Aven.
The men of Israel saw that they were in trouble because the
troops were in a difficult situation.
They hid in caves and thickets, among rocks, and in holes and
cisterns. Moving on, some Hebrews even
crossed the Jordan of the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul, however, was still at Gilgal, and all his troops were
gripped with fear. He waited seven days for the
appointed time that Samuel had set.
But Samuel didn't come to Gilgal, and the troops were
deserting him. So Saul said, bring me, bring me
the burnt offering and the fellowship offerings.
Then he offered the burnt offering.
Just as he finished the burnt offering, Samuel arrived.
So Saul went out to greet him, moving on.
And Samuel asked, What have you done?
Saul answered. When I saw that the troops were
deserting me, and you didn't come within the appointed days,
and the Philistines were gathering at Mcmash, I thought
the Philistines will now descend on me at Gilgal.
And I haven't sought the Lord's favor, so I forced myself to
offer the burnt offering, Samuel said to Saul.
You have been foolish. You have not kept the command
the Lord God gave you. It was at this time that the
Lord would have permanently established your reign over
Israel. But now your reign will not
endure. The Lord has found a man after
his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his
people. Because you have not done what
the Lord commanded. Let's stop there.
What are we meant to learn from King Saul's pivotal error?
My first point is this, after reading all that, almost
obedience is actually full disobedience.
Almost obedience is actually full disobedience.
I cannot begin to express how depressing that passage is.
OK, Saul and Jonathan get ready to fight the Philistines.
They got 3000 men total. The Philistines respond by
bringing 3000 Chariots, 6000 horsemen, and a crazy amount of
infantry that is 16 times the size of Saul's army.
Verse 6 is a very soft way of saying Israel is probably dead
here. Morale is at an all time low.
But it gets worse. Samuel tells the king, wait
seven days for my arrival so I can offer sacrifices to Yahweh.
Remember it's the judges system. OK?
The king still has to wait on the judge.
The king still has to wait on Yahweh.
And here's the problem. In those seven days of waiting,
Saul is bleeding troops. People are deserting his army
because they can see this battle is suicide.
Every day that goes by, more men leave and Saul's force becomes
smaller and smaller and smaller. To his credit, he waits.
And finally the time comes. The 7th day comes.
Samuel still isn't there, still more men leaving his army.
So what does Saul do? He does the sacrifice himself,
and right at that moment Samuel comes and says pivotal error.
Saul, if you had waited, God would have established you
forever, but now your line's going to end.
Hang on, hang. Like you're telling me that King
Saul is faced with a suicide mission.
He spends 7 days staring at the army that's going to kill him
while more of his army deserts him.
He waits each of those seven days for Samuel to come, and
Samuel doesn't come until the very end of the last day that
it's appointed. And because Saul gives in to
pressure at the last second, he's punished.
Saul obeys 95% of the way. And because he messed up at that
last 5%, now he's made a pivotal error.
God, what's with that? I think most of us would look at
this situation that Saul is in and just go, I'm with Saul.
I understand him. Like I wouldn't have lasted 2
days waiting for the three days Max.
I would not have waited the seven days.
Shouldn't we give credit where credit is due?
He's 30. He's looking at his death from a
cross. That's not right.
And maybe that gives insight into how we feel sometimes with
God in a situation like this. It feels like God is this this
boss who gets this awesome report from you and because you
misspelt the the footnote he gets on your case like dude,
this. Did you look at the rest of it?
This is what you're this, this is what you want to talk about?
Like God here feels like an Asian dad who spanks their kid
for getting an A and not an A+, right?
This is like you're, you're, you're crazy.
Come on. I'm doing my best, God.
I'm doing my best. I'm, I'm trying to be faithful,
but I can only, I'm only human. How can you call my partial
disobedience complete disobedience?
That doesn't seem fair. But our view here is skewed.
This is not 95% obedience. This isn't even partial
obedience. This is Saul attempting to
justify the wrong he did. This is Saul justifying
disobedience. Even though Saul waited seven
days for Samuel to come, at the end of the day Saul did not
wait. And not only did he not wait, he
attempted to do the priestly duties that kings are not
authorized to do. And then when confronted with
his disobedience, rather than seeing that he was wrong, Saul
is convinced in his mind that he is 95% right.
And you look at Saul's reasoning for why he needed to disobey
verse 11. He says, when I saw that you
didn't come, but Samuel did come, when I saw that the troops
were deserting me and the Philistines were descending,
that sounds like the real reason I forced myself to do the
offering. No one forced you, dude.
No one forced you. Saul is skewing the facts,
framing it in a way that makes him look better than he really
is. It's not that Saul was 95%
obedient. Saul was wrong, and he tried to
justify 100% wrong by framing what he had done right.
And the scary thing here is, I don't think Saul's being
necessarily insincere his I don't think his intentions are
malicious. I think he genuinely is blind to
the wrong in his heart. I think he genuinely believes
that what he has done is not all that bad.
That's the scary thing, guys. Is there full disobedience in
your life that is parading itself as almost obedience?
Is there sin in your life that you've miscategorized so you
don't see it as a threat to your relationship with God?
Maybe you go to church every week, you serve, you give
generously to the poor. You're doing a lot of things
right. Great.
But there's this one area of your life that you refuse to let
God into, this person in your life that you refuse to forgive.
You know what they did to me, God, this pet sin in your life
that you refuse to let go of. I don't know.
Just let me keep this you. Could you almost tell God, God,
I'm doing all this other stuff for you.
Just just let me have this one. And maybe it's your work where
you convince yourself that you're providing for your
family. You're being responsible, but
your kids hardly see you, your marriage is neglected, your
spiritual life is dry. Maybe you got anger that's
turned to bitterness, but you are convinced in your mind you
are justified in your anger, so you never bring it to him.
Maybe you act concerned about everyone in church and in
people's families, and you're like, oh, there's all these
problems going on and but in reality, you're just looking to
spill the tea. Yeah, you're just like, you hear
about, you hear about this. Maybe you're a control freak and
you know, you're a control freak, but you figured out a
language that justifies your sin.
I'm just trying to be wise about my decisions.
I'm just trying to be faithful with my options when it's
actually really rooted in not being able to trust God.
These are things that we have going on that allow us to frame
our sin and make it feel real small.
And every year you figure out more language to justify it.
Every year your heart hardens towards dealing with it.
Every year you convince yourself more and more that you are right
in thinking this way. Every year you find better ways
to hide it, mask it. And every year you ignore
sermons, Bible passages, pastoral advice, or convictions
in your heart to change. And if that's you, please do not
take this passage on Saul lightly.
This mindset is the pivotal error that is leading you to
spiritual ruin. You turn back now and we repent
before God and we seek godly counsel.
Find an honest community that will tell you hard truths before
it's too late. Find good men and women that
will tell you what you've been blind to.
And maybe there are some of you in here after hearing all that
and you're just saying, Pastor Denny, you don't understand.
You don't understand what I'm going through.
You don't understand what I'm up against.
You don't understand who I'm facing, how difficult it's been
for me to remain faithful. I'm under a lot of pressure.
It's been impossible for me to hold my ground.
And that's a genuine struggle. And I don't want to discount
that. But there's a danger to that
thinking also. And that's my next point.
What are we meant to learn from King Saul's pivotal error?
To stop letting circumstances determine our actions?
We need to stop letting our circumstances determine our
actions. And if this second point bothers
you, after everything I've said, believe me, I don't like it
either. I, I do not like it.
I I, I don't like it. And and it gets worse when you
hear just exactly what's going on in this passage and the rest
of it, it is terrible. There's all circumstances are
terrible. So Saul says, Saul tells Samuel,
I had no choice. Samuel tells Saul pivotal Eric,
because you failed to hold God's word here, your line won't sit
on the throat forever. And with that news that Saul's
line is going to end and God is not pleased with him.
Saul goes to the front lines of this hopeless battle.
Great state of mind to be in. Let's read verse 15.
Then Samuel went from Gilgal to Gibeah and Benjamin.
This is after Samuel just said the kingdom's gone from you like
you. You're not going to your lines
off the throne goes to the front line.
Samuel Saul registered the troops who were with him about
600 men. Saul, his son Jonathan and the
troops who were with them were staying in Geva of Benjamin and
the Philistines were camped at Mcmash.
Raiding parties. The Philistines forces are big
enough to do this. They can split up and separate.
Raiding parties went out from the Philistine camp in three
divisions. 1 headed towards Orfa or the Orfa Rd. leading to the
land of Shuol. The next division headed towards
Beth Moron and the last division headed toward down the border
Rd. that looks out over Zebuin Valley toward the wilderness.
Moving on. No blacksmith could be found in
all the land of Israel because the Philistines had said
otherwise. The Hebrews will make swords.
It was Spears. So all the Israelites went to
the Philistines to sharpen their plows, Maddox, axes and sickles.
The price was 2/3 of a shekel for plows and Maddox and 1/3 of
a shekel for pitchforks and axes and for and for putting a point
on a cattle rod. So on the day of the battle, not
a sword or spear could be found in the hand of any of the troops
who were with Saul and Jonathan. Only Saul and his son Jonathan
had weapons. Now a Philistine Garrison took
control of the past at Mcmash. And the chapter just ends on
that. That verse 23 is like that's
that's the nail in the coffin. How many troops are with Saul
from 3000 to 600? 2400 men deserted him against
3000 Chariots, 6000 Calvary and unnumbered infantry.
And you thought that was bad? It gets worse.
Verse 16 to 18 and OR, and that last verse 23 is talking about
that the Philistine forces are so vast they can send out these
raiding parties and lock Israel in.
And the names of these cities are roadways that Saul would
call for help to get reinforcements.
And that final line in verse 23 is telling you that was the last
one. That was the last escape route,
That was the last way that reinforcements could come.
All the passes are blocked. No one is coming to save them.
This battle will not be a defeat.
Like they lose this one battle and they run away.
We retreat and fight another day.
These guys are backed into a corner.
Saul is facing annihilation. Every single person there is
going to die. Down to the last man and what do
they have to fight? Verse 19 to 22, farm tools,
sharpened farm tools that they have to pay the Philistines to
sharpen. And only Saul and his son have
actual weapons of war. They are outclassed, outgunned,
outnumbered, and there's no way out.
This battle is over. This is done.
So when Saul says my troops were deserting me, the Philistines
were surrounding me. You did not come when you said
you would. It is very understandable to us,
very relatable. When have you felt, like Saul,
that you're in circumstances so bad you have no choice but to
take matters into your own hands?
You feel you have no choice but to tell God my hand was force.
I had to disobey in this instance.
God, your way doesn't work here. Or we pray to God and he doesn't
respond fast enough. So we have to rush and we say
God is late. I just got to, I just got to do
it. I just got to do it on my own.
There are pressures that build. There are needs that we need to
have met that can no longer be ignored.
Our hand feels forced. And you're telling me that your
second point of this sermon is stop letting your circumstances
determine your actions. That is, does not make sense.
Doesn't make sense, especially when you look at this.
But I want us to look at what Samuel says in verse 13 one more
time, verse 13, that phrase here.
It was at this time that the Lord would have permanently
established your reign. Despite the horrible
circumstances. Samuel's word here reveals to us
God had plans for Saul beyond this battle, this military
disaster. Right now, God's already
planning ahead of it. And, and Saul's in the picture.
He's alive. It was supposed to happen.
Saul's battle was supposed to go this way.
And in the moment of greatest danger, Saul was meant to choose
to follow God. And you might argue that Saul's
failure here is both physical and spiritual.
Saul mismanaged his forces. Saul failed to hold on to them,
raise morale, whatever. But our Bibles are making very
clear to us, no, no, no, no, no, that that stuff doesn't matter.
Saul's failure wasn't politics, military strategy.
Saul's failure was spiritual. The battle was always supposed
to go this way. Saul's forces were meant to
dissolve. Saul was meant to get cut off
from the northern tribes. Saul is right where he's
supposed to be. According to God.
These circumstances are God's making, and Saul was supposed to
obey and follow God's lead for a victory.
If he had obeyed instead of giving in, God would have been
able to work powerfully in his life.
In other words, when obedience mattered most, Saul backed out.
And that's what I want us to understand about Saul's pivotal
error. We need to reframe this idea in
our minds. You are not obeying despite
impossible odds. You are choosing to obey when it
counts the most. Amen.
The higher the stakes, the more anxiety provoking the
circumstances, the more impactful your obedience
actually is. My patience is so much less
impactful to my kids when they're calm and everything's
good and they're happy. It means significantly more to
my children when it's day four of them not sleeping through the
night and they have fought me all day yesterday because they
haven't been sleeping. And all they do is yell
gibberish at me. And they're probably like, you
know, yelling baby profanity in their minds at me and, and the,
and the difficulty of the circumstances, right?
How difficult, how unreasonable my children are being makes my
patients in that moment so much more impactful.
This, this might have been another instance.
This might have been oversharing for my 5 year old, But but in
one of my bedtime talks with Eli, I told him that if I would,
if he was ever in danger, I would save him even if I died to
make that happen. And he starts and he started
crying and he was like, you're going to die.
And I was like, no, no, not yet. Like it's like we're going to
finish the conversation later. But you know, you got to give
him perspective of everything. But he understood at the end of
the day, he understood the higher stakes.
The impact was immediate. We need to understand this about
our faith when our circumstances feel overwhelming.
The call to obedience will never be more noble and more needed
than in that moment. It's a call to obedience that
got Pastor Dietrich Bonifer executed in Nazi Germany when it
counted most. It's a call to obedience that
that sent Jim Elliott to cannibalistic tribes that
received the gospel after they had killed him.
It's a call to obedience that sent Jesus Christ to the cross
because God planned to save not just Israel from them, their
sin, but the whole world. The higher the stakes, the more
impactful the obedience. And if you are afraid of the
consequences of being obedient to God, I want to share a track
record with you as an encouragement.
And, and I wish we, we wish this all had reflected on this before
he went to this battle and did what he did in Exodus.
When God tells Moses to fight his enemies and that he has to
keep the staff raised and anytime he starts drooping it,
Israel starts losing. Every time they raise it back
up, they start winning. Why did God give that command?
What? Because he wants to see.
He wants them to see what determines the battle, the staff
being raised, not the amount of troops, not technological
advancements. If they obey Yahweh wins
obedience, not their circumstances and judges for
when it came to Deborah fighting again a wave of Chariots and God
tells their infantry to charge you could I was there.
You could still see this hill and this valley below the the
like Israel is on this hill safe from the Chariots.
God says go down from the hill and charge tanks.
Terrible idea. That's his command.
They obey, they charge, and God sends rain for their charge and
the Chariots all sink in the mud.
Israel wins that battle because Yahweh wins obedience over
circumstances and judges. 7 Gideons, few men against
thousands. Yahweh wins in this battle.
Here Saul's kind of win. It does not make sense.
We have archaeological military records, historical accounts
written by enemies of Israel. They fight the battles that our
Bibles record, like this one. And it does not make sense how
Israel wins again and again, battle after battle, victory
after victory. When Yahweh is involved, when he
gets into the ring, obedience to Him is more important than our
circumstances. It changes the outcome.
It rewrites our conclusion. Saul's pivotal error here is
that he will not understand this.
He will keep governing out of fear of his people and fear of
his life. He is going to live his life
ruled by circumstances instead of obedience to Yahweh.
Time and time again he will fail to answer the call to be
faithful when it matters the most.
That's his pivotal error that leads him to ruin.
Is there something that you are going through that looks crazy
like this? You are overwhelmed with your
circumstances. You are up against an unwinnable
situation and you feel pressured to disobey.
You feel like that's the only choice you have.
And we have to see that sometimes those circumstances
you're in, that uncomfortable situation is actually God's
making. And moments like this are when
obedience should be our highest priority because it's going to
count the most. We got to remember who we're
dealing with. We're dealing with Yahweh.
We're dealing with our God. The decisive factor is not our
circumstances. The decisive factor is who
fights in your corner. Factoring God into our equation
should tip the scales. That should change our plans.
Because Yahweh wins. And what's most important in
those moments of crisis is obedience to Him, not your
circumstance. So when it counts most, when you
are called upon to obey despite your circumstances, will you
follow through? Will you continue on?
Will you be faithful? What are we meant for to learn
from King Saul's pivotal error? God calls us to full obedience,
not obedience shaped by convenience, pressure, or
circumstances.