First Samuel chapter 10, today's Old Testament lesson, we're
we're going through First Samuel carefully and slowly, and
today's lesson is about God's chosen king trampling the
serpent under his feet. God's chosen King tramples the
serpent under his feet and it's a reminder of what Jesus Christ
our King has done for us and the spiritual warfare that He calls
us to undertake in His name. So let's pray as we turn to His
Word. We thank You, Almighty God, for
the gift of Your Word, and you call us to to read it and to
listen and obey what You have for us.
We can't do this apart from Your grace and the power of Your
Spirit. So pour out Your Spirit upon us
that we would learn and understand and have the courage
to live faithfully according to what you teach us and bless us
as we go out from this place, that we would live in accordance
with your word and these things we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
So today's lesson from First Samuel chapter 10 and 11 is a
pivotal moment in the history of redemption.
It describes how God chose Saul to be Israel's first king, and
then Saul united all 12 tribes of Israel to fight the Ammonites
who had laid siege to God's people in the city of Jabish
Gilead, which is on the eastern side of the Jordan River in
modern day Jordan. The most important word in this
story is a word unfortunately left untranslated in our English
Bibles. It's the word Nakash Nakash,
which means serpent, but is the name of the Ammonite king.
It's the very same word that is used to describe the tempter in
Genesis chapter 3. Let's think back to the
beginning of the Bible just for a moment.
In the beginning, God made Adam in his image to rule over his
creation, to be king under God, his vice Regent, his under king.
But those whom God calls to to rule must be trained and tested
before they rule. And the most important lesson to
be learned is that you can never overrule God.
No matter how important your role, you always remain his vice
Regent. You always remain his assistant
in ruling. You never get out in front of
him. You always must obey His word.
So God trained Adam for kingship.
He taught him how to guard and tend his garden sanctuary in
Eden. And God told Adam that all the
fruiting trees were good for food, but one fruit was
forbidden for a time until Adam grew to maturity before the
Lord. But Adam alone was insufficient
for this role to rule. And so God made Eve to partner
with Adam in the work of multiplication and dominion.
And it was Adam's duty to train Eve for their royal duties, just
as God had trained him. And then came the test.
Nakash the serpent, Genesis chapter 3 came to Eve and and
asked, did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the
garden? Adam should have crushed Nakash
right then and there. He should have crushed him under
his feet. Instead, Adam listened in
silence. And then when Eve picked the
forbidden fruit, Adam should have rushed to her rescue.
Instead he watched her eat it. And when Eve didn't die, Adam
thought I should do this too. God had called him and trained
him for high office, but he buckled in the face of danger.
He disobeyed God's word, and he failed the serpent test.
And that could have been the end of the whole story for us.
That could have been where humanity ended right then and
there. But God and his great love chose
to redeem us. He promised that someday a royal
descendant of Adam and Eve would come to defeat Nakash the
Serpent. Nakash might bruise his foot,
his heel, but this king would someday crush the Serpent's
head. And that's what makes today's
story so incredibly exciting. And we come to First Samuel
chapter 10 page 218 in the Church Bible, Nakash the serpent
has has arrived in Israel and he has come and laid siege to
Jabish Gilead on the eastern side of the Jordan.
In modern day Jordan, the people now want a king to lead them
into battle. For Samuel 1017, men from all 12
tribes of Israel gather at Mitzvah the Watchtower, the
place the central meeting area where all the tribes come
together to prepare for war. And in verses 18 and 19, Samuel
reminds the soldiers who are gathered that God is their king.
He's the high king. He's the one who truly protects
them. He reminds them back about what
happened back in Egypt when God was the one who delivered them
from Pharaoh. And God brought plagues upon the
Egyptians and delivered them through the waters of the Red
Sea. And, and they remember what's
just happened in the story of First Samuel, that the
Philistines had come and defeated them and taken the ark
into captivity. But then it was God alone
through the ark who brought plagues on the Philistines.
And when the Philistines came to make war with them again, and
they were gathered in prayer, it was God who thundered and God
who routed the Philistines. It is God who fights their
battles. And Samuel reminds them that it
is God who is their high king. He alone saves them from their
trials and troubles. And then, having made this
point, look at verse 20. Samuel leads them in casting
lots to choose their king. Now why would he do this, since
we already know from earlier in the story that Samuel has
quietly anointed Saul to be the king?
Because God's Word requires in all legal matters at least two
witnesses to confirm what has been done.
And so here God brings the whole Israelite army together to
affirm together as witnesses what Samuel and Saul already
knew, that Saul had been chosen. And so by Lot, by God directing
the Lots verse, the tribe of Benjamin is chosen, and then the
clan of the Matrix and in the family of Kish, and then finally
Saul is chosen by Lot to be the king over Israel.
But where is Saul verse 22? He's hidden among the baggage.
Unfortunately, translated and not, we're not giving his much
information as we need because this makes us all out to be a
coward when that's not the case. It's as if he's hiding in a
duffel bag and that's not the case at all.
The the word translated baggage in Hebrew is a word that's often
times used to describe military equipment.
They've brought all of the military equipment to the
watchtower and they've got it together.
And Saul already knows that he has been anointed to be king.
He already expects that this will be affirmed.
And he is down there amongst the baggage being proactive.
He knows that war is at hand. He has been anointed to lead
them into it. And so he's with the baggage,
the military equipment, and he's assessing their readiness to
face off against Nakash. So they called Saul back to the
assembly. Verse 23, everyone shouted Long
live the king. And then verse 25, Samuel
reminded the people of the duties of the king.
Moses had done this previously in Deuteronomy.
God had done it in Genesis 2, teaching before the testing.
And in this time once again, God doesn't forbid monarchy.
It's right in his plan to redeem the world.
But every king must conform to the word of God, to God's
standards. And especially what's driven
home in these passages is that they must copy and read and obey
the word of God. That is a primary duty of the
king, and you and I are called to this work also.
Like Adam and Eve, like Saul, we too are called to be a vice,
Regents, junior kings and Queens.
Under God. We're called to reign as
stewards over the world that God has made.
He places us in some part of his creation and gives us rule under
Him. And our success in this work
again, depends upon copying and reading and obeying the word of
God. That's our first job in all
things. Verse 26, Saul went back to the
to his home in the Benjamite city of Gibeah.
Maybe this is 5 miles South of the Watchtower.
And there's such a huge back story to what's happening here.
I have to explain it. And it's a little complicated,
so stick with me. He's he's leading a troop of
soldiers who are already loyal to him.
God has touched their hearts. This is a pivotal moment in the
story of redemption because just a few generations earlier,
Gibeah had been a place, a very wicked city, a city that had
become like another Sodom in Israel and where guests to the
city had been surrounded by this band of rapists and a woman had
been brutally treated and murdered in the city.
And as a result of this, some who were loyal to the Lord had
done essentially what happened when Emmett Till was murdered in
the civil rights era and his mom chose to have an open casket so
that all the world can see what had happened.
In this case. They took the woman's body and
they divided it up and they sent it to all Israel and said this
has happened, this wicked thing has happened in Gibeah.
Everyone come together and come to Gibeah to to put this whole
city under a ban to punish this city.
So this wickedness never happens again in Israel.
And so that was how the 11 tribes, the other 11 tribes came
together against the Benjaminites maybe just a couple
of generations earlier in the city of Gibeah, and had pretty
much destroyed it, devastated it.
And almost all the Benjaminites have been wiped out.
As it turned out, when all Israel came together, actually
only one city had stayed home and not fought in that war.
Can you guess what city that was?
It was Jabesh Gilead on the eastern side of the Jordan in
what is modern day Jordan. We've already heard about that
city in today's reading. It's the story that's under
attack by the serpent now by Nakash.
He's surrounded it and they're about to be put under the ban by
their enemies a couple of generations earlier.
When, when? When Gibia had been destroyed
and almost all the Benjaminites had been wiped out, but Jabish
Gilead had not come to be a part of that fight, All the army of
Israel had gone over to Jordan and had surrounded Jabish Gilead
and put that city to the ban. And as a result, this is a very
long story. Some of the surviving women from
that town had come to Gibia and become the wives of the
surviving men of the Benjaminites.
And So what does this result in? Saul's parents, or maybe Saul's
grandparents were very much a part of this story.
Saul exists because of survivors of these two battles in these
two cities. And these two cities are very
much connected in Old Testament history, to make a very Long
story short. So here's why all this matters.
Saul was a Benjaminite. His father or his grandfather
was one of the few survivors. After all, Israel had attacked
Gibeah. And then we can't know for sure.
It's very likely that Saul's mother or grandmother was a
survivor of what had happened to Jabesh Gilead.
And now back to today's story. First Samuel 11 verse one,
Nahash the serpent and the Ammonite army have laid siege to
Jabesh Gilead. Verse 2 the men of Jabesh have
offered surrender to them, and Nakash has agreed on the
condition that he gouge out their right eyes, which would
make them effectively unable to fight and would also bring
humiliation on all of Israel. So verse 3 the elders of Jabesh
send word to all Israel saying come and help us.
And you can be sure that they remembered and profoundly
regretted at this point what their grandparents had done when
they had not gone to fight at Gibia.
And they expected that turnabout would be fair play and no one
would come to rescue them at this time. 1st For when the
messengers arrived at Gibia, where the moms or the grandmas
were deeply connected to Jabesh Gilead, they were deeply
grieved. And when Saul verse 6 returned
from plowing the field and he heard the news, the Holy Spirit
rushed upon him, just as the Spirit had done in the book of
Judges with Samson and had done with Gideon and with others.
The Spirit rushes upon Saul and he cuts up his yoke of oxen,
just as had been done a couple of generations earlier with a
woman who had been brutally treated.
He cuts up the yoke of oxen and he sends the pieces throughout
all Israel. And he says, men of Israel, come
and fight. If you don't come and fight,
this same thing will be done to you.
And it was also a call to renewal, not just a call to
fight, because it's an invitation to graciously come to
the rescue of their brothers who had sinned against them.
So it's a national version, I think, of the grace that Joseph
showed to his brothers in Egypt long before.
And again, this is a pivotal moment in the history of
redemption. For the very first time, Israel
is united under a king. He is filled with the Holy
Spirit, and Nahash the serpent has come into the garden,
flowing with milk and honey, and he has come.
Nahash has come to dismember them.
And so King Saul calls all the men of Israel to unite as one
man and fight against the serpent, lest they be
dismembered themselves. And it works.
The fear of the Lord falls upon them all.
They meet together just West of the Jordan.
There are 330,000 of them who gather just across the river
from Jabesh. And so verse 10, the people of
Jabesh tell Nakash that tomorrow we will come to you, and you
will do what is good in your eyes.
It's a double entendre and it it's very clever.
They think that they're going to win, but the people of Jabesh
think that what will happen will be good in their eyes.
The Lord will do a good thing, and God will crush the serpent
under their feet. And early the next morning,
Israel's army swarmed the Ammonites.
Verse 11. They came into the midst of the
camp in the morning watch. They struck down the Ammonites
until the heat of the day. And those who survived were
scattered so that no two of them were left together.
Israel united under God's chosen king, crushed the serpent under
their feet. Verse 12.
Some of Saul's loyal soldiers want to take vengeance on the
naysayers, but Saul says, no, no, not a man shall be put to
death this day for today. The Lord has worked, Yeshua has
worked salvation upon Israel. And so basking in this
salvation, verse 15, they go down to the Jordan River.
They cross the Jordan River at the same place that Israel had
entered into the Promised land centuries before under Joshua,
that at that time, you know, they took 12 Stones from the
river. They set them up as a pillar in
that place and all the men were circumcised in a renewal
ceremony. This time they pass through the
waters as a kind of baptism, and on the West Bank they renew the
Kingdom and worship together, feasting and celebrating and
praising the Lord for the amazing things that he has done.
And that brings us to the end of the story and brings us now to
what does it mean for us? God made us to rule.
God created us to be involved in multiplication and dominion
under Him as His vice Regents in and through His Word.
God teaches us how to do this. He teaches us how to tend and
keep the garden wherever we're planted.
And through the power of the Holy Spirit, He calls us to
fight against Nahash the serpent and crush him under our feet.
As it was for Adam and Eve, as it was for Saul.
Our success depends upon putting God first, trusting that He is
the one who goes before us, and reading and obeying His Word.
As we're going to see in the next several weeks, Saul does
great in this battle, but it goes to his head and he puts
himself over God, and his success does not last.
He fails in the mission, He did not keep in step with God's
Spirit, and he lost the Kingdom. But thanks be to God, because in
the fullness of time God sent his Son into our world to be
King. The angels promised Mary and
confirmed this with the heavenly host and with the Magi in
Bethlehem. But Jesus didn't become king in
his infancy, did he? He had to learn obedience.
He had to be trained and tested before he ruled.
He studied the Scriptures, and he increased in wisdom and
stature and in favor before God and man.
And then after his baptism, as we heard in the Gospel lesson,
he was tested in the wilderness before he began his public
ministry. Jesus expected the serpent.
He knew what was coming. And he was ready.
He fought the serpent and did not sin.
And ultimately, for our sakes, on Good Friday, he suffered the
torture and humiliation of the cross.
Nahash thought that he had had victory over God's chosen king.
He thought he had given him a head wound.
But on Easter he discovered his mistake.
For Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come
again, and Jesus is now the rightful King over all creation.
And all of us who are baptized belong to him.
We are his subjects. We are called to love and trust
Him and to study and obey His Word.
And all other alliances and allegiances and affiliations are
downstream from our loyalty to King Jesus.
All other kings and presidents and parties are downstream from
our loyalty to King Jesus. All pastors and priests, bishops
and archbishops are downstream from our loyalty to King Jesus.
Every knee must bow to him. And again, we aren't simply
called just to bend the knee before him, but also to rule
under him as his vice Regents. He puts us in the ranks and He
uses us to grow His Kingdom. And once we understand and agree
to this, we should expect that God would order our lives in the
same way that He would be teaching us, that He would be
training us, and at times that we would be tested also.
We have to learn how to discern right and wrong.
We have to choose to do what is right, come what may, and we
should expect the serpent. We should not be surprised when
the serpent comes. This is a necessary part of our
training. When he comes, we mustn't give
ourselves to Him. He means to do us harm.
He comes to kill and destroy. He prowls around like a roaring
lion, seeking someone to devour. We must learn to join God in the
fight that he has already won, and to trust that he will crush
the serpent under our feet. We almost we must also learn to
fight the serpent together rather than fighting one
another. And when there are victories, we
must celebrate in worship, renewing our vows.
And thankfully, when we fail, we must look to Jesus, who for the
joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising its
shame and is now seated at the right hand of God.
By faith we await his death. Blow to the serpent.
Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, that you are
training us and preparing us, and you've called us to this
work of ruling under you. And each person here I know has
work to do this week that will be challenging and they need
your help. And so we call upon you, Lord,
to instruct them and prepare them and strengthen them, and
then defend them from the enemy and give them success in this
spiritual warfare that you've called us all to.
And we pray this in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit, Amen.