Good morning everyone. Yes, the coffee is working
awesome. For those of you that are new,
my name is Sulemani Megadi. I'm one of the pastors here at
Church of the Resurrection. When I was in high school, I
think this was 2002, just before I graduated, there was a crisis
in our city in Jos. Nigeria has been on the news for
a while, for a few weeks now, highlighting something that's
been going on for a very, very, very long time.
But there was a crisis in Josh and there was fighting that
broke out. And two of my school mates, they
were in grades lower than mine, went into town on Saturday and
they were in the middle of the fighting when it broke out.
And these two girls were scared, of course.
And thankfully, a Muslim man took pity on them, compassion on
them and hid them in his house for several days.
And they were there scared, afraid.
I mean, every knock on the door was like, you know, is this the
time when they come and find us and drag us out and kill us?
Can we actually trust this man that we don't know?
We have no idea who this guy is, you know, and I remember them
thinking that there's there was just no way for us nothing for
us to do. We're afraid they were crippled
with fear. Today we continue our journey
through for Samuel and so far here's what we have seen that
primarily because they wanted to be like the nations.
Israel asked God for a king, and it was always in his plan to
give them a king. But their request came from a
place of fear. They were afraid and ultimately
that request rejected the Lord. But God did grant their request
and gave them Saul, a man that looks like the kind of king that
they wanted. But Saul wasn't a fool.
He wasn't a tyrant. In fact, he was courageous.
He was a hero. It's clear that God wanted Saul
to succeed because at one point the Spirit of God came upon him.
He prophesied, and he went out in victory against the
Ammonites. And there's a passage in chapter
10, verse 6 and 9 that says that God actually made him a new man
by giving him a new heart. So God wanted Saul to succeed,
and then by the time Samuel says his farewell address is a smooth
transition between Samuel the judge and Saul the king.
So far, so good. Everything is fine until first
Samuel 13. That passage is found on page
220 of the ESV Bible and the Pews if you want to follow
along. And here's how the story begins.
It opens up in the hills of Benjamin, north of Jerusalem.
So Saul is with his son. They've divided their 3000 men,
small army between two of them. Saul is stationed up at Mickmash
with 2000 people somewhere up here down in Gibeah is Jonathan
with 1000 men somewhere over here.
And then Gebba is somewhere here, about a mile away from
Seoul. So this is the the sort of
geographical locations of these places, these towns, these three
towns, they form a strategic corridor that controlled
movement and trade and safety in the region.
They were very, very, very important locations.
And at this point the Philistines controlled these
towns. In fact, they controlled
everything, everything. They had military outposts in
various towns and cities of Israel, and these were meant to
keep the people in check, to enforce tribute.
They monitored Israel's movement and they kept Israel from
producing weapons. So towards the end of the
passage for today versus 19 to 22 of of first time, all 13,
we're told that there's no blacks blacksmith to be found
throughout all the land, not even 1 for the Philistines said,
lest the Hebrews make swords or Spears.
But all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to
sharpen each man's plowshare, his mat hawk, his axe and his
sickle. And the charge for sharpening
was a PIM. What's a PIM?
Roughly $75.00. That's how much I watched the
star, how much it was to sharpen one tool.
And so there was not a single sword amongst the Israelites
when the Philistines came out. It was like a technological
embargo designed to keep the Israelites under Philistine
subjugation. And so this is the context of
our passage. Saul is about to face his
greatest challenge yet, and yet, sadly, he fails.
Chapters 1314 and 15 form a triad that chronicles the fall
of Saul. And each one is worse than the
other. The consequences of each one is
worse than the other. Chapter 13, we begin to see the
anatomy of his declines, like strike one, how a man that's
been anointed for kingship by God and empowered by the Spirit
loses his way. It serves as a cautionary tale
for you and I, we who are disciples of Jesus Christ,
ambassadors of Jesus Christ. So avoid three things to be
careful of three things, pride, fear and disobedience.
Let me pray for us. Thy word is precious to US,
Heavenly Father, and by it we see ourselves and we pray that
we will look into your word, see our reflection, remember what we
look like and obey it so that we become like your Son, Jesus
Christ. It is in his name that we pray.
Amen. Amen.
All right, so into this context of limitation and control by the
Philistines steps in Jonathan, I can hear the trumpets, Jonathan
son of Saul. We'll hear more about him in the
next couple of chapters. But he embodies courage, he
embodies faith and he attacks the Philistine Garrison.
He moves from Gibeah, goes all the way together and he attacks
the Garrison at Gebba. Now verse 4 says that when Saul
hears of what Jonathan has done, he blows the trumpet throughout
the land and declares, let the Hebrews hear and all Israel
hears the news. Here's what they hear.
The first part of verse 4. Saul has defeated the Garrison
of the Philistines. Well, no, not really.
Was it not Jonathan that defeated the Garrison of the
Philistines? Now, it's possible the verse 4
simply is simply what happens when the commanding officer gets
credit for for what someone under them has done.
I lead various teams that some of you are in and I get all the
credit for the work you guys do. Thank you very much.
But I don't think that's what's happening here.
I think that what happens here is that Saul actually shapes the
message so that all Israel hears of his victory.
And therein lies the first crack in Saul's Kingdom, his
foundation, pride. And later that pride grows.
We'll find him building a monument, a monument to himself
in First Samuel chapter 15 verse 12.
And then later when David begins to rise and is is part of Saul's
army, the people sing Saul has slain his thousands and David
his 10s of thousands. And Saul is just, his heart
burns with jealousy and he's like they're going to give him
the Kingdom. And this is where that pride
begins. The same man who once said I am,
am I not a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribe, is now
taking credit where it is not due.
And we know what scripture says about that.
James writes that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble. Because pride doesn't only
distance us from the Lord, it actually puts us in opposition
to Him. The moment we begin to let pride
creep in, whether by taking credit for what other people
have accomplished or just thinking really highly of
ourselves, we start resisting the very God who has lifted up
and exalted us and put us into places in the 1st place.
And this is something that we need to hear, especially in a
city like DC where we're actually taught to blow our
trumpet. We're actually taught, yes, blow
our trumpet, let's DC here, right, to make sure everyone
knows what we've achieved, what we've LED, what we've built.
We call it networking. There are some good things about
networking, but remember, we are ambassadors, disciples of Jesus
Christ and we follow the law of humility.
Proverbs 27, verse 2. Let another praise you, and not
your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you,
James continues. And that's the posture that God
honors, because pride always precedes a fall.
Now verse 4 continues. And Israel became odious to the
Philistines. As long as Israel was passive,
remained as quiet as a mouse, there was peace or at least the
absence of conflict. But Jonathan has awakened the
Philistines anger. It's very true that at the
moment you begin to live by integrity, that you rise up in
faith and obedience where you, where you're praying and
striking at sin and refusing to blend in, where you're saying I
refuse to be under oppression any longer.
You become odious to your unseen enemies, the flesh, the world
and the Kingdom of darkness. And that should not be a
surprise at all. When you want to be faithful, if
you want to live a godly life, the enemy's like, no, we got to
put our sights on that one. But what do you do when the
enemy rallies around you? How will you respond?
The Philistines gather 30,000 Chariots, 6 1000 horsemen and
troops as numerous as the sand on the sea shores.
Now those numbers are meant for us to read and be like whoa,
that's a lot. The difference between 30,000 in
Hebrew shallow Shim elaf and 3000 shallow Shah Elaf is a
single syllable, so it's possible in the retelling of
this story, it's actually 3000, not 30,000.
The person heard 30,000, but whether it was 30 or three, the
meaning is the same. The Philistine army was vast, it
was organized, it was terrifying.
The writer is painting a picture of overwhelming force, an empire
that is enslaving Dada's people. In other words, the Philistines
were kind of worse than Egypt. Justice Farrah, remember,
Pharaoh pursued Israel to the Red Sea.
He only had 600 Chariots when he did that.
These guys had at least 3000, maybe 30,000 Chariots.
And they are surrounding Saul, understandably.
What do you do when that happens?
You're afraid the people hide in caves and in holes in the
ground. And here stands saw the man that
God chose to lead Israel's deliverance.
He's watching his army scatter, Where was Samuel?
Where was God? The fear must have been
crushing, just as it must have been crushing for my 2 friends
who were stuck in this man's house during and and hearing the
violence all around them, knowing their lives were in
danger. Now all of us, to varying
degrees, have experience with fear.
There was a kind of fear though that grips your chest when you
face unfamiliar overwhelming odds, Sickness, death,
imprisonment, persecution, abuse, abandonment.
When you see no clear way forward, you just don't know
what to do and you feel alone. What do you do with that kind of
fear? Now, I often hear people say, I
think it's there's truth in it, that fear isn't a sin, it's just
information. But Scripture presses that point
even further. It may be information and it's
not always sinful, but it is always dangerous.
You've got to be careful if fear is in the equation.
This is why Proverb says to us the fear of man lays A snare.
Revelation 21 verse 8 says that the cowardly, those ruled by
fear are among those who reject God entirely.
God commands and encourages us. Fear not, for I am with you,
David writes. Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because God is
with me. And Paul says God has not given
us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.
The crucial point here is this. It is never ever right to let
fear determine your choices. It's never right.
Fear can explain what you do, but it cannot excuse what you
do. Ever.
When fear takes control, it signals that we've actually lost
connection with the spirit of power that God gives to His
people. You see, faith filled men and
women may in fact will feel afraid, but they will not be led
by fear. They will be led by the Spirit
of God. And Saul's tragedy in this
moment is not that he was afraid, but that he allowed fear
to master him. So first you see pride.
Now fear is coming into the equation, and Saul let's it
master him. What does he do?
He disobeys. Now back in First Samuel chapter
10 verse 8, Samuel had already set an expectation for Saul on
the eve of every kind of battle. He says to them, go down before
me to Gilgal and I will come to you to offer burnt offerings. 7
days. You shall wait until I come to
you and show you what to do. That's what he says in First
Samuel chapter 10. So that's the expectation on the
eve of battle. You wait for Samuel to come.
Now that word wait doesn't just mean to sit around and do
nothing. That word wait is a posture of
expectancy, of looking eagerly to God, knowing that he's going
to appear at some point. And that often included prayer
and fasting and praise. Waiting.
So Saul waits seven days, just the Samuel instructed.
He's waiting, But as the days drag on, his army begins to
unravel. Soldiers start slipping away,
hiding in caves and cisterns and pits.
Others are fleeing across the Jordan to the lands of God and
Gilead. They're like, Nope, this is not
my problem. What began as a force of 3000
men all of a sudden shrinks to just 600 men.
And these aren't 600 men who are like, yeah, let's do this.
These are men that are quaking in their boots.
They're frayed. So Saul does something
understandable. He knows he needs God's
approval. He knows he needs something to
rally the people together. And so he offers the burnt
offering himself. And it seems like he does it
just at the end of the seven days.
Now, generally speaking, offering burnt offerings was the
role of priests, and that might be one of the big problems here.
Saul is not a priest and he offers this sacrifice.
But there were times when others who were non priests also
offered sacrifices. The patriarchs did it, Gideon
did it, Samuel himself, he's not a priest, but he did it.
David and Solomon later do it though, in the presence of other
priests. So the issue here is more than
just the fact that he actually offered the burnt offerings.
It's that he actually disobeyed the command to wait for Samuel
to come and offer the burnt offerings.
Verse 12 says, look at verse 12, that he forced himself to offer
the sacrifice. He made himself do it.
It means that he knew that he was crossing a line, but he did
it anyway. The fact that his action was
understandable did not make it right.
And we face this temptation daily.
I know I do. We are disciples of Jesus
Christ. We are always on the
battlefield. We're always going to be
fighting something. And sometimes our fighting is
fierce. We feel the pressure and urgency
of the moment, the fear, the time is running out, the sense
that if we don't act, things will fall apart.
It's on us. And that's exactly the moment
when obedience begins to feel like it's negotiable.
We tell ourselves, yes, I know what God commands me to do, but
this situation is different. And suddenly we begin to rewrite
the rules. Disobeying God's commands to
love our neighbor because the stakes feel too high.
Disobeying his call to patience and waiting because the moment
feels too urgent. Disobeying his command to speak
truthfully because it might cost us influence.
Disobeying His command to live with integrity because it's,
that's not practical in my field.
And you bring it home. You know, spouses can feel the
weight of unmet expectations or ongoing conflict and begin to
justify disobedience, refusing to forgive one another because
oh, they don't deserve it or I've tried everything.
They're not paying attention. You can feel that as a single
person. The unbearable weight of both
waiting and neglect, and start to think that God's timing is
too slow, that maybe compromising just a little would
be understandable. After all, the clock is ticking.
There so many ways that we make these justifications, but the
logic is the same. I forced myself.
It's Saul all over again. So you see, pride comes before
Saul's fall. Fear leads him into disobedience
and disobedience it always has consequences.
Samuel comes to him and 1st rebukes him.
You have acted foolishly and have not kept the command of the
Lord your God. I was reading that and I was
thinking, huh? How do you all feel if I told
you you acted foolishly? But here you have this prophet
saying to somebody that he loves.
You'll find in verse Psalm 15 you have acted foolishly.
Serve your heart. Search your heart.
Have you acted foolishly? Have you heard the words of
Jesus, the words of Scripture and not done them?
Are you building your house on sand while convincing yourself
it's actually solid ground? Are you explaining away your
disobedience? Are you acting foolishly?
Then Second Samuel tells him of the loss.
Your Kingdom would have been established over Israel forever,
but now your Kingdom shall not endure.
That's a devastating thing for a king to hear.
It means that his sons will not be kings after him.
Disobedience doesn't just wound conscience.
That's not what it does. Not only what it does, it
creates a gap between US and God, but it also erodes what God
is building through us as well. Our homes, our ministries, our
friendships, our church. Things meant to be built on the
rock solid foundations of obedience to Christ's teaching.
And then Samuel says to him, you've been replaced.
The Lord has sought out for himself a man after his own
heart, and the Lord has appointed him ruler over his
people. Because of this, Saul loses his
position. His heart of pride and
disobedience was not a heart that sought the Lord.
It wasn't beating for God anymore.
So again, search yourself. Does your heart pursue the heart
of God or does it pursue personal honor, ambition,
security, whatever it might be? And what's truly shocking is
that in verse 15, we expect Saul to repent, right?
But he doesn't. Verse 15 says, and Saul left and
and Samuel left. He just walked away.
He let Samuel walk away without a word.
And that's the crucial difference between the the heart
that Saul had and the heart that David had.
Repentance is always available and David is always reaching for
repentance, always grasping for repentance, pursuing it because
he wants to please the Lord and Saul doesn't.
He keeps his pride and his pride keeps him.
And in one swell 1 soup, soup, one well, swoop.
What is the word? Whatever.
Thank you. Thank you.
That one swell swoop. Thank you.
Saul's reign is effectively over, even though he's still
technically the king. He'll sit on the throne, but
another man is already being prepared to take his place.
Dear Christian, you are a disciple of Christ.
You're an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you are You are not indispensable.
If pride and disobedience born out of fear has taken hold of
you, please repent. Turn to the Lord like David does
over and over and over again, before the rain falls and the
floods come and the winds blow and beat your house and it
collapses. You are not indispensable.
And as the story closes, things go from bad to worse.
The Philistines are basically everywhere.
They sent out Raiders to every direction.
N SE West and Sauce Army has shrunk to 600.
They're frightening. They're hiding in caves.
If this were a movie, this would be the point where you pull back
and the soundtrack darkened. It's the Two Towers.
Of course I'm going to use Lord of the Rings.
It's the Two Towers when Helm's Deep is surrounded.
Or it's that point in Star Wars where you see the dead star
looming about to strike the planet.
And next week we'll see how God delivers his people, how he
does, how he does save them. What happened to my schoolmates
who were caught in the midst of that violence?
What do they do? Like Paul and Silas, who are in
prison, they prayed and they fasted and they waited on the
Lord because that's all they could do.
God hurt them and when the time was right, the Muslim man safely
arranged for them to return to school in 2011.
Two 1012, I was the president of our student union government.
At the seminary where I studied in Nigeria, another crisis broke
out. Surprise, surprise.
And we learned that the seminary was being targeted.
So the Provost tried to rally military protection, but none
came. And I was the in charge of the
students when in charge of what the students did.
And I was getting all sorts of suggestions.
Some were saying we should fight, others were saying we
shouldn't. And honestly, I had no idea what
to do. I was not trained for this.
I basically relied on other people who had experience with
this kind of thing, and in the end we decided to station
students throughout the campus to to keep a watch throughout
the night so that if anything should happen, they could at
least sound an alarm. But we also called for an all
night prayer meeting, time of prayer and fasting.
Some people prayed and fast fasted throughout the night in
their homes or in the Chapel. And goodness, they were singing,
and it wasn't just singing of laments, There was praise to
God, recognizing that He is the King of kings and the Lord of
Lords. There was nothing we could do
apart from that. I walked from station to station
that night. I was afraid, trembling, like I
didn't know what was going to happen.
And I was going from station to station praying with the
students who who are watching now.
We weren't attacked, and I believe that's because we prayed
and trusted the Lord. There are others who prayed and
trusted and were still attacked, but we survived the fear and the
helplessness through prayer, through fasting and waiting on
God. Many of us here have little
practice living by faith when the odds are overwhelming.
Some of us are so used to safety and comfort and control.
But when these things are stripped away, that's when real
faith is tested. Look, friends, there is no way
for God to teach you how to wait on Him when things are really,
really bad without leading you through the valley of the shadow
of death. There's just no way.
It is in that valley that we learn to count it all joy when
we meet trials of various kinds, for we know that the testing of
our faith produces steadfastness.
It's in the valley that we learn to say, even if our God does not
deliver us, we will not bow down and worship you.
That's what we learned, that the same gospel, the same Spirit
that is with our brothers and sisters all around the world who
go through much worse than we do and yet stand firm and trust the
Lord, is the same gospel, the same Spirit that is ours as
well. You have the spirit of power.
That same strength is available to you.
So don't walk the path of pride. Don't lead.
Don't let fear lead you to disobedience.
I implore you, wait on the Lord. It is the most active kind of
trust that there is. Let's pray.
Father, may our hearts learn how to trust in You and wait upon
You. You have said to us that we
should seek your face 'cause that we will seek your face.
In your Son's name I pray. Amen.