Saul’s
Rebelliousness
1 Samuel 13:1–15
Opening Prayer
“Father,
we are so grateful we can come together this evening to be refreshed by Your
Word, to be encouraged and strengthened as we study the truth of Your Word; that
as our Lord said, we are sanctified by the truth. That is the means You have
decreed for our spiritual growth, for our spiritual edification, as we walk by
the Spirit. It is through Your Spirit and Your Word that we are matured.
Father, we pray
that as we study tonight that Your Word would transform our thinking; that we can renew our
minds that we can think Your thoughts after You; that we can learn to think
biblically, think doctrinally, think according to divine truth, and not
according to human viewpoint systems of thought. We pray that we would be
willing to take the challenge to do so in Christ’s name. Amen.”
We
are in 1 Samuel 13. As we wrapped up in 1 Samuel 12 the last two or three
lessons, what we were focusing on was Israel’s unfaithfulness, and God’s
faithfulness to the Covenant. Last week we saw Israel’s rebelliousness.
As
we shift gears to 1 Samuel 13 we are going to see Saul’s rebelliousness. The
next three chapters work together as we see King Saul completely deteriorate
spiritually and God takes the kingdom from him. We see this in stages.
Stage
one occurs in 1 Samuel 13. Stage two occurs in 1 Samuel 15.
In
both situations it is the same basic problem—Saul is rebellious towards God.
That is just the default position of the sin nature. But I am always reminded
as we look at the Old Testament that one thing that we have learned in our
study in Romans, is in Romans 6:3–6, Paul says that the key to spiritual growth
is to understand that we have been crucified with Christ and His death, burial,
and resurrection.
That
is a reference to the baptism by the Holy Spirit. That is what happens at the
instant we are saved. As a result of that, Paul says that we are dead to sin.
That does not mean that we do not still sin. It does not mean we cannot sin in
competition with the greatest of unbelievers. But it does mean that we no
longer are under the tyranny of the sin nature, where that is the only option.
We have true liberty and true freedom of choice to not sin and to walk with the
Lord. That is Paul’s challenge in Romans 6.
As
we studied that, I pointed out that this really affirms the principles of
dispensationalism, that the church is distinct not only in terms of its
destiny, but also in terms of the spiritual life that we have been given
because we have a unique spiritual life unlike any believer in all of history.
In
the Old Testament, we can be critical of Samson; we can be critical of Eli; we
can be critical of Saul. We can be critical of a lot of believers that seem to
have failed, but they were still under the tyranny of the sin nature. They did
not have the benefit of the baptism by the Holy Spirit.
I
think that when people look at Saul, they often think, “Oh, look at his life.
He has got a lot of failure. He must not have been a believer.” Yet I have
pointed out reasons that I believe he is a believer, but he is just a
rebellious, disobedient, carnal believer who is living in rebellion against
God. He has never really demonstrated a whole lot of spiritual interest.
In a
chapter we have not yet come to on Sunday morning is the confrontation between Jesus
and the Pharisees in Matthew 23. It always helps your position to call people a
hypocrite to their face. Jesus is doing it in love because He is the impeccable
Lord Jesus Christ, so He cannot do that not in love. We have to understand that
that is all a part of love.
Matthew
23:27–28, “…
For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but
inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also
outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and
lawlessness.”
This
is not a pleasant picture of the Pharisees. But it is so often true of a lot of
Christians. It is especially true of a lot of politicians. We may or may not be
sure of their eternal destiny, but they have a tendency to have this external
pretense of religion. Saul was no exception to this.
As
Jesus confronted the Pharisees here, He makes them realize that they have a
counterfeit good, a counterfeit righteousness—that their righteousness was
superficial and external. It was not internal.
Many
of us would be more attracted to the Pharisees. We certainly would not be
attracted to the Sadducees. They were the liberals of the day although we do
not know a lot about them, because they did not write anything. The only people
who wrote anything about them were their enemies, the Pharisees.
If
500 years from now the only writings that were left to talk about evangelicals
were the writings of our enemies, what would people think about us? So we
really do not know a lot about the Sadducees. We only know a few things about
them.
But
the Pharisees tried to do everything right:
That
is what Jesus meant by the fact that they were full of dead men’s bones. And
whether or not the Pharisees were personally justified is not the issue. The
fact is they are living like a spiritually dead person.
Jesus
is talking to a whole group of Pharisees. We know that at least two Pharisees,
Joseph and Nicodemus, were born again. Jesus is making a generalized statement
when He does that.
Even
believers can live, at times, where they appear to be even worse than
unbelievers, because they are in rebellion. In fact, I think that when
believers go into full-scale rebellion, like the prodigal son, they end up a
whole lot worse than those who are trying to live a Christian life and are
walking by the Lord, but stumble along the way.
The
Pharisees had a problem with this mental attitude. They had slipped into the
trap of externalism. They were going through all the right motions externally,
but internally they were walking as if they were spiritually dead. And in many
cases they probably were.
This
is the problem with Saul. Woe unto us if we fall into this trap of spiritual
self-deception and externalism. Sadly, I think a lot of Christians are that
way. Christians just go through the motions: Christians go to church on Sunday.
Christians go maybe every now and then in the middle of the week.
Christians
have a Bible at home, and every now and then they open it. Christians are going
to find God’s will, so they open their Bible and close their eyes and point
their finger to a verse, read it, “go and do likewise. Well? We have got to
find another one (verse).” Christians do not do very well.
We
have to avoid that trap. But that is the problem with Saul. He does not have a
devotion to obedience to the Torah. We see his decline and failure in these coming chapters.
We
start off in 1 Samuel 13:1 with one of those difficult verses. It is difficult
because we really do not know what it says in the original. We only know what
it seems to say,
because of some words that were left out. I have put this verse in three
translations to show you how different translators have sought to solve the
problem. I have italicized. It is probably that way in some Bibles. My New Kings James
does not italicize any. Some put a bracket in like the NET Bible does at the bottom.
It
literally reads in the text that we have, “Saul reigned ____ _year.”
There
is one translation where the translators were gutsy enough to just put a
question mark there. It is hard to sell Bibles when you put question marks in
place of words in the Bible. A lot of people do not think you really believe in
the Bible.
Saul
reigned ? year; and when he had reigned ? over Israel.
1
Samuel 13:1,
“Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,” NKJV.
If
you compare that to the New American Standard Bible (NASB), we read:
1
Samuel 13:1,
“Saul was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty two
years over Israel.” NASB
I do
not know where they get the “two” unless it seems like Saul has been reigning
two years and they are going to add forty to it.
Saul
was “x” years old and they supply thirty.
1
Samuel 13:1,
“Saul was [thirty] years old when he began to reign; he ruled over Israel for
[forty] years.” NET
There
are two ways they get the [forty]:
You
all know about Ishbosheth do you not?
That
is one of those familiar Bible names. Maybe you will name a dog or a cat that,
but you are not going to find too many people naming their babies Ishbosheth.
Ishbosheth
is forty years old when Saul dies. Ishbosheth has not been mentioned up to this
point as one of Saul’s sons. The other three sons are mentioned by this point;
Ishbosheth is not.
It
is assumed that Ishbosheth was born close to the time that Saul began to reign.
He is the baby. If he were forty years old when Saul died, then that would mean that Saul
reigned forty years. That would confirm that forty-year period.
It
is a little difficult here because chronologically we would really like to be
able to nail down how old Saul was, and how long he reigned, and the best we
can come up with is how long he reigned. That becomes a bit of an issue in
chronology.
If
you were here at the Chafer Conference this year on the last night when Steve
Austin was talking about various issues related to the signs of the cross, he
pointed out a couple of things. One of the books I had seen but had not picked
it up. I have a stack of books on biblical chronology, and everybody tends to
disagree with each other. Sometimes it is like undoing a knot of yarn when you are
dealing with biblical chronology.
We
have a couple of issues coming up. One is the chronology in Samuel. The other
is chronology of the last week of Jesus’ life preceding the cross. That is a
tough one.
But
there is a book called From Abraham
to Paul: A Biblical Chronology by Andrew E. Steinmann. He
recommended that. I just picked it up.
There
is another man, who is a mathematician and chronologist. That is his field. He
is not a Biblicist. He is just working calendars. He has really done a lot of
work. Both of these men have published a lot of articles in the Evangelical
Theological Society Journal over the last twenty years dealing with some
really tough chronological issues. They have come to some really good and
interesting conclusions.
These
authors have changed my views on a couple of little things. Not major things.
They take the Scripture literally. They take the numbers literally, which is
important. They are conservative, but they are pointing out some things that I
think have been very, very helpful.
He
points out in this book that this absence of numbers in 1 Samuel 13:1 is really
a problem in terms of putting together a tight chronology of this period.
We
can generally get most of the dates, but one of the things that we cannot
really tell is when this battle occurred that has two stages that we are going
to study, the battle of Michmash in 1 Samuel 13–14.
We
see Jonathan, but we cannot really pinpoint how old Jonathan is. He seems to be
a mature warrior. He could be anywhere from 25–40 years of age.
I
have always thought that was interesting because David is probably born or is
only about 9–10 years old, anywhere from 1–10 years old at this particular
time. When you think about how close Jonathan and David were, usually you see
all these children’s Bible stories and animated stories that have Jonathan and
David at roughly the same age.
But
there may be as much as 15–16 years of age difference between David and
Jonathan.
If
Jonathan is a little more mature and is perhaps 35–38 years of age at the time
of this battle, and this is long before David meets Goliath, then there could
be as much as a twenty-year gap in their ages. That is interesting because
Jonathan is the crown prince. Yet he recognizes David as the one who is
anointed to replace Saul.
Jonathan
gives his loyalty to a man who is anywhere from 10 to 20 years his junior. That
is somebody who has integrity and character, because he is looking at somebody
who is a wet-behind-the-ears pup. Jonathan recognizes he is the one God has
chosen. We will get into some of those issues as we get a little further along.
But
as this begins, we see that Saul and Israel are facing their generational enemy
of the Philistines. The Philistines have been a problem. Going back into the
period of the judges they really became a problem at the time of Samson. But
even earlier, they were a problem when we have that one verse, where Shamgar
kills a number of Philistines back in Judges 3.
The
Philistines have been a problem. But now they have really taken a strong
position. They have Israel under their heel again. The Philistines were defeated
at the battle of Aphek by Samuel. Now they have come back and they have come
back strong.
The
Philistines were a part of a Greek migration. If we look at the map, we see
Philistia along the coast. This is where they settled. You have some Philistines
who came early. There were waves of these “Greek sea people”, as they are
called. The earliest ones came a little bit before Abraham, and they
established some of these cities along the coast. You have Gaza, Ashdod, Gath,
Ekron, and these are primarily where they were located along the coast.
Then
as we get into this period, the Philistines have begun to push north and east.
They are coming now into the central highlands here in Israel. Now if you have
not been to Israel, this is pretty rugged terrain—all through here.
Here
in Texas, if you go out north of Fredericksburg towards Llano and that area in
the Hill Country, this is a lot more rugged than that. This is extremely rugged
terrain. We will see this a little later. I have some photos to show you.
So
the Philistines have become quite a force. They were originally a mix of
Greeks. In the Table of Nations in Genesis 10, it identifies them as from
Caphtor, which is Crete. The Caphtorim were the descendants of Ham. The Greeks
were the descendants of Japheth. They are a blend of people. They established
themselves as sailors and pretty much controlled all of the maritime trade on
the Mediterranean Sea.
The
Philistines established these cities along the coast of Philistia, but they
went north. The cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Phoenicia were all the same people.
Later, when you have the conquest of the Greeks under Alexander, the Philistine
peoples are going to be forced to leave. They go west. They establish a colony
at Carthage and become the enemies of the Romans for quite a while, until the
Romans finally subdued them. That gives you some history and background on the
Philistines.
At
this point this is probably some years after Saul was anointed at Gilgal. We do
not know how long, because we have lost the numbers in 1 Samuel 13:1. He was
anointed at Gilgal. This is the area down along the Jordan River. This was when
the Israelites first crossed into the land. This is where they set up rock
cairns, to memorialize coming across the Jordan.
Gilgal
is where the Israelites renewed their commitment to God. It is where all of the
men who had been born in the wilderness period were all circumcised, as they
were now entering into the land, as a sign that they were under the Covenant
with God. Gilgal is a significant place for the nation to come together for
purposes of their devotion to God, as well as purposes related to the defense
of the nation. This happens several times.
Saul
is going to face a second test of his leadership. He had to handle a problem
with the Ammonites, which we saw in 1 Samuel 11, as he saved the inhabitants of
Jabesh-Gilead. He is going to face a second major test. Remember, the primary
role of the Messiah-King is to protect the people from their enemies and to
provide for the liberty and the freedom of the people.
That
is a great principle. That is true for any head of state, for any government.
That is the primary mission for government, according to Scripture under Divine
Institution #5, which has to do with the nations. It is the job of the
government to protect the nation, to secure the borders, to provide the defense
for the citizens, from external enemies, as well as internal enemies, in other
words, crime.
This
is the role that Saul has. This is, of course, a picture of the ultimate role
of God’s Messiah-King who is going to provide eternal salvation for His people.
He is going to protect them, as such, from the ravages of sin and provide
redemption for them. He is also going to provide genuine liberty for believers.
Paul
says in Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free,
and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
The
“yoke of bondage” is legalism. Legalism is what the Pharisees succumbed to—this
idea of just going through the external acts of obedience. It is what led to an
external religious form. There was no internal relationship with God. There was
no real love for the Lord.
We
have to note that within Scripture freedom is not independence from God’s
authority. Freedom and liberty are mutually exclusive. A lot of people think
that freedom means you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. But liberty
brings in the concept of personal responsibility.
We
are not free to do whatever we want. True freedom leads to anarchy. We believe
in liberty. This was understood by the Founding Fathers of this nation.
Their
fight was for liberty, not for autonomy, not for a pure anarchic type of
freedom. Liberty is freedom spiritually from the sin nature, but it is not
freedom to do whatever we want to do. It is the freedom to choose to obey God.
This
is what we find in passages like Romans 6:16–17, where Paul says:
“Do you not know
that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves
whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of
obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked
that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart
that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.”
Obedience
to the Lord out of love is the opposite of legalism. Legalism is that
superficial externalism that Saul had fallen into, that the Pharisees had
fallen into, and that so many Christians fall into. It is a trap that if I just
go through the checklist, then I am okay with God.
But
our relationship with God is a matter of the heart. This is why God says many
times to the Jews that He desired obedience rather than sacrifice. Sacrifice
was following the standards of the Law, but there was not necessarily any
obedience that went along with it.
A
problem that we have with a lot of Christians today is that they think that
obedience is somehow legalistic. I do not know if you have heard it, but I have
heard Christians say that all this talk about obedience, the things I need to
do, that I need to be obedient in the Christian life. This is just legalism. I
am free. Grace has freed me from legalism. I do not have to do that.
No,
you do not have to do that for your salvation, but you do have to be obedient
in order to grow spiritually and to avoid the consequences of sin. We may be
forgiven eternally from the consequences of our sin. And we may be forgiven
whenever we confess our sins. But that does not mean that the consequences are
not ours. The issue of obeying God and it being linked to love for God is found
throughout the Scriptures.
For
example, we read in Deuteronomy 5:10, God is speaking. He says, “but showing
mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Notice
the connection there. Loving God means you keep His commandments. So often
today we have people who sing wonderful little choruses that make them feel all
warm and fuzzy, “Oh, How I Love Jesus.” Yet there is no obedience in their life
at all. Scripture says the barometer to determine whether you love Jesus is
whether you are obedient to Jesus. The barometer for lack of love is
disobedience, a failure to walk with the Lord and to obey Him.
Deuteronomy
6:17, “You
shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies,
and His statutes which He has commanded you.”
But
this is not to become saved. This is how the saved people of Israel, the people
of God, are to live as people of God. This is about their spiritual life, their
sanctification, not about their ultimate justification.
Deuteronomy
7:9,
“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps
covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep
His commandments.”
Notice
the connection again between loving Him and keeping His commandments.
Deuteronomy
11:22, “For if
you carefully keep all these commandments which I commanded you to do—to love
the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—”
See
the connection between keeping His commandments and loving the Lord? The two go
together.
Deuteronomy
13:4, “You
shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and
obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.”
A
lot of these same terms we saw as we were going through the covenant language
that was in 1 Samuel 12 last week. Walking after the Lord means to keep His
commandments and serving Him.
The
reason I did this—that is all from Deuteronomy—is somebody is going to say that
it is just legalism—that is from the Law that we have to obey Him.
But
wait a minute. Let’s see what Jesus says to the disciples in what is called the
Upper Room Discourse, the night before He goes to the cross. There He is
clearly, from John 13 on, giving His disciples instructions for what the code
of conduct would be in the church age.
In John
14:15 Jesus sounds so Deuteronomic, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
John
14:21, “He who
has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me
will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
If
we want to have a closer relationship with the Lord, we walk in obedience. That
demonstrates our love for Him.
In
John 15:10 Jesus
said, “If you
keep My commandments, you will abide in My love.” That is fellowship. That
is not talking about salvation or the loss of salvation. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide
in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His
love.”
I
believe that John’s first epistle is his deep reflection upon what Jesus said
in the Upper Room Discourse. He uses the same language all the way through it.
It is just remarkable.
He
says in 1 John 2:3, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
There
is that barometer. Some people think that knowing Jesus is what happens when
you trust in Him. We often hear that in our evangelical slang. We say, “Do
you know Jesus?” But when Jesus was talking to Thomas and the other disciplines
in John 14:3–11, Philip said, “We’ve seen You, show us the Father.” Jesus says, “if you have seen
Me you have seen the Father. How long have I been with you, Philip, do you not
know Me?”
He
is talking to a disciple who is a believer. He says, “don’t you know Me?”
Knowing
Jesus is something that happens after we are saved, as we come to know who He
is. We demonstrate our love for Him as we walk in obedience. That relationship
gets closer and closer. Knowing Jesus is not justification. Knowing Jesus is
what develops in our spiritual growth and spiritual life. That is how we know
we are growing spiritually, that we’ve come to know Him, is that we keep His
commandments. That is the barometer.
1
John 2:4, “He
who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the
truth is not in him.”
We
see that this problem, that has been a perennial problem for believers
throughout the ages, is walking in obedience to the Lord and not succumbing to
legalism on the one hand, which just imposes a superficial external standard
that if we can just check off our terrible two things we never do, or fearsome
five, or nasty nine, or whatever the list is. That is just externalism.
The
other extreme is licentiousness—where we just think I am free in Christ and I
can do whatever I want to do. Neither of those is biblical.
Those
are the poles of our sin nature. We either swing towards legalism and
asceticism; or we swing in the opposite direction towards licentiousness and
antinomianism. But walking with the Lord means that we are going to demonstrate
our love for Him by learning the Word and growing and maturing.
So
Saul is faced with this problem because he does not know the Lord. What is
interesting in this chapter is we do not see him responding to the threat by
looking for Samuel. We do not see him responding to the threat by seeking
Samuel’s wisdom or calling upon the name of the Lord. He does not have any of
that language here. He is handling the situation and circumstances all on his
own.
For
application, as we look at any of these battle situations in the Old Testament,
I want you to think of this in terms of the spiritual battle that we are in in
our life. That is where we see a transfer for application. The interpretation
that we see in 1 Samuel 13 is the writer of Samuel is showing us the need for David, the need
for another kind of king. That is what we will get to before the chapter
ends.
Saul
is a king like all the people wanted, like all the nations, but he is not the
kind of king that should rule God’s people. He is not a king like David. What
is going to distinguish them, as we will see in this chapter, is David is going
to be identified by God as a man after His own heart. That means a man who
desires above all things to do God’s will.
Did
David fail? Sure he did, miserably! But throughout it all, he still was a man
who wanted to do God’s will in His life. That should hopefully characterize
most of us. We fail miserably at times!
If
you are a human being, and you have a sin nature, you are going to fail
miserably at times. But God’s grace provides the solution always. Christ died
on the cross for every sin no matter what it is. All sin is paid for at the
cross. There is always recovery.
But
God wants a man and a woman who desires to know Him above everything else, and
to do His will. You will have ups and downs. You will have times of failure; maybe
gross failure, just as David did. He had gross failure, but God’s conclusion
throughout His life was that no matter how bad David was, David still wanted to
please God, even when he was in full-scale rebellion. That is true too often
for too many of us.
So
what we see here is that Saul is not seeking a solution from Samuel, but on His
own. We read in 1 Samuel 13:2, “Saul chose for himself three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand
were with Saul in Michmash and in the mountains of Bethel, and a thousand were
with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent away, every
man to his tent.”
Where
did he get the idea to do that? Does this remind you of anybody? It is sort of
reminiscent of Gideon, is it not?
Gideon
was up against a much larger force. He was up against 135,000 Midianites. He
started off with about 32,000. God got rid of 22,000. He was down to 10,000.
Then he got rid of 9,700. He was down to 300—300 against 135,000. Those were the odds
that he was facing.
I do
not know that this was part of Saul’s thinking or not. But Saul, just in the
previous chapter, had a huge number of Israelites with him. He had 330,000
according to 1 Samuel 11:8, and he sends them all home, except for three thousand (1
Samuel 13:1–2). Saul cuts his force down by 90%. He had 3,000 left with
him. He takes 2,000 and goes to Michmash. Then he is going to leave 1,000 under
Jonathan and sends Jonathan to Gibeah of Benjamin.
If
we are going to understand this, then we are going to have to look at a map. I
love maps. This is an interesting map because this is the topographical map.
You can see the
ridgelines here. What I want you to notice is that you can see this dark
line that runs just above Tell Miryam. It runs east to west through Tell
Miryam, and just south of the red star, which is Michmash. Then it runs down
here through this wadi. This is the path of Michmash. That is where the next
chapter is going to take place. It is rugged, horribly rugged terrain.
We
have Geba that is mentioned. Notice we have almost a straight line here. Here
is Gibeah of
Saul. Some commentators think they are the same place, but they are not.
Those
of you who were with me on the last trip to Israel will remember when Joel
drove us through this area. Joel Kramer is an archeologist over there that went
with us who
had a throwaway line that nobody caught. He said Geba is not Gibeah. They
are two different places. I filed that away, because I said I am doing Samuel,
and I am going to get to Geba is not Gibeah.
Down
here to the south is Jerusalem. Here is our scale in the bottom southeast
corner. See, this is six miles. From Jerusalem to Gibeah of Saul is about four
and a half miles. It is not very far. It is just on the outskirts of modern
Jerusalem. You drive right up the highway. Here is Ramah (which is Samuel’s
hometown) to the north of Jerusalem. If you look at this, you are looking at a
direct line. If you’re standing here to the southwest of Gibeah and you’re
looking to the northeast, you’ll see Ramah. Then you will see Geba. Then you
will see Michmash.
I do
not see how people taught this without pictures and maps. This is Gibeah of
Saul in the foreground where the ancient site was. Then across here you see
Geba. And then on the far horizon you see Michmash.
See
how they are aligned? Does that not look like attractive land? Do you want to
buy some land there?
That
is in the West Bank. It is pretty dry and arid. But this gives you an idea of
the proximity of these villages in the ancient world.
The
description here is that Saul pulls out and goes to the northeast. He takes up
a defensive position on this ridge up by Michmash. What you do not see here is
that there is a tremendous chasm that runs through here. Saul has a defensive
position over here because he can use the terrain to keep the Philistines from
attacking him.
The
Philistines have their outpost here at Geba. Saul has taken up a position on
the far side. Then Jonathan has 1,000 here in Gibeah of Saul, Saul’s hometown,
in the forefront. What we see here is a classic situation where Saul sets up a
defensive position. You can never win a war on defense. You cannot win a
football game if all you have is defense. You cannot win anything if all you
have is defense. You have to have offense.
In
the spiritual life, we have to understand where we are on the offense and where
we are on the defense. By application there are three enemies in the spiritual
life:
Satan
is the real inspiration of the world system. The world system is all the
thoughts and values, ideas, religions, and philosophies that make up cultures.
They influence us from the time we are babies. We are influenced by a lot of
cultural ideas and human viewpoint thinking from our parents, our peers, and
our professors all the way through school. That makes up the world that
influences us.
Romans
12:2 says we are
“not to be conformed to the world,” but we have our minds conformed all
those years before we are even saved. We have to do something about that. Then
we have the problem with the sin nature. The world and the sin nature are
enemies that we are to aggressively attack. We are to be on the offense against
the sin nature and against the world.
Romans
8:13, “For if
you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to
death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
There
are a couple of things you need to know there. First, we either live according
to the flesh, or we live according to the Spirit. This is the same thing Paul
says in Galatians 5:16, “Walk by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts (deeds) of the flesh.”
We
either walk according to the flesh or the sin nature, or we are walking
according to the Spirit. What we are to do is to walk according to the Spirit
and by the Spirit, who works with the Word of God. We put to death the deeds of
the body, the deeds of the sin nature. We are to be aggressive at putting to
death the deeds of the sin nature. We are to be on a search and destroy mission
for our whole life. We are not real good at it. Fortunately though, God
forgives us and meets us with grace.
This
is an offensive action. In Romans 12:2 we take the offense against the world.
We are “not to
be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our
mind, that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of
God.”
James
4:4,
“Adulterers and adulteresses!”
James
learned from his half-brother Jesus how to win friends and influence people. He
is writing to the recipients of this epistle. He calls them “adulterers and
adulteresses” because they like all of us, are unfaithful to God—sometimes not so much,
sometimes a lot. He says that their problem is that they are worldly. They are
thinking like the world. He says: “Do you not know that friendship with the world is
enmity with God?”
You
cannot have it both ways. We have a lot of Christians that try to be friends
with the world and think like the world. There is not a lot of antagonism
between their co-workers or their children or their family members. They just
want to go along to get along. James says you cannot do that. Friendship with
the world is hostility towards God.
“Whoever therefore
wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
You
can be a Christian and an enemy of God because you are failing to deal with the
worldly thinking in your own soul.
2
Corinthians 10:3–4 talks about this same battle. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not
war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but
mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” That is an aggressive action.
That is using military imagery to talk about an attacking fortress, dismantling
it, and taking it down.
This
is further developed in 2 Corinthians 10:5, “casting down arguments and every high thing that
exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into
captivity to the obedience of Christ.”
“Every thought.” The way you think
about engineering. The way you think about mathematics.
You
never thought about that did you?
If
God created everything, then in God’s own mind He is thinking about the
creation of the whole world according to mathematical paradigms and equations.
He created arithmetic, mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and much,
much more, all within His mind.
You
can think about these things in a biblical way or in a non-biblical way. We
have to bring every thought into captivity. That is mathematics, philosophy,
literature, politics, law; that is every single area of intellectual activity in human
existence. It has to be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
We
are to take aggressive action.
But
there is one area where we do not take aggressive action. We do not take
aggressive action against the devil and the demons. We do not because the
Scripture says we do not. It says we do not because they are invisible. It is
hard to attack an enemy you cannot see. What the Scripture says in Ephesians
6:10ff is three times: we are to stand fast, we are to withstand, we are to
stand fast—all based on the same word in the Greek, which means to hold a
defensive position. It does not mean to go out.
So
who is on the offensive?
Jesus
is. He can handle the enemy that we cannot. We cannot see it. We are to take
the defensive position, and He comes around and operates on the offensive. That
may be what Saul has going on here because he has taken up a defensive position. But the one
who has the maneuverability is Jonathan.
So
Jonathan attacks the garrison of the Philistines in Geba, and he defeats it.
This really shakes up the Philistines. They react with great anger and
hostility. As soon as Saul hears about it he blows the trumpet and sends out
messengers throughout all the land for the Hebrews to know that they have
defeated the Philistines. There is only one thing the Philistines can do. That
is they have to react.
Jonathan
has done the right thing the right way. He has trusted in the Lord. We know
from all the passages, and what is coming up in 1 Samuel 13 that he feared the
Lord. He is trusting in the Lord in the midst of the battle.
But
a lot of times when we trust the Lord and we do the right thing, it does not
make things better. It makes things worse. We go from the frying pan into the
fire, as it were, and things get a lot tougher, because we are living in the
devil’s world. The devil is going to react when any believer starts walking
with the Lord.
I
have highlighted a couple of words here, because in the Hebrew text they stand
out. It is the word “hear”. The Philistines “heard” about it. Saul sends out an
announcement, 1 Samuel 13:3–4, “Let
the Hebrews hear!”
Then
when “all
Israel heard it said that Saul had attacked a garrison of the Philistines,”
then they realize that Israel had become an abomination to the Philistines.
Now
the Philistines are really angry. It is going to get even worse. That is a note
of encouragement for believers because sometimes we live through situations in our life,
and we say,
“Lord, I am trusting You, I am obeying You” but it just keeps getting worse.
But God is still in control. God’s strength is still available to us. Things
are going to get worse in this situation, as Israel faces the Philistines.
We
go back to our map. Here is Gilgal. All of this is taking place over here
between Gibeah and Geba. Saul is on the north side of that east-west Michmash
pass. He is going to head to Gilgal to rally the troops. The Philistines are
going to go back. They are going to gather their troops. They are going to come
into the hill country with their troops to put down this insurrection by the
Israelites.
This
is kind of interesting. Pay attention to what is going on here. 1 Samuel 13:5, “Then the
Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots.”
Now
that is a lot of chariots! In that rugged terrain that is not chariot terrain.
That is not tank terrain. If you think in terms of the military, you have to
have wide-open
plains to have tank warfare. Chariots were the same kind of thing. In fact,
there is a problem with this number.
The
Septuagint and some other ancient manuscripts have 3,000 chariots, which makes sense, because
the 6,000 horsemen are not cavalry, they are the charioteers. If you have 6,000 charioteers
and 3,000 chariots it makes a lot more sense because then you would have two
charioteers, one who is the driver and one who is the archer. That would make
sense.
So
the Philistines are not coming in with 30,000 chariots. They are coming in with
3,000. They are still vastly outnumbering the Israelites. They would have had
others as well.
The
Philistines come with 3,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sand,
which is on the seashore. That is the supporting infantry troops. They are
coming in to totally knock down the Israelites. The Philistines set up and “encamped between
Michmash to the east of Beth Aven.”
1
Samuel 13:6,
“When the men of Israel saw that,” look at their response. Are they saying
the battle is the Lord’s? No, because Saul has completely failed as a leader.
Saul can neither identify the problem, nor identify the solution. If you cannot
identify the problem, you will never identify the solution. He is a lot like
the politicians we have today. They cannot identify the problem. They cannot
identify the solution. They are just worthless.
What
happens is the people they are supposed to lead are scared to death. They look
out there on the horizon and they see all kinds of problems.
We
see all these problems. But we have leaders who because of their worldview and
their disobedience toward God, and rebellion against biblical truth, cannot
properly identify the problem. They cannot even come close to a solution. All
they are doing is making matters worse. That is basically what was going on
with Saul.
The
picture we see here is the Israelites are scared to death! The New King James
translates it “distressed,” but they are oppressed or under pressure. Just like
you and I come under pressure with various things in life. We make bad
decisions. That is what is happening here. They are under bad decisions.
So
what do they do? They hide! You would think it would be enough to say they hid
in caves, or they hid out from the enemy. But the writer really drills it. He
says that they “…
hid in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in holes, and in pits,” 1 Samuel 13:6.
The
Israelites were finding any hole they could get into and pulling it in over
them. They were afraid of the Philistines. 1 Samuel 13:7, “And some of the Hebrews crossed over the
Jordan …”
They
just wanted to leave and get out of the hot zone. They went “to the land of
Gad and Gilead” on the eastside of the Jordan. “As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and
all the people followed him trembling.”
They
are out of control. They do not know how to trust God. He is not doing
anything. The correct response would be to wait on the Lord.
Psalm
27:14, “Wait
on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I
say, on the Lord!” But it is not easy to wait. Saul is probably not unlike
some of us. He does not have a whole lot of patience. He is waiting for Samuel
to come. How he knows Samuel was coming we do not know. I do not think there is
a connection back to 1 Samuel 10, because too much has gone on in between for
that to fit into a six-day period.
In 1
Samuel 10:8, Samuel had told Saul at that time to wait seven days for him at
Gilgal. But you do not have the battle with the Ammonites, the coronation and
anointing at Gilgal, all of that could not take place within a six-day period,
and the initial events in 1 Samuel 13.
I
think this is a completely separate event, but Saul does not know how to wait
on the Lord. Psalm 33:20, “Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.” But
we do not see Saul relaxing and waiting on the Lord. He is panicky. He is
waiting for Samuel. Samuel does not show up by the time said. Saul gets
impatient.
He
says:
Saul
was not authorized to do that because He was not a Levitical priest.
1
Samuel 13:9,
“So Saul said, ‘Bring the burnt offering and peace offering here to me ...’ ”, which
they did.
1
Samuel 13:10,
“As soon as he had finished …” Now what a coincidence! As soon as Saul is
finished, there comes Samuel. This is the crux of the chapter.
1
Samuel 13:11,
“What have you done?” Samuel says. Then Saul gives his excuse, “When I saw the
people …” Notice, the reasons he gives for being in a hurry are good
reasons. They are legitimate reasons, but they do not justify disobedience to
God. Saul says:
Saul
forgot to wait on the Lord. He went ahead. He made his decision. He offered a
burnt offering, totally outside the will of God. Now he is going to reap the
consequences.
1
Samuel 13:13,
“And Samuel said, ‘You have done foolishly.’ ” What is the definition of
wisdom in the Scripture? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” but the fool is
the one who does not fear the Lord. Saul has not feared the Lord. His heart is
not after the Lord like God wants.
“ ‘You have done
foolishly ,’ ” Samuel says. “ ‘You have not kept the commandment of the
Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established
your kingdom over Israel forever.’ ”
That
is one of those “what ifs.” God knows everything that is knowable. He knows
that if Saul had been obedient, then he would have given him the kingdom, but
Saul was not obedient.
In 1
Samuel 13:14, Samuel says, “But now your kingdom shall not continue …” This is the first time
it is announced that he is going to lose the kingdom. Samuel says, “The Lord has
sought for Himself a man after His own heart …”
This
whole chapter is about this verse, to show the need for David—that Saul is not
the right kind of leader that God wants for Israel. He gave Saul to be the king
like the people wanted. That is often what God does. He has given us many times
presidents who were according to what we desired. But they were not the kind of
men who should lead the nation. That is what we need. Not someone like the
people want, but that is what we are going to get.
“ ‘But now your
kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own
heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because
you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.’ ”
So
what happens?
1
Samuel 13:15,
“Then Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul
numbered the people present with him, about six hundred men.” He has 600
men left, and that sets the stage for the next part of the battle, which we
will cover next time in 1 Samuel 14.
Closing Prayer
“Father,
we thank You for this opportunity to study Your Word and to reflect upon Your
grace—that in Your grace You provided a Savior who paid the penalty for our
sins in a salvation that is not based on what we do or who we are. It is not
based on legalistic obedience. It is based simply on trusting in Jesus Christ
alone for salvation. To believe in Him is all that is necessary to have eternal
life.
Father,
thank You for what we have learned here—the lessons that we have
learned—lessons related to leadership, lessons related to government, lessons
related to the importance of living a life where we are walking with You,
walking in obedience to You, and not just going through the external motions.
We pray this in Christ’s name. Amen.”