Saul's Downfall: Understanding the Dangers of Pride

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Let's get right into our Bible study here this evening.

We have been going through the book of First Samuel, and we're in

First Samuel, chapter 14.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

This will be our third study in First Samuel, chapter 14.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

It's a long chapter with a.

With a lot of information.

And we certainly have seen the example of what not to do in the

life of Saul.

Saul.

King Saul has exhibited in this passage of scripture many different

negative traits, one being pride.

And that's what we're going to be talking about here this evening.

Last week, we talked about how he rushed right into an oath he spoke

before he thought he let his feelings dictate his actions.

And we're going to look at this week how his pride continued

to hinder him to make the right decisions for the Lord, which

ultimately brought him destruction in his life.

And so there's a couple of passages I want us to go to first

before we start looking at first Samuel, chapter 14 that will

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

amplify our study with looking at the topic of pride.

Now, the first one we're going to go to is in First John, chapter

two in the New Testament.

So if you're in First Samuel, turn all the way to the New Testament.

We're going to look at a couple verses here in First John,

chapter two, which speak of the source of pride.

And I think a lot of times in our life, we can identify pride in

other people.

Like, if we're looking at people and we can say, wow, that

person's really prideful by the way that they act, by what they

say, by all the different indicators of their pride.

But oftentimes it's difficult to identify pride in our own lives

because sometimes we have those blinders on that we don't see

our own flaws.

But ultimately, what the Bible tells us is that we have to identify

the source of our pride and what that looks like.

And so in First John, chapter 2, verse 15, the Bible tells us that

1 John 2:15

we can really love two things.

We can love the things of God, or we could love the things of this

world.

And it says in First John, chapter 2, verse 15, Love not the

1 John 2:15

world, neither the things that are in the world.

So the Bible tells us that we should have a disdain for the world.

That doesn't mean that we should hate the planet or hate the

trees and the ground that are around us.

No, it's talking about the ways of the enemy, the ways of the

wicked one that have been set out in this world.

So he says, don't love the things that are in the world.

If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Meaning you can't love the things in this world and love the

things of God and have those two come together and coincide in

one place.

The Bible says in the book of James that that's what is the definition

of a double minded man.

A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

A double minded man or woman thinks about things from this perspective.

I want to have the blessings of this world.

I want to love the things that are around me in this world.

The material things that I think are going to give me fleshly

benefit or material benefit.

But then I also want to have the blessings of the things of God

in the spiritual realm and, and obey him and follow him.

And the Bible says that's unstable thinking because how could

we love the things of the world and love the things of God

and think that they're going to come together?

So he says don't do that.

Verse 16 for all that is in the world, this is the object of

your love.

When you love the things of this world for the love of the world

is the lust of the flesh, what makes me feel good, the lust of the

eyes, what looks good to me.

And what we're really going to be talking about this evening.

And the pride of light, pride of life is a self focus.

It's, it's elevating yourself above the things of God.

So it's the pride of life, it's not of the Father, but is of

the world.

And so the lifestyle of Saul was a lifestyle of pride.

It was a lifestyle of selfishness.

It's a lifestyle of the world.

And so we see here that the love of God and the love of the world

cannot coincide.

And so one of the elements of the source of pride in our life is

a love for this world, a love for ourselves above the love for

God.

We're going to take you to another passage of scripture.

We're going to actually turn back to the Old Testament and look

at the book of Proverbs, Proverbs, chapter 16.

Proverbs 16 · chapter mention

And the Bible tells us here what the outcome of pride will bring

to us in our life.

What, what the outcome of pride really is because sometimes

people might think, well, you know what?

Yeah, I've got an issue with pride, but what.

What is that going to do for me?

How is it going to hurt me?

I can be prideful.

I can love the things of this world and be okay.

Well, in the Book of Proverbs, we see that there is an outcome to

the pride that we have in our hearts.

We'll start in Proverbs, chapter 16, verse 16, and we'll read

Proverbs 16:16

verses 16, 17, and 18, and maybe even go to verse 19.

We'll see here it says in verse 16, how much better is it to

get wisdom than gold?

And so obviously, we all know that the Book of Proverbs is a book

of godly wisdom.

And so what is he.

He's saying here is he says godly wisdom is better than anything

material, anything that we think has value like gold and to

get understanding rather than to be chosen than silver.

And so the Bible speaks of the value of the type of wisdom that

we find in God.

It's more valuable than anything that we can find in this

world.

Then verse 17, he says, the highway of the upright or the righteous

is to depart from evil.

So wisdom in our Christian life, godly knowledge is the application

of what God gives us in truth.

And that would be wisdom.

Right?

I've used this example before.

I lived in Florida for most of my life until I moved to Delaware.

And one of the things that I like to do is I like to get out into

the wilderness.

I like to be around the wildlife, and I like to interact

with wildlife.

One of the things that you need to be aware of when you're in

Florida is that there's wildlife that can actually really

hurt you and not just temporarily hurt you, but can actually

take your life.

And so there are venomous snakes there.

And one of the things that my dad did very early on in my life

is he knew that he couldn't tell me to stay away from these animals,

so he started teaching me, okay?

These are the ones that you need to be aware of.

The other ones, you just have at it, all right?

If it's not venomous, just grab it.

It can't hurt you too much, okay?

So one of the things is that we would identify, okay?

Now that snake that has the rattle on its tail, that's making

this noise, okay?

That's a bad snake.

That's a warning.

Don't touch that snake.

Don't get anywhere near that snake.

So knowledge is knowing that that snake could hurt me.

Wisdom is staying away from it.

And separating myself.

Okay, so wisdom is the application of knowledge.

So God gives us all these truths in his word in the area of

godly knowledge.

And when we apply those truths, that's godly wisdom.

And so he says here the.

The highway of the upright is to depart from evil.

So wisdom is departing from evil.

He that keepeth his way, preserveth his soul.

He that, meaning the.

The one who follows God's plan is going to be able to preserve his

soul.

Now, ultimately, it's God preserving our soul.

It's not ourselves.

But the wisdom here is that if we want to have a soul that is unmarred

from the things of this world, we need to walk in the way that God

has given us.

And so he says verse 18.

And this is the keynote verse here.

Pride goeth before destruction in a hottie spirit, before it falls.

Meaning what is pride going to bring?

Pride's going to bring destruction, pride's going to bring

a fall.

A pride's going to give us, give us an opportunity to think that

we're in control, to think that we have it all figured out.

But pride will eventually have the floor fall out from underneath

us.

And we find ourselves really not in godly wisdom, but in what

we call worldly wisdom, which brings destruction.

Then he says in verse 19, better it is to be of a humble spirit

with the lowly, with the people that are humble, than to divide

the spoil with the proud.

Meaning we never want to be identified as a prideful person,

and we don't even want to be around those types of people because

that can rub off on.

On us.

And so what he says here is, be aware of the dangers of a prideful

spirit.

And so we know that in First John, chapter two, the source of

that prideful spirit is the ways of this world.

Evil, destruction, the opposite way of the Lord.

And what we see In Proverbs chapter 16 is that the end of that

Proverbs 16 · chapter mention

will be destruction and pain, hopelessness.

So with all of that being said and having that in our minds, let's

go to First Samuel, chapter 14.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

1 Samuel, chapter 14 is a chapter here that speaks of Jonathan,

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

which is Saul's son, his faithfulness, his willingness to

go out and fight the Philistines, and trusting in the

Lord for victory.

And God gives him the victory.

But at the same time, it's also a story of Saul's pride and

his lack of humility to the place where he.

He was just going to make an oath.

He.

He wanted revenge.

If you remember, he said, we've got to keep pushing against

The Philistines.

Why?

Because I need revenge.

Not because we are going to get this victory in the Lord that

we want to honor God.

And so Saul's focus was never ultimately honoring God.

It was honoring himself.

And so he makes this foolish, hasty oath which basically says,

anyone who eats before the battle is over is going to die.

Now, he doesn't know what the implications of that oath really

will be.

Really, what he does is he condemns his son to death.

And his son Jonathan, who wasn't there for the oath, comes

in and he sees all this honey on the ground, and he says, well,

I'm really tired.

I've been fighting all day, so I'm going to take of this honey.

He takes of this honey.

And all the people know what that means.

Now, Saul doesn't know that yet.

And ultimately, Saul continues to exercise his sin by removing his.

His troops from the food.

And it eventually drives them by way of what we would call empty

faith, empty religious acts.

He says, let's all have a fast.

Let's continue to fast.

Which sounds somewhat spiritual, except remember, the motivation

is not in honoring God, it's honoring himself.

So it's an empty religious act essentially aligned with legalism,

that leads the whole army to go sin by eating meat that was not

properly prepared.

And so Saul not only has affected himself by his poor actions

and his attitude, but now he's affected his whole army and really

affected his son.

So where we left off last week was that seemeth good unto thee then,

said the priest.

Hey, by the way, Saul, before we go do this, let us draw near hither

unto the Lord.

God.

Unto God.

Now, it's interesting that that's brought up now.

That should have been what Saul did at the very beginning.

But again, he's acting and hoping that God will bless instead

of going to the Lord and taking his guidance.

Again, that's pride.

Pride is I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

And hopefully God just blesses.

That humility is saying, lord, I can't act until you give me clarity

and understanding.

Verse 37.

And Saul asked counsel of God, so he goes to the Lord.

Shall I go down after the Philistines?

Wilt thou deliver them into the hand of Israel?

But he answered him not that day.

So God doesn't answer him, which means there's more to happen.

There's going to be some things that God needs to teach Saul

in the midst of his pride.

And so God does not give him the answer that he's seeking after.

And I think we all understand that sometimes when we seek after

the Lord, there's many reasons why he might not answer us right

away.

Sometimes it's a test.

Sometimes it's because we're regarding iniquity in our heart,

as the Bible says.

And in this case, we understand that Saul has some unfinished

business that he needs to handle.

And it's that oath that he said about someone eating.

They might die or they should die.

That's what's going to happen.

Now, Starting in verse 38, we're going to talk about how this

all comes to pass and how really God steps in and intervenes

in Saul's bad decision and ultimately spares Jonathan's life

through other people, not Saul.

So let's look at verse number 38, and we're going to pick it all

up here tonight.

And I hope that that gave you enough context to understand what

we're talking about here.

So Saul does go to the Lord eventually, but now God is not answering

him.

So Saul, instead of waiting on the Lord like he should.

Right.

So what's the proper response for us when we go to the Lord and

ask him for something and he doesn't respond right away?

Well, it's not to just go act then.

It's not to say, well, God didn't answer me, so let me just

come up with my best idea.

It's if God's telling us to wait, then we should wait.

That's called biblical patience.

So, so tied to humility is patience.

And we talked a little about the.

The dichotomy of patience and what we would call passiveness.

A lot of times we think that patience is passiveness.

No, the Bible very clearly teaches that patience is waiting

on the Lord and being prepared for when he speaks.

I move passiveness is.

I don't care what the Lord says.

I'm afraid, I'm doubting, I'm concerned, I'm prideful.

And so I'm just not going to do what I know I need to do.

So in this case, what we really see is that Saul isn't passive

or patient.

He's just.

He's.

What we would say is that he just takes action right away.

He.

He would be impulsive.

He would be filled with anxiety.

And in his anxiety, he starts making these strange decisions about

casting lots to decide who is this man who's in sin?

He says, basically, here we know that there's someone in sin.

Let's figure this out.

He's not aware and humble enough to see that he's the one that's

causing all these problems in his sin.

So he goes along blaming other people, and again with pride.

That's another character trait.

We have issues in our life, and because of our pride, we want

to blame somebody else for our problems.

So verse 38.

And Saul said, draw ye near hither, all the chief of the people,

and know and see wherein this sin hath been this day.

Meaning, let's find out who's the problem.

Why isn't God answering us?

Well, it must be because someone ate.

And now we need to know who to put to death.

And that's what Saul's going to do here.

He's going to try to find out who's the one he needs to put to

death.

And so Saul is.

Is always really good at making these strong decisions and

making what seems to be like a strong religious decision.

But ultimately we know that it's an empty decision that ultimately

is going to fall in.

In a way of destruction.

Verse 39.

For as the Lord liveth which saveth Israel, so he identifies that

God saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan, in my son, Jonathan,

my son, he shall surely die.

So he says, jonathan was used by God to have this victory.

But whoever did this is going to surely die.

But there was not a man among all the people that answered him.

And so the people that were around knew that Jonathan was the

one who ate the honey.

And so they understand that Saul is sentencing his son to death.

And.

And basically they're waiting for this all to come to light.

And we know that God always brings to light the truth.

And we see here that Saul is just going to make more oaths.

He's going to make more what he would consider to be religious

professions before these people.

So let's look at verse number 40.

He says, Then said he unto all Israel, be on one side.

So he says, okay, everybody go to that side.

And then he says, and I and Jonathan, my son will be on the other

side.

So he immediately says that he and his son are innocent.

So there's an assumption here.

He makes an assumption that's not true because obviously Jonathan

is the one that is guilty of eating the honey.

He doesn't know that even though it's not necessarily sin against

God in this case.

Saul says, it's definitely not us.

We're not the ones that are the problem.

So he makes an assumption by saying, everybody separate from us

because we're the innocent ones.

And he says, and I and Jonathan, my son, will be on the

other side.

And the people said unto Saul, do what seemeth good unto Thee.

It's almost as if they're like, okay, Saul, you're going to

see this isn't a good decision, but he makes this decision.

So Saul wanted to find the wrongdoer, and the way that he was

going to do it is by casting lots.

And so he separates the people into two groups.

And essentially what would have happened is they would have

rolled some kind of dice, and they would have realized, okay, each

one of these roles would eliminate different groups.

And that's really what he wanted to do.

So what Saul was trying to do, Saul wanted everyone to know that

he and his son were innocent.

And so he makes that first decision to divide, and we're going

to find out that he's going to see that he is actually part of the

guilty party.

So let's see what happens here.

Verse number 41.

Therefore, Saul said unto the Lord God of Israel, give a perfect

lot.

He says, basically, give us the truth.

And Saul and Jonathan were taken, but the people escaped.

And Saul cast lots between me and Jonathan.

And Saul said, cast lots between me and my Jonathan, my son.

And Jonathan was taken.

So what happens here is basically Saul finds out that Jonathan

was the one who ate.

So now he realizes that because of his oath that he made,

this fleshly sinful, selfish oath that he made about getting revenge,

has now condemned his son in his mind and in his eyes, to death.

And so Saul obviously was shaken here.

There's a huge implication to his oath that he didn't even know.

So basically, he's pronounced death over his son whether he knew

it or not.

And so at this very point, the right answer for Saul, okay, he's

already made a bunch of bad decisions.

But the right answer for Saul at this very moment should be the

fall before God in humility and in repentance, and say, lord,

I made a terrible oath.

I made a mistake.

I recognize my.

My hastiness in that oath, Lord, please.

And.

And begging the Lord to save his son.

I mean, he.

He should be the one who is taking responsibility.

He should be the one that is in humility, coming to the Lord in

repentance.

And really, the Bible calls us to have a repentant spirit.

God calls us to have a repentant heart.

And one of the things that we were talking about before is that

if we have a prideful spirit, we will not be repentant.

Why?

Because remember, in our prideful heart, it's not our fault.

It's someone else's fault.

And so therefore, I'm never going to come to a place of Repentance.

And by the way, I think we need to define what repentance is.

Repentance is a term about turning away from something.

Turning away from something.

And I would even add turning to something.

So turning away from my sin and my failures and turning to the

Lord for his forgiveness, that's biblical repentance.

And so we.

We.

We talk about revival.

We talk about aligning ourselves in the will of God.

Well, that always means that we have to come to a place of repentance.

Well, with the place of repentance comes humility.

And so Saul should have, at this very point, recognize that it's

his fault that his son is now condemned to death in his mind because

of his fleshly prideful decision.

So Saul should have been humble, and he should have recognized

that he made a mistake.

But what does Saul do?

He hardens his heart and basically doubles down on the commandment.

He basically doubles down and says, well, if my son's gonna die,

he's gonna die.

And really doesn't ever take a place of humility.

So let's see what happens here in verse number 43.

Then Saul said to Jonathan, tell me what thou hast done?

So he's like, what did you do?

Said he should have said, you know, look what I've done.

And Jonathan told him and said, I did but taste a little honey

with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and lo, I must

die.

I think the reality here is this, and I think that what we have

to take into account is that Jonathan did not know about this

oath.

It's not about Jonathan disobeying his father or disobeying

the king.

Jonathan was unaware of this oath.

And so it's not like Jonathan was walking in rebellion to God and

to the king and to his father.

But now Jonathan's like, do I have to die for the decision that

I made?

I'm the one that took the honey.

He admits it.

Jonathan doesn't try to hide it.

Verse 45.

And the people said unto Saul, shall Jonathan die?

And what really, I skipped verse 44, Saul answered, and this

is key.

I think we should note verse 44.

And Saul answered, God do so and more also, for thou shalt surely

die, Jonathan.

So basically, verse 44 tells us that instead of Saul saying, you

know what?

It's my fault, and asking the Lord for some type of relief and

having a repentant heart, Saul is.

Is willing to kill his son rather than humbly admit that he

was wrong.

And this shows you how prideful Saul really Is Saul's like,

okay, yeah, I made the mistake.

But I guess Jonathan, yeah, you have to die.

Because that's what Jonathan asked at the end of that verse.

In verse 43, he was like, do I have to die now?

And basically he says, yes, Jonathan, you have to die because

of this oath that I made.

And so Saul was willing to kill his son rather than to humbly

admit that he was at fault.

And this is a.

A.

A.

A strong contrast from where Saul started.

If you remember back in 1st Samuel, chapter 10, Saul was somewhat

of a humble man when it came to the way he dealt with being anointed

as king, but with this absolute power that he felt that

he had, it corrupted his heart and gave him a false sense of elevated

pride that he continued on with for the rest of his life.

And so he had humility at one point.

But we're never exempt from the temptation to be overtaken by

pride because of the circumstances that are around us.

And it's so easy to fall into pride.

I mean, if we're not careful, one compliment, one.

One recognition of our good work could allow us to kind of taste

that sense of pride, and we can fall right into that trap.

And no doubt, Saul got a lot of fanfare.

Saul got a lot of praise because of the role that he had as

the king of the people.

Remember, the people wanted him, and he was head and shoulders

above them, and he was strong.

And we're going to see at the end of this chapter that he does

act in many victorious victories in battle and does conquer

a lot of people.

And so Saul is being fed all of these things about how great he

is, how strong he is, how powerful he is.

And now he's at the place where he's like, yeah, I made a mistake.

But you know what?

You're gonna have to pay for it, Jonathan.

And so it's a deflection of responsibility.

And again, with pride comes that deflection of responsibility.

Well, it's not me.

It's it's you.

It's your problem now.

And so really, what we see at the end of this passage is that Saul

is stuck in his pride.

He's not willing to repent of it.

And the challenge for us as believers is where do we come to

in our life where we recognize those instances where pride has taken

over?

Now, it might not be totally pervasive in our lives.

I mean, maybe we're humble in certain avenues, but when we get

to those places in our life that we're really confident in, that's

when the pride comes out, and I, I want us to think about, really,

we're going to pause here because we're going to see that God

still intervenes as he always does.

But we're going to see that when we are Christians and when we're

walking in the goodness of God, it's very easy for us to walk

in humility when we understand the great gift that God has given

us that we did not deserve.

But it's when we start to walk and think and believe a certain way

that we have accomplished something, that we can fall into

the trap of getting into that prideful spirit.

So what do we do to combat ourselves against this level of pride?

Well, we make sure that we put everything into a gospel perspective.

What do I mean by that?

I've been talking a lot about this, even on Sunday morning on,

on the sermon with Eunice and Lois.

It's seeing everything through a gospel lens.

And if we see our accomplishments, if we see our families,

if we see our houses, if we see our job, if we see any good thing

in our life through the lens of the gospel, what we realize is

that we never really deserved any of it.

What do we deserve, Biblically speaking, in a theological sense,

what do we deserve as human beings?

Well, the Bible says for the wages or the payment of sin, which,

for all of sin to come short of the glory of God, what do I deserve?

The wages of sin is death.

The only thing that I deserve is death.

That's a hard pill to swallow for us in our society because we,

what we've been told throughout our whole lives is that,

you know, we're pretty valuable in the sense that we're

created in the image of God.

We are valuable, but at the same time, we've marred the image

of God by the sin that we have committed in our lives.

But the beauty is, and that's why Christians across the world celebrate

the gospel, is that the beauty is, is that though we've sinned,

though we've all fallen short of the glory of God and deserve nothing

in, in spite of that, God has extended grace to us and given us

salvation and given us Blessing.

And James 1:17 says that every good thing that comes down as a gift

James 1:17

is coming down from God and is a blessing from God.

And when we see it that way, every little thing that we have is

a blessing from God.

That brings us back to a place of humility.

Meaning this.

I didn't deserve this.

It could be taken away.

The reality is, is that God keeps us secure in our salvation.

But the truth is, is that a lot of times when we feel entitled

and we think that it's something that we've done and that

we're better, we.

Or that we've earned something by our works or by our attitude or

by whatever we do in our life that we think brings value, then

that's when we start to seep back into that level of pride.

And so Saul thought, I did a lot of good things.

Look, look how much I'm doing.

And there's a justification to the pride.

But we have to always go back to that Gospel perspective.

And when we're resting in the Gospel perspective, we're a lot more

likely to walk in fellowship with the Lord and humble ourselves

instead of leading ourselves in a state of pride and basically

self exaltation.

So let's go to the rest of this passage, because it doesn't

look good for Jonathan.

It might mean that, you know, Saul maybe thinks that God's gonna

kill Jonathan or that maybe Saul even needs to do it himself

because he's the King.

Verse 45.

And the people said unto Saul, shall Jonathan die.

So this is really unique.

The people actually question their king.

They say, really, Saul, are you going to really go through with

this?

Are you really going to kill Jonathan?

He says.

They say this, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel?

Meaning it was Jonathan who exercised faith, not you.

It was Jonathan who we saw the power of God resting in when he went

into battle, not you.

And so they're really challenging the king here.

They're saying, how could you kill him if you understand that it

was really Jonathan, the one that was acting in faith.

They say, God forbid, as the Lord liveth, there shall not one

hair of his head fall to the ground.

For if he hath wrought with God this day.

So the people rescued Jonathan that he died not.

And so the people stand up to Saul's foolish actions.

They stand up to his pride, and they don't allow Jonathan to

be executed there.

They.

They knew, they could see the reality that it was Jonathan that

was walking with God and not Saul.

And so for them to go with Saul, they would be the ones that

were involved with this execution as well.

And they say, we're not going to stand for that.

And so there.

There were some obvious reasons why they did that.

Obviously, Jonathan didn't know that he was breaking this oath.

The oath itself was a faulty oath.

It wasn't from God.

And.

And ultimately we know that Jonathan was blessed by God in this.

And so it was Jonathan's faith that brought the victory, not Saul's

oath.

And so they saw the.

The difference there.

And so what do we see here?

We see that they stand up for him.

Verse 46.

Then Saul.

So what's Saul's response to this?

Instead of saying, guys, you're right, I. I need to humble

myself.

I need to get this right with God.

Then Saul went up from the following.

Went up from following the Philistines, and the Philistines

went to their own place, meaning basically, Saul backs off.

And what we can see here is that they had a chance here in this

very passage to wipe the Philistines out, which God called

them to do.

But yet we see that there could have been a greater victory

if Saul would have been walking with the Lord.

And so what we see through this passage here is that in many

ways, Saul missed the greater victory that was available to him,

and he hindered the other people to see that great victory.

So when we walk in pride, oftentimes we.

We miss out on the greater blessings that God might have for

us in our life.

And we might, even if we have some level of leadership, we might

even hinder other people from seeing that great victory in the

Lord because of our foolish, prideful decisions.

And so really, what we all need to do, what I need to do, what.

What every believer needs to do, is come to a place to say what

areas of my life is pride really coming into play and hindering

the victory that God really has for me in my life?

How many times have I missed the will of God in my life because

of my prideful heart, because of my prideful decisions?

And I don't feel like doing that.

That doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Or.

Or maybe acting on something in pride and missing the blessing

of just waiting and not moving forward.

God works in various ways and in many ways because of our pride,

we miss that.

So we see more about Saul's victorious battles.

Verse 47.

So Saul took the kingdom over Israel and fought against all of

his enemies on every side.

Against Moab and against the children of Ammon and against Edom

and against the kings of Zoba and against the Philistines.

And with us, whoever he turned, he vexed them.

Meaning Saul was a real problem for the people around him.

I mean, even though Saul had a lot of pride and flaws that we see

in his life, God still has a blessing upon him.

He was.

He was a strong military leader.

And we see that he gave a lot of problems to the people around

him, all these different groups of people.

So we See that Saul is strong.

We see that Saul has a lot of strength.

But at the same time, how is Saul using that strength?

Is he using that strength for the Lord or is he using that strength

for himself?

We're going to see that later on here in the next chapter.

But verse 48.

And he gathered in host and smoked the Amalekites and delivered

Israel out of the hands of them.

That spoiled them.

So there are some victories here.

But what we're going to see is that later on in this book of First

Samuel that Saul misses the greatest victory that God has laid

out for him.

So it gives us a little character of.

Of Saul there, but then it tells us more about his family.

Now, the sons of Saul were Jonathan and Issue I and Melchi,

Melchizedek.

And the names of his two daughters were these.

The name of the firstborn Merab and the younger McCall.

And the name of Saul's wife was Ahinonam, and the daughter of

Ahimaaz.

And the name of the captain of his host was Abner, and the son of

Nur, Saul's uncle.

And Kish was the father of Saul.

And Nur, the father of Abner was the son of Abil.

Verse 52.

This is the last verse in this passage.

And there was sore war against the Philistines all the days of Saul.

And so we do see that throughout Saul's life there was

always this ongoing conflict with the Philistines, which we know

in greater.

In the greater story of, of David and Goliath, that, that that

battle was still raging with the Philistines.

But we see here, and when Saul was.

Saw any strong man.

So anytime Saul sees anyone strong around him or any valiant

man, he took him unto him, meaning there.

There was a lot of insecurity with Saul.

So when Saul saw anyone else strong, he tried to attack them.

And sometimes that might be what God would have for him, and

other times maybe it wasn't.

But ultimately we see that Saul was not a man after God's heart.

He was a man after his own heart.

He was a man after his own passions and his own decisions.

And that kind of kingdom does not stand because it's based in pride.

And remember what Proverbs 16:18 said, Pride goes before destruction.

Proverbs 16:18

And so one of the many reasons why Saul found himself in destruction

and the kingdom being lost to his family was because of his pride.

And so we're going to see that coming to pass completely in 1st

Samuel, chapter 15.

Because God wanted more than just outward adherence to what he

called him to do.

He wanted his heart.

And that's how it is with all of us.

God doesn't just want our outward actions.

Sometimes we think that if we just check all of our boxes off,

that God is pleased.

But really, at the end of the day, God wants us to commune with

him, to fellowship with him, to.

To grow in a relationship with him.

And so, like I said, verse chapter 15 in 1st Samuel is going

to be a revelation or a manifestation of how weak Saul really

was and how empty his heart was.

And I'll read just the first few verses here because we're going

to see kind of a.

We're going to tee it up for next week.

Samuel comes back and talks to Saul and remember who Samuel was.

Samuel's role, Samuel was obviously he was a judge.

Actually, the Bible tells us that he was a judge prior to Saul

being king.

But also, in many ways, Samuel was a prophet.

He was the mouthpiece of God to Saul as the king.

And so Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint

thee to be king over his people, over Israel.

So remember, Samuel is reminding Saul where he started.

And if you remember back to when God calls Saul, he reminds Saul

that, Saul, even though you're the king, I'm in control.

You're not God over these people.

You're king, but you always are going to be submitting to me

now.

So Saul has lost that perspective, and now Saul thinks

he's the absolute ruler.

So Samuel coming back is reminding him of that role that he

has with the Lord.

He says, now, therefore, hearken thou unto the voice of the

words of the Lord, meaning it's time for you to listen to what

God has for you to do.

Verse 2.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did

to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came up

from Egypt.

Now, this is God's marching orders.

He's very clear to Saul about what he should do.

He says, now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that

they have and spare them not, but.

But slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,

camel and ass.

And Saul gathered the people together and numbered them at Tilliam.

200,000 footmen and 10,000 men of Judah.

Now we'll stop there because Saul has a decision to make.

Is he going to obey God Now God has given him the command.

God has given him the.

The scope of the victory.

The victory was not just to defeat them in a partial way, but

to completely wipe them out.

Now there's a lot of commentators that struggle with this

passage, because a lot of times people will look at this and

say, how.

How unfair is that?

That must not be the God of the New Testament, because the God

in the New Testament was the of grace.

He was not a God of judgment, but we see a God of grace throughout

Genesis to Revelation.

We see a God of judgment from Genesis to Revelation.

This is God enacting judgment against people who had rejected him

and fought against his people.

So the marching order from God, who was holy, righteous, eternal,

has said, Saul wiped them all out.

Don't ask questions.

Don't come up with your own plan.

And Saul really has a choice here to obey God or he has a choice

to think about what makes sense to him.

And we're going to see that his heart of pride and his selfishness

really manifests itself in this next chapter, which we're going

to really see that there's judgment upon him.

He's already made the wrong decisions and lost the opportunity

to keep the kingdom forever.

Now what we see is that Saul, even though he heard from God that

the kingdom would leave his family, Saul's not going to give

up.

We know that Saul fights tooth and nail to keep the.

The crown and his family.

And we know that that's going to fall to the wayside and be for

not because God's in control.

And we see countless times in Saul's life where he tries to dictate

to God what to do or tries to fight against what God has for him

and what God has promised.

And again, that's a.

That's a heart of pride.

A heart of pride is always going to be saying, I think I know

better.

I think this makes more sense.

So therefore, I'm going to act this way, even though I've heard

it in another way.

So how does that look for us?

Because like many of us probably haven't had a guy named

Samuel.

Maybe you have, but maybe you haven't had an old man named Samuel

come up to you and give you exactly what you're supposed to do

by wiping out the Amalekites.

Okay, but how does God speak to us today?

Well, predominantly God speaks to us through his work.

So if we were to equate Saul's situation to our situation today,

it would be that when God speaks to us through His Word, are

we going to respond without asking questions and trust in faith

and work and obedience, or are we going to look at God's Word and

say, I know that it says this, and I know that you Call me to do

this, but it makes more sense to do that, or I'm going to go ahead

and go above and beyond the word of God and make my own oath

and make my own decisions and make my own way.

And ultimately what happens is that as a Christian, many times we

fall into that trap of seeing thus saith the Lord, but yet we come

up with every justification not to obey God or maybe to partially

obey God.

And if any of you have ever had kids, you understand that you

want to teach them not just to partially obey, but to obey completely.

You know, sometimes, you know, if you're pressing somebody and they

tell you a part truth, like half truth, those.

Those half truths are just as bad because sometimes there's just

enough truth to kind of bring some validity.

But at the end of the day, there's some really big things that

are being left out.

So what we see here is that God is not just wanting us to partially

follow him.

God wants us to give up, give our whole hearts over to him as.

As we see with the replacement for Saul, and that would be David.

Though again, I have to repeat this over and over again.

When we talk about Saul and David, we don't see one king who

was sinless and one king who was just completely sinful and prideful.

We see two kings dealing with sin later on.

David deals with pride, but there's a difference in how he responds.

And we'll look at some of the psalms that correspond with David's

story, and we see his heart of brokenness where we don't see that

with Saul, we don't see Saul just sitting there broken and repentant

and communicating with God.

We see Saul actually pushing away from God in many cases, when

God comes and judges him and reveals his sin.

And I think that's another biblical lesson for all of us to

take, is that being a Christian is not about being perfect.

I wish I could tell you that if you just try really, really hard

and love God enough, you'll never sin again.

But the truth of the matter is that we're fighting against the old

man.

We're fighting against the flesh.

So a mark of a biblical Christian is not just sinless perfection,

but a mark of a biblical Christian is how we respond to when

God reveals those sins in our life.

How do we deal with conviction?

I think one of the major things that gets overlooked within

the American church, within the church at large, is the biblical

definition and really the biblical mandate of how a Christian

should respond to conviction.

Because a lot of times we run away from conviction.

If a pastor preaches too hard about a certain sin, we, you know,

call him.

You know, he's just narrow minded.

He's, he's on a soapbox today.

And sometimes pastors can go too far.

Sometimes they can take it over the Bible and put their own

imparted decisions and wisdom upon certain preaching.

But what I would say is this.

Sometimes what we see is that when conviction comes, people turn

away and run or reject it or mock it.

But biblically speaking, when the conviction of the Holy Spirit

comes, we're supposed to embrace the conviction and actually

allow the conviction to teach us where to change and where to turn.

And so conviction is not something that we should run away

from.

Conviction is actually something that we should welcome

and celebrate and eventually find comfort in when we come back

to the Lord in repentance.

And, and that's something that we need to talk about.

It's something that we need to preach about.

It's something that we need to live in, is understanding and embracing

biblical conviction.

If you don't know about that, read, read some of the psalms that

David writes after his episode with Bathsheba.

I mean, he's torn up with it.

But there's hope.

There's hope.

And so the response of a biblical Christian to sin is not

to push away, because that's pride.

That's Saul going, nope, don't want that.

I'm going to find my own way.

I'm going to work it out myself.

The biblical response, the proper response to conviction in

our life is to embrace it and allow the Lord to teach us, comfort

us, and guide us to truth.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is found in 2nd Timothy

3, 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And it's profitable for doctrine, that's teaching, for reproof,

telling us where we're wrong, for correction, how to get that right,

and for instruction and righteousness, meaning how to walk

in that path.

And so it's a relationship with the word of God.

It's, it's a response to the word of God.

And so I would challenge you here this evening to inspect your

life.

I know that's something that I'm doing, inspecting my life to

see where those little areas of pride start to reel, rear their

ugly head up, okay?

And when we see that pride, just to squash it.

And how do we squash it?

We go back to that Gospel perspective.

We submit ourselves to the Lord and realize that he's in control.

I am not the king of my life.

Saul had to realize that, yes, he was the earthly king of Israel,

but he was not the spiritual king of Israel.

And though I am responsible for the decisions that I make in

my life, I am not the ultimate king of my life.

The ultimate king of my life is Jesus Christ.

And I submit myself to him.

And that's the challenge that all of us must come to when it comes

to that pride that we all probably face in our life, to some

capacity.

And where I'm tempted to find myself, I'm not prideful when I go

into a situation that's beyond my comfort zone.

Okay, so let's say, for example, I'm going into a workplace

that I'm not aware of and I don't know anything about.

I'm not going to be prideful in that.

I'm going to be very humble and say, I have no idea what you

guys are talking about.

I'm going to trust you guys.

But where I'm tempted, okay, Personally, where I'm tempted to

find myself in pride is in areas that I'm comfortable with and

I know a lot about.

That's when sometimes I do fall into a sense of pride, because

I can do this.

I've done this a hundred times.

I've done this a thousand times.

And I don't need God for this.

But that's the very moment that Satan gets a grip and a foothold

in our life.

And that's when we start to drift, is when we think that we don't

need God, but we need God every single day.

I love that song.

I need the every hour.

And you know, I.

When I sing that song, I always in my own mind and I don't

sing it out loud, but I think about I need you every second.

Because daily, hourly, I find myself in temptation to fall back

into that pride.

So may we all think about that as we.

As we go about our week.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

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You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch

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Thank you so much.

God bless.

Have a wonderful day.