"Strike 1: Rebellion," 1 Samuel 13:1-23, Sulmane Maigadi

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.

1 Samuel 15:12

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

Proverbs 27:2

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

Revelation 21:8

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

1 Samuel 10:8

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

1 Samuel 10 · chapter mention

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.