CBFC Worship Service 4/19/2026

Amen.

Thank you, Jared.

Good morning.

I used to be restricted to giving three announcements per Sunday, and you just did every single one of them.

So thank you for doing that.

That's helpful to be reminded of all the fun things that we have going on here.

And I take that as license to go as long as I want today, just break all the rules.

We're going to be here for.

We got lunch in the other room.

You can take a break and come back if you need.

We're going to be in 1 Samuel 14 today.

We're going to be finishing 1 Samuel chapter 14 if you want to find your way there.

1 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

The unprecedented success and dramatic influence of the Reverend Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr.

is difficult to overstate.

He transformed our nation almost like no one else with relentless courage and conviction.

He confronted the wicked injustices of segregation and combated racism.

He gave moral clarity to a divided nation.

He played a central role in advancing civil rights in a way that reshaped the moral and legal landscape of our country for generations to come.

And we can all be incredibly grateful for the much-needed and long-overdue societal changes that God brought about through Martin Luther King Jr.

But despite his incredible impact, Dr.

King was, like the rest of us, a fallen, sinful man.

Human.

We're not all men.

Unfortunately, on top of all of these wonderful things he did, he was secretly guilty of plagiarizing his written material, denying key doctrines of the Christian faith, living in long-term ongoing infidelity, and more.

There was a history to Martin Luther King, but there was a heart behind it as well that was sinful.

And while this absolutely does not negate the genuine good that he accomplished and the the ways that our world continues to benefit from his genuine good, it does point to a pattern that we see not just in Dr.

King, but in essentially every major leader throughout history.

So the point is not to critique any one person, but to show this is a human thing.

I mean, one of my favorite pastors and theologians, one of the Christians that has had the biggest impact on me personally, is a man named Jonathan Edwards.

One of the most brilliant Christian thinkers, one of the most brilliant thinkers generally in Western history, profoundly shaped the American church and my own faith, and participated in the abominably wicked institution of slavery.

Even buying and owning slaves himself.

Church history and world history are filled with men and women who were used mightily by God, accomplished real good, and yet underneath it all were deeply flawed people.

And what this shows us is that there are really two ways to evaluate a person.

You can look at a person's history and you can look at a person's heart.

You can look at what they've done, you can look at their accomplishments, or you can look deeper at who they really were and what they really longed for, and you can, on the one hand, read an obituary and read great things.

You can listen to a eulogy and hear great things, or read their page in a textbook and learn lots of good that a person has accomplished and see how everyone thought about them, but looking at their heart often reveals a different story, and this is true for every single one of us.

Looking at the ways that we live and the ways that other people see us and the good that we accomplish tells us one story, and looking at our hearts shows us a different one.

We have our list of accomplishments and successes on the one hand, with all of our external good, the opinions of those around us, but we also carry a long list of secret sins and shames, hidden thoughts, desires, attitudes, and actions that were the world around us to see would probably ruin our reputation for good.

Like, judge me by my history, what I've done.

Um, and and you might be able to make a case that I'm a decent guy who's done some good, I've done some ministry and things like that, but judge me by my heart, and you will not look at me the same way again.

I can guarantee it.

I mean, if you put everything that I've ever said or thought up onto this screen right now, for all of us to see and examine, I would run out of here and never show my face in this place again.

And I am guessing I'm not alone.

Maybe I am.

I'm guessing I'm not alone in that.

It it is entirely possible to be good and impressive in the eyes of others and still be a mess before God.

It's entirely possible to be successful in the eyes of the world and a failure in the eyes of heaven.

And this is exactly what we see with King Saul here in 1 Samuel 14.

There are two ways to evaluate King Saul by his history and by his heart.

And the end here of chapter 14 gives us both.

It gives us an overview of Saul's history, his life and accomplishments that seem extraordinarily positive, like very heroic and valiant.

But before that, it sets the stage for us to take in his history by zeroing in on his heart, his true heart, giving us a glimpse into who Saul really is at his core.

And it gives us a picture of ourselves as well.

So let's look now at 1 Samuel 14 and get a view into our own desperate state and the Savior who rescues us from it.

I invite you to stand now, if you're able, to honor the reading of God's word from 1 Samuel.

We'll begin in verse 24.

The Word of God reads.

So Saul laid had laid an oath on the people, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my enemies.

So none of the people had tasted food.

Now when all the people came to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground.

And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was dropping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath.

But Jonathan had not heard his charge, his father charged the people with the oath, so he put out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and dipped it in the honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes became bright.

Then one of the people said, Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food this day.

And the people were faint.

Then Jonathan said, My father has troubled the land.

See how my eyes have become bright, because I tasted a little of this honey.

How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies that they found, for now the defeat among the Philistines has not been great.

They struck down the Philistines that day from Mikmash to Ajalon, and the people were very faint.

The people pounced on the spoil and took sheep and oxen and calves and slaughtered them on the ground, and the people ate them with the blood.

Then they told Saul, Behold, the people are sinning against the Lord by eating with the blood.

And he said, You have dealt treacherously.

Roll a great stone to me here.

And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and say to them, Let every man bring his ox or his sheep, and slaughter them here and eat, and do not sin against the Lord by eating with the blood.

So every one of the people brought his ox with him that night, and they slaughtered them there, and Saul built an altar to the Lord.

It was the first altar that he built to the Lord.

Then Saul said, Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning light.

Let us not leave a man of them.

And they said, Do whatever seems good to you.

But the priest said, Let us draw near to God here.

And Saul inquired of God, Shall I go down after the Philistines?

Will you give them into the hand of Israel?

But he did not answer him that day.

And Saul said, Come here, all you leaders of the people, and know and see how this sin has risen to-day.

For as the Lord lives who saves Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.

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

Then he said to all Israel, You shall be on one side, and I, and Jonathan my son, will be on the other.

And the people said to Saul, Do what seems good to you.

Therefore Saul said, O Lord, God of Israel, why have you not answered your servant this day?

If this guilt is in me or in Jonathan my son, O Lord, God of Israel, give Urim.

But if this guilt is in your people, Israel, give Thumb.

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

Then Saul said, Cast the lot between me and my son Jonathan, and Jonathan was taken.

Then Saul said to Jonathan, Tell me what you have done.

And Jonathan told him, I tasted a little honey with the tip of the staff that was in my hand.

Here I am, I will die.

And Saul said, God do so to me, and more also you shall surely die, Jonathan.

Then the people said to Saul, Shall Jonathan die, who has worked this great salvation in Israel?

Far from it, as the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day.

So the people ransomed Jonathan so that he did not die.

Then Saul went up from pursuing the Philistines, and the Philistines went to their own place.

When Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines.

Wherever he turned he routed them, and he did valiantly, and struck the Amalekites, and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them.

Now the sons of Saul were Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malcheshua.

And the names of his two daughters were these the name of the firstborn was Merib, and the name of the younger was Michael, and the name of Saul's wife was Ahinoom, the daughter of Ahamaaz, and the name of the commander of his army was Abner, the son of Ner, Saul's uncle.

Kish was the father of Saul, and Ner the father of Abner was the son of Abiel.

There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul.

And when Saul saw any strong man or any valiant man, he attached him to himself.

This is God's word, please be seated.

Will you pray with me now?

King Jesus.

Lord of creation, meet with us now, we pray.

Use these words to be a channel of your grace, a vessel of your presence amongst us here, that by your word, your spirit would meet with us in this place right now, Lord.

So that sin might be exposed and expelled from our lives, that brokenness would be healed, that unbelief would be demolished, and that you would be glorified as our mighty King and our loving Lord.

It is in your name that we pray.

Amen.

If you're like me, when you read the story, after thinking, man, that's long, you might have thought, what in the world just happened?

Um we're gonna try to unpack it.

It kind of comes in two parts for us today.

It concludes this broader section in the life of Saul, um, and in the kingship of Saul, as we're looking toward chapter 15, which spoil alert does not go very well for Saul.

Um and it concludes at the very end with this summary of his reign, the uh a whole history of Saul in verses 47 to 52.

And it feels kind of weird, like if this is all we knew about Saul, we might conclude that he was actually a pretty solid king.

He was a good guy, he did what he was chosen to do.

He fought valiantly and victoriously against Israel's enemies, and he had great success in defeating them and delivering God's people from their oppression.

And this is no small feat.

This is genuinely good, and in this sense, Saul was a good king.

According to his history, according to what he accomplished.

But the author of 1 Samuel wants us to see more than this, because a mur a person is more than their history and more than their accomplishments, as Samuel will later show us.

The Lord sees, not as man sees, man looks at the outward appearance, the Lord looks at the heart.

So so he's not content to give us a textbook version of Saul's life that just gives us the big picture of his good deeds and his success.

He wants us to see his true heart at work here.

So before this concluding section, he spends a little extra time telling us about this incident that we read of in verses 24 to 46.

What's been happening basically, if you remember, if you've been here, is that Saul, uh Saul's son Jonathan, his kind of right-hand man, his second in command, has been out fighting the Philistines.

He just stepped into this bold faith, as Mike showed us last week, trusting God to deliver Israel, initiating this decisive, incredible victory over God's enemies.

It's a victorious moment.

And yet we read in verse 24 as we come to our text today that the troops of Israel are hard-pressed.

They're hard-pressed, they were in distress, some translations say, or they were oppressed.

This is the exact same wording that is used a few chapters earlier in chapter 13, when they are surrounded by this great Philistine army.

They have 600 guys to their army, they're about to be destroyed, and Samuel tells us they were hard-pressed, they're in distress because of the Philistines.

But here, they've just gained victory over the Philistines, and yet we read that they are hard-pressed again.

And the reason that they are in distress, we go on to read, is that their own king, Saul, has oppressed them.

Their own king has placed a curse on them, and any of them who ate food before nightfall.

Cursed be anyone who eats food before evening comes, before I have avenged myself on my enemies, he says.

And notice his real his real focus here.

He says, No one can eat until I have avenged myself of my enemies.

Do you see his heart kind of coming forth here?

This is no longer the Lord's battle and the Lord's victory.

For Saul, it's me, me, me.

He's focused on his own self, his image, and his own victory.

And this is the essence of our sinful hearts that all of us grapple with.

It's pride.

Selfish, self-centered, self-seeking pride.

Even our struggles with insecurity and self-confidence are secretly disguised as a lack of pride, but really rooted in pride itself.

Even our fighting in God's battles, like Saul's doing here, is rooted in pride.

I struggle with this daily, like hourly, constantly, especially the more I'm involved in ministry, the more my heart is just filled with pride and battling it constantly.

I I found a a note in my notes app from years ago that said this, and I think it's true.

All I want in the world is to devote myself to the advancement of the kingdom of God and for everyone to praise me for it.

I mean, that those that's all I want.

And I have like this mixed desire in my heart.

Like, there is a part of me that genuinely wants to serve God and do everything I can for him, but it's also driven by this self-centered pride and the love of my own self.

And there's this tension.

You may have experienced this yourself.

That's what Saul is experiencing in a way here.

He's ruling as king over God's people.

He's fighting God's battles against God's enemies, and yet all the while he's pursuing his own self-interest.

It's driven by his own self-image.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, Jesus says.

And what comes out of Saul's mouth is me, me, me.

I will gain victory over my enemies.

I will be avenged for myself.

And the effects are devastating.

What he basically ends up doing is forcing all of his men into an oath that they never ask for.

He's using his kingly authority to play Simon says with his men, binding them all in a full day fast from food, under curse of death, while they're fighting a battle.

He's so hungry for victory and power and success and fame that he chains the men that he is called to serve by adding commands to God's law as though he were God himself.

And what he's doing basically seems to be an attempt to win God's favor by leading his men in a spiritual activity of sorts.

We saw this with Saul in chapter 13 as well, how Saul, like us, tends to use his piety and his worship to try to manipulate God, to try to get things from him.

He uses religion as leverage to receive divine blessings.

And we are no strangers to this kind of thinking.

Using worship not to give glory to God, but to get something from him.

It's just manipulation dressed up as devotion.

It looks like faithfulness, it looks like seriousness, it looks like worship, but underneath it is rebellion.

That's what we see in Saul.

He doesn't reject God by running away from him, he rejects God while acting in his name.

He uses spiritual acts to serve himself.

This is the same kind of distinction we see in Jesus' parable of the two sons.

One son rebels against his father by running away from him, living rebelliously and recklessly.

One son rebels against his father by slaving away from him in the field, by doing what his father wants, thinking that he can earn good things from his father, rather than delighting in his father as the person and the relationship he gave himself to be.

We commit this same error when we think only about the external view of our outward actions and not about where our desires are really directed.

Only about our history, not about our hearts.

Start to think quietly, subtly, God, if I do this, then you'll do this for me, right?

If I pray enough, you'll fix this.

If I obey you here, you'll bless me there.

If I stay faithful, then things ought to go my way.

We never say it out loud, but we tend to live like our obedience puts God in our debt.

Like our worship gives us leverage, like our faithfulness should secure the outcome that we're looking for.

There was a time a few years ago when I was praying to God for something that I began to realize was an idol in my heart.

I realized maybe he's not giving this to me because he wants me to find satisfaction in Christ.

Not as a means to an end, but as the end in and of itself.

He's trying to free me from this.

And I found myself thinking, oh, well then that's what I need to do.

I need to pursue Jesus and be satisfied in Christ, not as a means to an end, but as an end in and of himself, and then he'll give me this thing that I'm praying for.

And I'm right back where I started, using Jesus, even pursuing satisfaction in Jesus alone, at least that's what I'm saying I'm doing, to get something from him.

Using my religion to gain leverage over God.

Our hearts are so deceptive that even our religion, our spirituality, our prayer, service, discipline can become a kind of camouflage for hiding, a deeper resistance to actually trusting and obeying the Lord.

And so Saul here, he attempts to use fasting to gain favor from God.

The issue comes to play when we come to Jonathan, who has been out fighting the Philistines in battle, actually getting stuff done, and he hasn't heard about the fast, and when he comes with the people into the forest, he's famished, he's exhausted from battle, understandably, and it is his lucky day because the forest is filled with beehives dripping sweet honey off the trees.

It's an incredible picture.

It's literally literally what God had promised his people hundreds of years earlier.

He said that he would bring them to a beautiful, bountiful land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a new Eden of sorts, where God would come to dwell in abundance with his people.

And we get a glimpse here of this actually being fulfilled.

The promised land is literally dripping with honey.

It's flowing with honey, honey that God gave for them to eat, to bless them, as a sign of his blessing for them to enjoy.

And so, of course, Jonathan tastes a bit of the honey.

It's an evident fulfillment of prophecy and a blessing from the Lord, and his eyes brighten up when he does.

He's famished, he's exhausted, he finally gets some sugar in his system, and his eyes brighten.

This is also a sign of blessing and restoration in the Old Testament.

In Ezra 9, verse 8, it says, Now we have given, we have been given a brief moment of grace, for the Lord our God has allowed a few of us to survive as a remnant.

Ezra 9:8

He has given us security in this holy place.

Our God has brightened our eyes and granted us relief from our slavery.

It says, Consider me and answer, Lord my God, restore brightness to my eyes, otherwise I sleep in death.

Say, The command of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

The ordinances of the Lord are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

A brightening of the eyes in Scripture is used as a sign of God's deliverance, his giving rest and rejuvenation and blessing to his people.

And likewise, a dimming and the darkening of the eyes are a sign of the curse of sin.

In Deuteronomy, especially, when God is telling them that if they obey his law, they will be blessed.

If they disobey, they will be cursed.

One of the curses is a dimming, a darkening, a blinding of the eyes.

And here what happens is instead of bringing darkness and a curse, as Saul intends with his oath, the honey flowing from the promised land brings blessing and life to Jonathan.

It brings blessing, it brings a brightening to his eyes.

And that's when another soldier nearby sees what's happening, he breaks the news to him.

He says, Your father strictly changes.

Charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food this day.

And Jonathan, appropriately using the same language of Jephthah from Judges 11, who was another military leader who made a foolish vow that inadvertently cursed his own child with death, he says, using the same words, my father has troubled the land.

And Jonathan explains that they would have been much more successful having just eaten to regain their strength.

Rather than adding laws to God's word, they would have been more successful just to eat, to have the energy to fight the Philistines more forcefully.

He's showing us that Saul's attempt at being spiritual actually set them back and made them worse off, not better.

He thought he was helping by being extra spiritual.

He thought he was securing God's favor, but in reality he was weakening his people, draining their strength, and limiting their effectiveness.

Oftentimes, what we tend to think of as being more moral, more religious, more spiritual, is actually just legalism.

Adding commands to God's law, adding burdens that God never meant for us to carry, and ending up exhausted by them.

Adding burdens to the people, adding laws to God's word, and not finding freedom, but finding exhaustion.

This is what legalism does.

It doesn't help you grow, it hinders you.

It doesn't strengthen you, it drains you, it doesn't free you, it enslaves you.

Because instead of enjoying what God has freely given, you're constantly trying to earn it.

Instead of coming into the feast like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, he continues to slave away out in the field.

Instead of running forward in joyful obedience, we become weighed down by fear.

Am I doing enough?

Have I been good enough?

Have I done this right?

Is God pleased with me yet?

What more can I do to ensure that I'm on his nice list?

And it is exhausting.

Slaving away for master rather than feasting in joy with your father.

You may have seen this in your own life when your relationship with God becomes transactional, it doesn't produce joy, it produces pressure and pain and exhaustion, and prayer starts to feel heavy instead of freeing and life-giving.

Scripture feels like duty instead of a delight.

Obedience feels like a burden instead of freedom.

And instead of moving forward with the strength that God supplies, you start to spiritually stall out, tired and discouraged and weighed down by religion.

Saul thought his extra devotion would secure victory, but it actually slowed it down.

And it led to Jonathan falling into error, and all of his people falling into exhaustion.

And not only this, but as we see in the following verses, it led to the troops breaking the law of God and falling into sin.

So the camera cuts to this new scene in verse 31.

After pursuing the Philistines from Mikmash to Ajalan, probably like 15 to 20 miles on empty stomachs with swords and armor, fighting, successfully driving them out, evening finally comes, and the people are famished and exhausted from battle, and they they pounce.

It's like a word used for animals pouncing on their prey.

They pounce on the Philistine livestock that they've plundered.

Because blood in the Old Testament was the symbol of life in a living being, the law of God specified that they were not to eat meat that hadn't had the blood drained out of it.

And so the people are hungry, but they they feel like they can't wait to drain the blood properly, and so they dig right in.

And religious Saul, the legalist, does not like this.

And so he condemns them as faithless and treacherous, with no acknowledgement of how his own foolishness had led them there.

And he arranges for this large stone to be brought as an altar for the animals to be slaughtered on, so the blood would be drained on the altar according to the regulations of the Holiness Code in Leviticus 17.

And the text tells us that this is the first altar that Saul built for the Lord.

He's been king for years.

Our attention is being drawn to the fact that for all of Saul's responsibilities as king, leading the people in true worship to the living God is a low priority.

It's bottom wrong.

We know from scripture that spiritually driven Israelite leaders throughout their history would frequently build altars to God.

Here we're told that the first and maybe the only altar that Saul built, he did out of mere convenience, for the sake of keeping the law, probably mainly to keep from upsetting God so that he could still be given his little battle victory as a prize for his piety.

This is what we see throughout Saul's life is this very tendency to overlook God and become distracted with other matters.

To look past God to what God could give him, to forget ultimately about the Lord.

That's what happens next, too.

He sees that the people of Eden.

Concludes, you know, they're readful ready for batty again.

Ready What's the word I'm looking for?

Battle.

They're ready for battle again.

Batty for ready again.

And he says, let's go back, let's go get those Philistines, we'll pursue him through the night.

And the priest says in verse 6, let us draw near to God here.

Which is kind of his polite way of saying, Hey, dummy, aren't you forgetting something pretty important?

Like the Lord of all creation who created you, the master of the universe, the commander of chief over his armies, like Yahweh himself.

Maybe we should check in with him and see if this is a good idea, because you've made some mistakes.

Let's reorient our heart here.

And Saul says, Okay, right, right, right, yeah, good thinking.

He's forgotten about God.

He's had this issue over and over and over, and he still eagerly runs into battle, forgetting about the Lord.

He has his mind on better things.

And aren't we the same, Church?

I mean, how often do we get so distracted by life and end up going hours without thinking about God, much less talking to him, or days or weeks without hearing from him in his word?

We claim to want to spend eternity with someone that we won't even give an hour to.

We become so obsessed with our lives that we forget about our Lord.

This is what Saul's doing.

So the the priest reminds him of the God he's forgotten.

Saul calls out to God and he asks him if they should go down after the Philistines, and no answer, right?

Excuse me.

He gives no answer, not a yes, not a no, not a maybe, not a leave a message after the beep, nothing.

He gets nothing from God.

And Saul concludes that there must be some sin among the people of Israel that has driven God away from them that must now be punished to restore Israel to God's good graces.

And the author doesn't necessarily affirm this assumption, but it's what Saul assumes.

And so he gathers all the leaders together and he decides to cast lots to figure out who done it.

And he he creates a little march madness bracket, and he puts himself and Jonathan on the one side, the commanders of the army, and he puts the rest of the troops on the other side, pitted against each other, and he rolls the dice, so to speak, he flips the coin.

We don't know exactly how the lot thing worked, but in some way he uses these special stones that Israel had called the Urim and Thummim and Thummim to cast lots, and uh he determines then that the troops go free, and he and Jonathan remain.

So now we're in the finals.

It's between Saul and Jonathan.

They cast the lots again, and it falls on Jonathan.

Um Jonathan is, well, the loser in this case.

Um and Saul then echoing the words of God in Genesis 3 says, What have you done?

And Jonathan explains.

And rather than reading Jonathan's reply here as like a passive acknowledgement of guilt and submission to the death penalty, what he's likely actually doing is offering a gentle protest to his father for what's going on.

He had no problem, remember, openly criticizing his father's foolish oath just moments ago.

And he knows that he hasn't willfully done anything wrong and he's not guilty of death.

Which why some translations uh translate his response in verse 43 as, I only tasted a little honey with the end of the staff that was in my hand, and now I must die.

There aren't question marks in Hebrew, so this could have been a question, we're not exactly sure.

But the point seems to be, I didn't eat.

Like I just tasted a little bit of the honey.

And it wasn't a lot, it was it was a little bit.

And now I'm gonna die for this.

Really.

Really die.

You're gonna kill me because I tasted a little bit of honey, not knowing about your dumb vow.

And Saul, in response to his son's defense, doubles down and he makes yet another oath, because that was going so well for him.

He says, I'm gonna vow another vow, and he says, God do so to me and more also, you shall surely die, Jonathan.

Again, notice he repeats the words of God from Genesis, you shall surely die.

And here we see the wicked heart of King Saul on full display.

Though he had offered no punishment for the breaking of God's law in verse 32, he demands death for the breaking of his own made-up arbitrary rule, even the death of his own son.

And he vows to his son's face that he will bring it.

He's playing God.

He's making up laws, he's forcing other people to follow them, unbeknownst to them, and then he's threatening death on them when they fail unknowingly.

Remember where we've been with King Saul now?

The king that people asked for in chapter 8, that seemed humble in chapters 9 and 10, that looked heroic and strong in chapter 11, that seemed only minorly out of line, only mildly sinful in chapter 13, now stands exposed as a wicked, power-hungry, bloodthirsty tyrant here in chapter 14, mercilessly condemning his own innocent child to death.

This is where little sins have led Saul.

We're reminded of his victory over Nahash and the Ammonites in chapter 11, after which Saul had quieted the cries of those calling for blood of the Israelites who had opposed him and committed treason.

And he says, No, not a man shall be put to death this day, for the Lord has worked salvation in Israel.

That's good, Saul.

He had mercy on strangers who opposed his kingship, and yet here, Saul's sin has overtaken him so much that he now won't even grant mercy to his own son for an innocent mistake.

What we're watching in Saul here is the terrifying momentum of sin in our lives.

It starts small.

Outside of Christ, it never.

It never remains small.

It never stays contained, it never politely limits itself to one corner of your life and says, I'm fine with just this much.

It grows, it takes over, pride becomes stubbornness, stubbornness becomes blindness, blindness becomes cruelty, cruelty becomes violence for King Saul.

And before long, the sin that once seemed small has overtaken your heart and has begun destroying the people around you.

That's what sin does.

It expands, it deepens, it hardens, and it destroys us and those that we claim to love slowly but viciously.

Saul doesn't wake up one morning and say, I want to be the kind of man that would kill my own son over my own foolish vow.

He gets there slowly, one compromise at a time.

One self-act act of self-exaltation at a time, one refusal to humble himself at a time.

That is why sin is never safe, church.

We we love to tell ourselves that we're managing it, we're containing it, we have it under control.

But all the while it is mastering us and it spreads like rot in our souls, it hardens the heart, it clouds the judgment, distorts the conscience, and eventually turns a man against his own family and his own people.

Sin promises strength, but it makes you monstrous.

And it promises freedom, but it makes you a slave.

It promises life, but in the end it brings death.

Saul's sin doesn't ruin only Saul, it crushes his troops, it troubles the whole land, it weakens the kingdom mission, and nearly destroys his own child because sin is never private and personal for long.

It always spreads its misery outward.

Sin always hurts other people.

Do not believe the lie that you can contain it within your own heart.

It will affect those around you.

And if left unchecked, sin always moves us toward death.

And that's what we see happening here.

Saul's pride has now matured into something murderous.

The man who once looked modest and promising, even merciful, is transformed into a tyrant of death.

Sin has taken him further than he ever meant to go.

And brothers and sisters, this is not just Saul's story.

This is ours apart from grace.

Left to ourselves, sin will not merely wound us, it will rule us, it will hollow us out, it will make us dangerous to the people around us, and it will kill us.

The world may look at us and only see what basically verses 47 to 52 show us.

It may only see our history, our goodness and success.

But there is more to us in our hearts that is not quite so pretty.

And on our own, we are destined to be destroyed by it and in the process to destroy those around us.

Which means that our problem is deeper than bad choices.

And so what we need is not just better behavior, we need a better king, a better savior, who doesn't destroy us to preserve his own throne, but like the people of Israel do for Jonathan, offers a sacrifice to ransom us from death.

Saul says, If you eat, you will surely die, and his son eats unintentionally, unknowingly, and Saul says again, you shall surely die.

And those aren't it's not the only place in the Bible we hear those words.

God says in the garden, If you eat, you shall surely die.

And God's son eats, not accidentally, but willfully, rebelliously, and instead of punishing him, instead of pursuing judgment like Saul does, instead of saying, again, you shall surely die, God in effect says, I shall surely die in your place.

I will give myself for you.

I will be put on the rock on the altar and slaughtered like an animal.

What God is like Yahweh, who would offer himself so sacrificially?

This is the response the true king has for his people.

And in Jesus, God has accomplished just that for you who have trusted in him, coming to the earth cloaked in humanity as a slave, suffering the wrath of God for sinners, bearing the weight of our wickedness, dying the death we deserved, becoming sin for us, becoming a curse for us, and entering the depths of our darkness to redeem us, to ransom us from our guilt.

So if you are here this morning and you feel the weight of your sin, if you see in Saul not just a king out there somewhere, but an image of yourself, your own heart, if you know what it is to have sin grow and spread and harden and destroy, then hear this.

God is not Saul.

The true king is not Saul.

He's not standing over you angrily waiting to destroy you.

He's not looking for any little mistake that he can just cast his judgment on you and eagerly wipe you out.

He is a God of love who in Christ has lovingly, joyfully, mercifully laid down his own life and taken the destruction upon himself.

Your sin is real, your guilt is real, the judgment that you deserve is real, but for those of you who are in Christ, it has already been dealt with fully and finally.

It is finished, Jesus says, for you who are in Christ, your guilt, your pain, your suffering has been nailed to the cross and is dead.

And no matter your history, no matter your heart, no matter the secret sins you have hidden in Christ, your punishment is fully paid, and your guilt is fully removed for good.

So come to Christ for the first time or the thousandth today.

Feast with him in joy at his table.

Come not with your performance, not with your piety, not with your religion, but with your need and your lack only.

Lay down the burden of trying to earn what Christ has already secured for you.

Who does not destroy his people, but has destroyed himself in their place.

Let's pray.

King Jesus, there is no other Lord like you, no other king, no other God like you, in all of history, in all of the universe, and all of our wildest imaginations that would die for his people when we deserved death.

Lord, I ask that even now as we sing this closing song, that you would remind us of these truths, and for those who have not yet known them to be true personally, that you would stir our hearts to see, to know, to believe and receive this good news with joy, that we might be made new and might delight in the goodness of our great King, who reigns now forever and is returning to us soon.

We long for that day, Lord.

We pray that you would give us strength until you come.

It's in your name and for your glory, we pray these things.

Amen.