RESURRECTION 2024: FINDING JESUS WHEN YOUR DREAMS ARE DEAD

On March 31, 2024March 30, 2024 By Pastor TomIn Easter, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Single Sermons, UncategorizedLeave a comment

On the day of God’s greatest triumph for humanity, the disciples thought that they had lost everything. Their dreams were indeed dead, but those dreams were far too small and limited. God was doing something much greater than anything they had imagined. They were profoundly discouraged because they could not see Jesus. Jesus came to them and showed them (and us!) how to see him from now on.

Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties with the audio for this sermon. It is perfectly understandable, but we apologize for the “fuzzy” sound at the edges, which was caused by audio clipping.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button: For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen. To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Resurrection Sunday 2024

RESURRECTION SUNDAY, 2024. LUKE 24:13-49

This is a wonderful part of the scripture. It is Resurrection Day, the day that the world changed. Everything has gone exactly according to God’s plan. But the disciples don’t know it yet. In fact, it seems to them that God’s plan has come to a screeching, tearing, smash-up end.

Two of them are walking, trying to get their heads around what they see as a tragedy. It is actually not a tragedy at all, but they can’t know that yet. They were so sure that Jesus was the One. He had to be from God. They knew him. The one called Cleopas was the uncle of Jesus (according to an early-church writer: either the brother, or brother-in-law of Joseph), so he knew him well, even before Jesus started going around doing miracles. Neither Cleopas or his friend had ever met anyone like Jesus. They heard him, and he spoke like no one had before. They saw him do genuine, honest-to-goodness miracles, so blatant that they knew he was sent by God. It was obvious to them that he was the one sent to deliver their long-suffering country from brutal foreign oppression.

But now the same old story was repeating itself. It was just one more crushing defeat in the long war against evil. This bright star, this man unlike anyone they had known, had been killed by the powers-that-be, who felt threatened by him. It was over.

I want us to get into their mindset just a little bit, to understand their feelings, because I think we are also prone to feel that way at times. Clearly, (in their eyes) whatever Jesus had been doing, it had come to nothing. Clearly all of their hopes and dreams that Jesus would save their country were shattered beyond repair. When they met a stranger on the road who asked about their conversation, “They stopped, and looked discouraged (Luke 24:19, CSB).”

Let’s back up a minute. The Resurrection had happened. This was absolutely necessary. Jesus claimed to forgive sins – something only God could do. In his time ministering, he talked and acted like he had the very same authority that God had. He told people that they were supposed to follow Him – not God, but Him. He even said people should make him – Jesus – more important than anything else in life. So if he wasn’t God, he was the very worst kind of egomaniacal demon. But he didn’t act like a demon either: he healed people, he treated people with compassion, he taught people to love one another. He also predicted on many occasions that he would die, and that he would rise again.

So if he did not rise from the dead, Jesus was a fraud. If he didn’t rise from the dead, his words about forgiveness and following him, and loving others were all meaningless. And that’s exactly what it looks like to the disciples on resurrection day. In fact, Jesus has already risen, but they haven’t seen it yet. They can’t quite believe he was a fraud, but what was he then? Even in the moment of wildest victory, they think they are defeated. They only see tragedy, even though the reality is wonderful, amazing victory. They literally cannot see what is right in front of their faces.

They were profoundly discouraged, because they couldn’t see Jesus. They had been hoping he was going to deliver Israel from the Romans. That dream was now dead. But Jesus was up to something far, far bigger than they had ever imagined. He wasn’t there to deliver one small country from the Roman Empire. If he had been there merely to fulfill their earthly dream of delivering Israel, where would that leave us today? He would be a footnote in history, like Judas Maccabees.

But Jesus was there to open a door to something eternal and lasting, something much better – infinitely better – than any thing they, or we, could hope for in this mortal life. The reality is, they had nothing to be discouraged about. Something even better than all of their small hopes has been realized in the man who is standing in front of them. But they can’t see him, not yet.

Instead of revealing himself as the man in front of them, he shows them the path that all Christians will have to take in the centuries to come:

²⁷Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures. Luke 24:27

There is a reason he did that. He would not always remain on earth, and he was teaching them the best way to find Him whenever they wanted to. This is now the primary path to seeing Jesus: the Bible. As he reveals himself to them through the scriptures, their hearts burn within them with a strange fire.

Then, they reach the house and start the meal. Finally, he reveals himself to them fully. Again, he shows himself in a particular way. He does it in the breaking of the bread – that is, what we now call communion, or the eucharist. Once more, he is showing the way for all generations afterwards – we can find him in the breaking of bread. This is another major way that we can see Jesus.

They are thrilled beyond measure. Though he leaves them again, they run, full of joy, all the way back to their brethren in Jerusalem – seven miles! They are met with more tidings of joy, for Jesus has shown himself to Peter also.

Now, Jesus comes to all of them at once. I love this next part. Two of them spent several hours with him earlier, and finally knew him at the breaking of bread. Peter has seen Jesus earlier also. Now, he stands in their midst…and they think he is a ghost!

This is so comforting to me. It means doubts are normal. Even after he had appeared to them on the road and revealed himself to them through the scriptures, and then at the breaking of bread, when he appeared to them again, they thought it was a ghost. With him standing right in front of them, they doubted. Doubt is not a sin. Jesus understands it. He makes them give him a piece of fish. He makes them come touch him, and look at his scars. He understands that what he asks us to believe is improbable. The resurrection is wildly improbable, even though he told them it would happen.

I think we are like that so often. We don’t understand what Jesus has been up to. We are focused on things in the world, and we miss the eternal promises that are offered to us: promises that will never spoil or fade, never be destroyed by age or the limitations of this mortal life. We so badly want to him to heal our friend, or fix our relationships, or fulfill our dreams that we fail to see he has already done something that is so much better than any of that.

Now, the difficult thing for us is that Jesus is not standing in front of us. The Bible explains clearly why. If he remained in physical body, most humans would never get a chance to spend even a few seconds with him. So he sent his Holy Spirit instead. But the fact remains, we don’t get to touch his body, see his scars and watch him eat. He spoke to them then, and what he said was for our sake – for us, who never saw his body:

⁴⁴He told them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶He also said to them, “This is what is written: The Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead the third day, ⁴⁷and repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.” (Luke 24:44-49, CSB)

He isn’t revealed to us in a physical body any more. But he is revealed in the scriptures. The purpose of the Bible is to reveal Jesus to us. If you want to know Jesus better, read the Bible. Start in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Read a chapter a day, or less, if you need to. Keep on through the New Testament. After a month or so of regular reading, you will have more of Jesus than you did before. After two months, even more.

He is also revealed in the breaking of the bread – what we call communion. This is one reason we do communion every week in our house churches. It is one of the most important ways that Jesus reveals himself. In communion we see again the Jesus that died for us. We see again the Jesus who secured an eternal covenant for us by his blood. And through the eating and drinking we have fellowship with Jesus, and with one another.

Finally, we have something that the disciples did not yet have on resurrection day: The Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus is talking about when he says: “what my Father promised,” and “until you are empowered.” We have Jesus within us through the Holy Spirit. This is even better than having him as a person we see and touch. This is why Paul could write:

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, CSB)

When we live like that – by faith in Jesus – then Jesus can express himself not through one human body, but through every person who trusts him. I can see Jesus through you. You can see him through me. Maybe I can see his laughter and humour through one person, and his thoughtfulness and depth through another, and his care and compassion through yet another. Maybe, perhaps, you can see a little bit of his suffering through those who suffer. I don’t want to gloss over this too quickly. In the Western world, we Christians have often forgotten the importance of seeing Christ in the community of believers. This is part of his gift to us. We can catch glimpses of Jesus in one another. I hope you can see that obviously, this applies to all Christians, not just pastors and leaders.

Through the Holy Spirit, we also find Jesus within ourselves. I don’t mean we are little specks of God, or any similar nonsense. I mean that when we repent and trust, we are forgiven, and the Holy Spirit makes his home in us, and we can access him for guidance, grace, hope and comfort. We don’t have to go to a temple, or kneel on a rug facing east, or anything like that. If we have repented of our sins (which means being sorry, and having the best intentions to not continue in them) and trusted in Jesus then he is right there, all of the time. I began my own walk of faith even before I can remember. I was very young. And so, I cannot recall a single day in my life of feeling truly alone. This is because Jesus has always been there through the Holy Spirit. I’ve had one or two crises of faith where I thought maybe I didn’t believe anymore. But each time, I couldn’t escape the fact that He was still with me. He is with us always, just as he promised (Matthew 28:20).

All of this was made possible by the resurrection. It is all available to you and I. It isn’t cheap – it cost Jesus dearly – but it is free to us. So today, consider some questions:

Are you profoundly discouraged? Without minimizing the struggles you are facing, can you also trust that what Jesus has accomplished for you is more wonderful than you could even imagine? Even in your moment of deepest sorrow, the reality is that Jesus has secured eternal joy for you.

Are you focused on something Jesus can do for you only within this life? Can you learn to reorient your focus, so that you can see that whatever you might lose or miss out on in this life is nothing compared to the eternal life Jesus gives us? Cleopas and his friend wanted freedom from oppression. That’s a good thing to desire. It’s not wrong. But their vision was too small, too limited. Jesus came to bring eternal freedom, and not just to Israel, but to all people. Perhaps, in your discouragement, your vision is also limited.

Do you have trouble seeing the reality that through Jesus, the ultimate victory is won? Do you still act like you have been defeated?

First, if you have not ever consciously repented and trusted, why not try it now? Repentance is not about feeling guilty all the time – quite the opposite. The process I am talking about removes our actual guilt and should lead to far fewer feelings of guilt. I don’t say “no feelings of guilt,” because I am being realistic: some of us had guilt drummed into us at an early age, and though we are declared “not guilty” when we repent and trust Jesus, we still carry it around in our minds. But when we do truly repent, and then trust, those guilty feelings are reduced, and some people, as time goes on, find that even the feeling of it is almost entirely removed. Whether or not the feeling goes, the reality is that when we repent of our sin and trust in Jesus the actual guilt is removed. Our sins have been fully punished – but in Jesus, not in us.

A second thing: this is all very good news. And Jesus, even as he assured them of the fact of his resurrection, called them to be his witnesses to that good news. All Christians are called to be witnesses. A witness simply tells what he or she knows. We don’t have to argue anyone into the kingdom of God. We bear witness to Jesus as we have come to know him through the scripture, through communion, and through other believers.

Finally Resurrection Day is something to celebrate. Though our culture makes Christmas the premier holiday, in fact, Resurrection is the biggest day of all for us who trust Jesus. This is the day that Jesus made good on all his promises. This is the day he opened the way to eternal life, to better hopes and dreams than anything we could find in this life. This is the day he triumphed over the powers of evil.

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

HE HAS RISEN!

1 SAMUEL #21: RUNNING FOR REFUGE

On March 22, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment

David was running for his life, but he still took time out to worship God. Later, alone in a cave with nothing but the clothes on his back, he praised God. Let’s look at this tumultuous time in David’s life to find hope and comfort, to learn how to put the Lord above all things.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 21

1 SAMUEL #21. 1 SAMUEL 21:1-15

The excitement, adventure and romance of David’s life are not over yet – not by a long shot. So I encourage you to take time to hear the message of these true stories. When something grabs your attention, shocks you, or stirs your heart, pause and ask the Lord to speak to you through it. Pay attention to how the Lord is appealing to your heart through the life of David. I trust that you can and will continue to do that, even when we move through the text a little more pedantically.

Last time we saw how David began life as a fugitive. He had a daring midnight escape, assisted by his young wife, from whom he was now kept apart. He found safety for a while with the prophet Samuel, Saul eventually pursued him to Samuel’s house personally, and then was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit. Saul’s son, and David’s friend, Jonathan, believed that this experience with God may have changed his father’s attitude toward David. But alas, it wasn’t so. Saul rejected this experience with the Lord, as he had with other opportunities to repent.

After Jonathan sadly warned David that Saul had not changed in his desire to kill him, David fled again. The logical place for David to go was back to his family in Bethlehem. It is almost certain that his family would have helped hide him, or at the least, given him supplies to travel far away from Saul.

However, David did not go home to Bethlehem. Instead he stopped at Nob, which was much closer to Saul’s headquarters than Bethlehem. David probably spent enough time at Nob for Saul’s men to get to Bethlehem ahead of him – any reasonably smart person would assume that David would go there first. In other words, by stopping, David gave up his chance to go home and get definite help from people loyal to him by blood. So why did he go to Nob instead, and give up that help?

There appears to be only one reason: Nob was the place where the tabernacle of the Lord was set up. Wherever Nob was, it isn’t called that anymore, but it was quite likely located at the place we now call the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem, north of Bethlehem a few miles. We are so used to thinking of the biblical capital city of Israel as Jerusalem, but Jerusalem at this time was controlled by non-Israelites known as Jebusites. David, at the time of his escape, was in Saul’s home-town, Gibeah, which was north of Nob.

It is possible that David was afraid that Saul would punish his family if they helped him. Even so, it was likely that Saul would punish them anyway, because Saul could not have been sure that David had not, in fact, been to Bethlehem. Perhaps David was being cunning, and staying away from places he’d be expected. That’s definitely a possibility, but I think we can learn the real answer from the words of David himself.

OGod, You are my God; I eagerly seek You.

I thirst for You;

my body faints for You

in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.

So I gaze on You in the sanctuary

to see Your strength and Your glory.

My lips will glorify You

because Your faithful love is better than life. (Psalm 63:1-3)

Or, again:

I am at rest in God alone;

my salvation comes from Him.

2He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my stronghold; I will never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2)

For David, God was his family. He was the most important family, and the most certain help in times of trouble. Now even though David’s faith was far beyond that of his contemporaries, we need to remember that in those days, worship was oriented around the tabernacle. The presence of God was believed to be most real there. And, in fact, before the time of Jesus, there was something unique and special about the tabernacle (and later, the temple). And so David was faced with a choice. He could go into exile and hiding without ever seeing his family again, or without ever worshipping at the tabernacle again. He chose God over his family. He couldn’t stand the thought of leaving without spending one more time in the presence of God in a special way.

In addition, David saw the Lord as a very real help in times of trouble. And so he chose to seek whatever help he might get from the Lord, trusting in the Lord’s help even more than the assistance he would have received from his family. Besides what we know of David’s heart from the psalms, the confirmation of this is also given in the next chapter. In 1 Samuel 22:10 we learn that David “inquired of the Lord” while he was there. Inquiring of the Lord usually involved a time of worship.

From verse 2 onwards, David refers to companions who are with him. So apparently a few people loyal to him went along when he fled. If we read this in isolation, we might think that David was embellishing the story for Ahimelech, the chief priest. In fact, Jesus refers to this very incident in Matthew 12:1-6, and confirms that David had some men with him at this point.

However, David did tell a lie. He told the priest Ahimelech that he was on a special mission for Saul. For many years I maintained that it wasn’t wrong for David to lie on that occasion, because after all, he was fleeing for his life. But David’s lie led to a terrible tragedy. The priest Ahimelech, and almost his entire family, were later murdered by Saul for helping David. Now Ahimelech, had he known the truth, may still have chosen to help David. But in that case, his death would have been the result of his own choice. As it was, David, by his lie, was the one who made the choice that led to the tragedy later on. It may seem harsh to point out that David sinned here. But you see, David had the right to risk his own life. He did not have the right to deceive someone else into risking his own life, and the lives of his wife and children. He ought to have given Ahimelech that choice by telling him the truth.

The priest gave David and his men some of the holy bread. In the tabernacle, (and later, in the temple) there was a table that held twelve loaves of bread. This was called the “bread of the presence.” The twelve loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel, sitting in the presence of the Lord. Each week, the priests baked twelve fresh loaves, and took the old ones off. Those old loaves were supposed to be eaten only by the priests and their families, since they were consecrated and considered holy. Ahimelech decided to give some of this consecrated bread to David and his men. 1000 years later, Jesus officially approved this action. He taught that this incident demonstrates that the goal of worship activities is to bring us closer to God – not to serve empty religion and mindless tradition (Matthew 12:1-6).

In addition to the bread, David obtained the sword of Goliath. Obviously, at some point, he had given it to the priests. This again shows us something about David’s heart. He never looked at his victory over the giant as his personal success. It was God’s victory, on behalf of the entire nation. So he placed the sword in the Lord’s sanctuary, so that all who worshiped could see a physical reminder of God’s power and grace and care for his people.

However, at this point in his life, David needed a weapon. So he took the sword back. It must have done the same thing for him that it did for the worshipers. It would have reminded him of how the Lord cared about him, and fought his battles for him.

After this David fled to the only place he thought he could be safe from Saul – to the Philistines. Once again, we are limited by writers who did not take the time or sheepskin for complete explanations about what happened, or what David could possibly have been thinking. It’s true that now David was Saul’s enemy. As the old saying goes, “the enemy of my enemy, is my friend.” And so he may have expected the Philistines to welcome him. In addition, war in those days was conducted very differently. There were often rules and even a kind of etiquette. It is possible that it would have been considered dishonorable to kill an enemy when you met him away from the battle field; even more so if he came to your town of his own free will.

Even so, David seems to have overlooked the fact that he had killed thousands of Philistines in battle. Though they did not immediately kill or imprison him, the Philistine leaders felt pretty sour about their king welcoming the man who had killed so many of their soldiers and friends. They reminded the king of this, and David realized that he was not in a good position. So he pretended to be insane. It’s possible that the king thought he was just some unknown crazy man, and that the people who thought he was David were wrong. In any case, he decreed that David should simply be kicked out of town.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this part of David’s tumultuous life is his attitude and heart through it all. It is true that he failed and gave in to fear by lying to the priest. But through the rest of it, his heart remained steadfast, trusting in God alone for help. He wrote a psalm shortly after he escaped from the Philistines (that is at the end of chapter 21). Considering his circumstances, what he wrote is remarkable. Here is part of it:

¹ I will praise the LORD at all times. I will constantly speak his praises.² I will boast only in the LORD; let all who are helpless take heart.
³ Come, let us tell of the LORD’s greatness; let us exalt his name together.
⁴ I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.
⁵ Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
⁶ In my desperation I prayed, and the LORD listened; he saved me from all my troubles.
⁷ For the angel of the LORD is a guard; he surrounds and defends all who fear him.
⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! (Psalms 34:1-8, NLT)

Again, he wrote those words shortly after the events of our text for today, 1 Samuel 21. He was so serious about his faith that he chose to worship God rather than get help from his family. After he escaped from the Philistines with nothing but the shirt on his back, he said: “I will praise the Lord at all times.” With all of this in mind, let’s listen to the Lord for what he would say to us through 1 Samuel 21. Consider some of these questions:

Where do you run to when you are in trouble? Who, or what do you see as your most reliable help in trouble? Is it to the Lord? If not, why not? Take heart from David’s example, and let it encourage you to consider the Lord your best and most certain help. Learn from David that seeking the Lord is even more important than any other kind of assistance you might find.

Maybe your temptation is to cave in to fear, like David did when he lied. His lie had awful consequences. We don’t get to know what would have happened if he had told Ahimelech the truth, but it could hardly have been any worse than what did happen. Maybe the Lord is calling you to be honest in a situation where honesty could ruin a relationship or at least get you in trouble. But before you choose to withhold the truth, remember the awful consequences to dishonesty.

And what reminds you of God’s power, grace and help given to you in the past? What can encourage you like Goliath’s sword encouraged David? Take a few minutes now to listen to the Lord.

1 SAMUEL #20: THE GREAT STORY

On March 15, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Our text today tells a story; an exciting, true story of danger, adventure, love and friendship. But it is not David’s story, not really. It is a part of God’s ongoing story that reveals what he is like, and blesses those who trust him. We are part of the same story. Sometimes we don’t believe that. Sometimes we think the story is all about us, and at other times we don’t believe we belong in the story at all. But when we trust Him, God weaves our lives into his wonderful, grand story, and promises that we will be a part of the happiest ending of all time.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 20

1 SAMUEL #20. 1 SAMUEL CHAPTERS 19 & 20.

Last time we saw that Saul, having closed the door to God’s Holy Spirit, was overwhelmed by an evil spirit and he threw a spear at David, God’s chosen instrument. Now you would think this would be the signal for David to quit, and find other employment. But apparently David assumed that this was just a temporary fit of insanity. The manifestation of the demon that afflicted Saul seems to have looked a lot like paranoid-schizophrenia. So David apparently took it somewhat in stride, and put it down to “one of those fits the king has.” But even when the evil spirit had somewhat abated, Saul, unknown to David, made a decision that he wanted him dead.

Saul told his advisors, including his son Jonathan, to kill David. Before anyone could take action, Jonathan spirited David away, and then talked some sense into his father, and Saul relented. David came back to the king’s court, apparently welcome there. Even so, Saul’s heart had not fundamentally changed. There was another battle with the Philistines, and David, relying on God and the talents God gave him, won another great victory. This aroused Saul’s jealousy again, and again, overwhelmed by an evil spirit, he tried to kill David himself.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, as the saying goes. That time David got the message. So did his wife, Saul’s daughter, Michal. She urged him to run away that very night. You can imagine the tearful passionate goodbyes, and the cool night air as David climbed out the window, and she pulled in the rope that he used. She made up an image of David, complete with a hairy head, to fool his pursuers, and put it in their bed.

In the morning Saul’s men came for David, and Michal reported that he was sick, buying more precious time for David to get away. The men went back to Saul, then returned with orders to bring David on his sick bed for Saul to kill him. When they did this, the deception was discovered, but Michal blamed David, saying that he had threatened her. Most likely, David had told her to take this approach, so that she would not be punished.

David fled to Samuel, where the Lord protected him from Saul’s men, and even Saul himself. Every time Saul’s men came to capture David at Samuel’s place, they were overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit, and instead of completing their mission, they were overcome with religious ecstasy and began to praise the Lord and speak his word. Saul himself came, and the same thing happened to him. You might remember that when Saul was first anointed, he had an experience of God’s Spirit coming upon him, and he prophesied (chapter 10:1-9). At that time it was an empowering confirmation of God’s call on his life. It was a positive experience, and he stayed in control of himself. This time, because his intentions were evil, he lost control of himself, and ended up lying naked for a day. The Hebrew there could mean “stark naked,” or it could mean, basically, “in his underwear.” Either way, in contrast to the beginning of his reign, we see that Saul is now out of step with God’s spirit, and instead of being empowered by the Spirit, he was thwarted from his evil purpose.

The Lord was giving Saul yet another chance to repent. He was not harming Saul, but reminding Saul that he was God, and giving him the opportunity to reconsider the course of his life.

Apparently, David wondered if Saul’s encounter with the Holy Spirit in this way caused him to change his mind. So, David secretly returned and sought out Jonathan, who agreed to help him. They set up a test to find out if Saul was still serious about killing David, and a secret rendezvous point, and even a code.

Their test proved that Saul was indeed intent on killing David. Though the Lord had given him yet another chance to repent, Saul had refused it. Jonathan gave the secret signal telling David he was in deadly danger. After sending his young helper back to the town with his weapons, Jonathan and David met for the last time. They re-affirmed their friendship, and then David departed, never to see his best friend alive again.

As I considered this section of scripture for this message, I was looking for some hidden gem of a verse, or some principles to apply to our lives. But what really captured me was the story. It is a true story of adventure, romance, danger, intrigue, spiritual power, battle and conspiracy. There are many novels that do not have plots this exciting. And what I want to suggest to you today, is that the story IS the message.

The events of David’s life call to us. There is a mission for the hero to be part of something greater than himself – to be God’s chosen instrument. There is love and romance in the midst of the adventure. There are friends like brothers. There is a deadly enemy who seeks the life of the hero. There are setbacks, plot twists, codes and conspiracies. And yet, through exciting twists and turns, with the help of his lover and his friends, the hero escapes and lives to fight another day. I don’t know about you, but in my unguarded moments, I realize that I want some of this in my own life. I want adventure, romance, joy. I want a mission in something that matters, something that is greater than myself.

Now, David was a good-hearted man of faith. Even so, you have to imagine that not all this was easy for him. He had experienced God’s call on his life. He had felt the beauty of God’s creation, the heart-swelling form of music, the joy of friendship, the ecstasy of love, the fierce rush of battle. All these things spoke to his heart and told him that God was good, and that God had given him a part in a great adventure.

But that wasn’t the only message that David got. Before he killed Goliath, his brothers told him he was arrogant, callow and irresponsible. Saul’s actions told him he was in grave danger, and his life was worthless. He was driven from his wife and friends; he lost his career, and it was too dangerous to return to his family. I have no doubt that the devil used these things to tell David that it was a cold cruel world, that God wasn’t really there for him, that in fact, his life had no meaning. The devil probably also used these events to make David question whether he really was chosen by God to be the instrument of the Holy Spirit. What David said to Jonathan shows how he was feeling:

I swear to you by the living LORD that I am only a step away from death!” (1 Samuel 20:3, GNT)

When we look at the life of David from start to finish it is obvious to us that God was calling to him and working in his life. We can see that David was involved in a purpose greater than himself. We might even envy the adventures he had, especially since we know that things turned out OK for him. But I am not sure that these things were always so obvious to David. He wrote many songs and poems (which we now call Psalms) when he was in trouble. He was often worried and distressed. He was harried and hard-pressed. He expressed his fear and doubt at times. This was certainly one of those times. Psalm 3 gives us a picture of how David was probably feeling:

¹ I have so many enemies, LORD,
so many who turn against me!
² They talk about me and say,
“God will not help him.” (Psalms 3:1-2, GNT)

Or, for another example, the first part of Psalm Six:

¹ LORD, don’t be angry and rebuke me!
Don’t punish me in your anger!
² I am worn out, O LORD; have pity on me!
Give me strength; I am completely exhausted
³ and my whole being is deeply troubled.
How long, O LORD, will you wait to help me? Psalms 6:1-3

You see the Story is not always obvious when you are inside it. So David had those two competing ideas: First that God cared about him, and that he was part of an amazing story being told by God; and second, that his life was pointless and worthless, and God did not care about him.

I want to suggest that we are in the middle of a story ourselves, and we are faced with the same dilemma as David; we hear the same two messages. We hear something that tugs at our heart in beautiful music; we sense something eternal when we are very close to the ones we love; we feel God when we look on the glory of his creation. Scattered throughout our lives are the echoes of God’s voice, calling to our hearts, telling us that there is something greater, good and wonderful. It tells us that we are truly loved and accepted, and are called to be part of a greater purpose. Our hearts were made for a great intimacy. Even the fact that we want these things to be true is a sign for us.

But there is a deadly enemy after us, no less than he was after David. And so things happen to us that make it seem like life is meaningless. We get hurt in ways that suggest we should shut up our hearts, and not listen to the echoes of God’s voice. We get the message that we can’t ever really get the real life we yearn for, so we should settle for drugs, or alcohol, or work or money or shallow relationships, or mindless entertainment.

This perspective is hard to see, because we are inside the story of our lives. In Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien records a moment when Sam and Frodo muse about the bigger picture, the story of their lives.

“Take any [story] that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.”

“…Why to think of it, we’re in the same tale [as the ancient stories] still! Don’t the great tales never end?”

“No, they never end as tales,” said Frodo. “But the people in them come and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.”
The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

Looking at David’s life story, if we could, we might say to him, “Hang in there! Don’t give up hope. God will make your life into a beautiful, exciting, inspiring story.” But David did not know that. He was faced with a choice. He could believe the echoes of God in his life, or he could believe the message that the devil tried to give him through the bad things that happened to him. David made the choice of faith, and the world is better for it.

You may not see it, but you are inside the very old, ongoing story. You are in the same story as David was. If you trust in Jesus, you are one of the chosen instruments of the Holy Spirit in your lifetime. You will have plenty of opportunities to turn back. You have an enemy that can only win if you do turn back, and he is doing all in his power to make you believe that there is no story, and you are not part of anything greater. Don’t believe him. Trust instead in the goodness, greatness, love and joy of God. As the writer of Hebrews says:

35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised. 37 For yet in a very little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. 38 But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and obtain life. (Heb 10:35-39, HCSB)

Just like David, we don’t know how the story will turn out. We don’t know how God will weave us into his story. Because we often don’t see it, we often make four types of errors:

First, sometimes, we don’t believe the story exists at all. We see no plan, no purpose, no evidence of anything but random chance. But honestly, the entire universe, from the properties of light and matter, to the details of DNA shout deafeningly of Design. The objective truth is that it is far more likely that tomorrow a stranger will put a winning 10 million dollar lottery ticket into your mailbox than that the physical universe is the product of random chance. And if the universe is not an accident, neither is your life.

Second, perhaps we do believe there is a Divine story, but we think that we cannot really be part of it. We are too insignificant. Our lives are too ordinary to be part of the story God is telling. We might believe that if God actually was using our lives to tell a story, then our part might easily be skipped because it is too boring. But to believe that is to disbelieve God’s promises in scripture.

Third, we often think the story is our story, that it should be all about us. If we think that way, it becomes difficult at times to see the story at all, or to see how it can be good. However, even David’s story was not about David, it was about what God was doing for his people. In the Story God is telling, the main character is God. It is not all about us. However, God includes us in His story in ways that bless us and bring us lasting joy, even when at times we experience suffering. He has planned a beautiful ending for all who will trust him, for all who join His story.

Fourth, sometimes we reject the idea that God is working purposefully in our lives because we cannot see how it all fits together. We think that if we cannot understand how a certain event could fit into God’s story, then that means it doesn’t fit. I was caught in this for awhile because of my chronic pain. I didn’t see how my intense ongoing pain could fit into any story that God is telling. But I finally realized that I was being overwhelmingly arrogant. I was assuming that I should be able to understand everything that an infinite Being was doing. If God is indeed infinite, than it is certain that we will not be able to understand a great deal of what he is doing, or how it all works together for His glory and my good. To insist that I won’t believe because I cannot understand is not only arrogant, but also foolish.

In 2022 I watched a football game between my alma mater, Oregon State University (OSU), and the University of Oregon (called “Oregon” for short). Oregon was ranked #9 in the nation at that point, and OSU wasn’t even in the top 20. OSU started out okay, leading 10-7 at the end of the first quarter. Then the University of Oregon exploded, scoring three touchdowns and a field goal, while Oregon State made mistake after mistake on both offense and defense. With three minutes to go in the third quarter the score was Oregon 31, and OSU, 10, and OSU looked like they were just waiting for the game to be over and the humiliation to end. That’s how things stood, with the game three-quarters finished. It was all but over. All that remained was to see how badly they would lose.

Imagine you spoke to the players of OSU at this point. Imagine saying: “You are in the middle of a historic game of football, one of the most amazing wins ever for OSU. Your names will be spoken by sportscasters nationwide, and people will talk about what you did today for years to come. Someone will even use this moment as a sermon illustration in years to come.”

I suspect that most of the OSU players would not believe you. Many of their fans had already left the stadium, and they probably wanted to go as well. But, as you have probably guessed, OSU did indeed go on to win the game, scoring 28 points in the final quarter of the game. It was one of the most amazing comebacks in the school’s history.

Now, I want to make sure you understand something here. I am not asking you to trust the story, or even to trust your part in the story. No. I am saying: Trust the Teller of the story. Trust the Author, the one who is weaving all of our lives into his amazing good story. We can be sure that he is good and that he is at work in our lives, even when we cannot see it. We can be sure of his good intentions, and good character because He actually entered the story Himself, and died for you and me, to make sure that we can participate in the happiest ending of all time.

We are in the middle of the story. We don’t know what is to come. And we often think the story ends with our death, but it doesn’t. It ends with our resurrection. Let’s wake up, and see that we are part of an amazing story with a beautiful ending.

Hear the wisdom of Larry Crabb.

“This world is fallen. Things happen that make no visible sense. But somehow through it all, God is telling a good story. Without the ending, the story is not good. But nothing happens, nothing can happen, nothing ever will happen that God cannot redeem to move the story along to its glorious climax.”

Let the Holy Spirit open your eyes to His good story, and let him speak to you now.

1 SAMUEL #19: GRACE, JEALOUSY, LOVE AND INTEGRITY

On February 23, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

1 Samuel 18 depicts the rise of David as a warrior and leader, and the escalating tension between him and Saul. Jonathan, Saul’s son, recognizes David’s faith and forms a covenant with him, seeing in David a kindred spirit. Despite David being the hero of the day, Jonathan, as the king’s son, was seen as the more important man. Yet, he reached out to David in an act of grace, giving him his robe and belt, symbolizing their bond and enabling David to stand without shame in the king’s court. This act is reminds us of how Jesus gives us his righteousness so we can stand without fear or shame in the presence of God.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 19

1 SAMUEL #19. 1 SAMUEL CHAPTER 18:1-30.

1 Samuel chapter 18 is part of a larger section that records the development of David as a warrior and leader, and the increasing tension between Saul and David.

In number 11 in this series, we looked at 1 Samuel chapter 14, and saw that Jonathan, son of Saul was a very different man from his father. Jonathan was a man of faith. He trusted that if God wanted to deliver his people, he could do it, whatever the odds. I have wondered at times, why Jonathan, being the man he was, did not fight Goliath himself. The bible doesn’t tell us, but I suspect that Saul might have forbidden him to do it, since he was the eldest son, and thus very important to Saul. In any case, it was God’s desire to use David in that situation.

David approached Goliath with exactly the same kind of faith that Jonathan had when he fought the Philistines in chapter 14. Jonathan recognized the faith of David and recognized in him, a kindred spirit. Without any pretensions as the king’s son, and in self-confident humility, Jonathan reached out to David in brotherly love, and made a covenant with him. Remember, though David was the hero of the day, everyone around them would have felt that Jonathan was the more important man. Jonathan reaching out to David was an act of grace – he didn’t have to do it. A “covenant” was a solemn agreement. It doesn’t spell out here what exactly the covenant was. I think we can assume that it was a little bit like the old native American tradition of becoming blood brothers. Certainly, they became lifelong friends, inseparable in spirit, loyal to each other in spite of the difficult circumstances that could have come between them. In addition, after the victory over Goliath and the Philistine armies, Jonathan gave David some of his precious iron-age battle equipment.

Jonathan also gave David his robe and his belt. In those days, robes, belts, tunics and so on were actually quite precious. There was no mass produced clothing; every piece had to be painstakingly made by hand. Jonathan, son of the king, likely had more than one set of clothing, but David, eighth and youngest son of a sheep farmer, had only his rough shepherd’s outfit. David’s clothing was probably not very nice, and not really appropriate to the court of the king. So Jonathan gave David a robe and a belt to wear over his clothes, probably so that he could be at Saul’s court without embarrassment.

I think it is always worth asking: “Can we learn anything about Jesus from this passage of scripture?” I think in this place, Jonathan shows us something about Jesus, and then, elsewhere in the text, David does. So, right here, Jonathan, the son of the king, clothed David, who was the least honored son from a poor family, so that he could stand without shame in the presence of the king. Does that remind you of anything? I’m thinking of 2 Corinthians 5:21:

²¹ He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:2, CSB)

Just as Jonathan imparted his own clothes to David, so that he could feel that he belonged in the presence of the king and court, so Jesus gives us his own righteousness, so that we can stand without fear or shame in the presence of God. This text, through Jonathan, reminds us of that. Jonathan’s gracious covenant with David reminds us how God has reached out to us in a covenant secured by the death of Jesus Christ.

After Goliath was killed, the armies of Israel pursued the Philistines to the gates of two of their cities. Previously, Israel had won only defensive victories against the Philistines – they had driven the Philistines out of the hill country when they invaded. However, this time, spurred by David’s feat of faith, they took the battle into Philistine territory. As they returned from the fight, the people celebrated and sang songs of victory and joy. In their songs they sang that Saul had killed thousands, and David tens of thousands.

When we looked at the psalms, we learned that Hebrew poetry and song is not about rhyme, rhythm and meter. Instead, it uses parallelism. In parallelism, a thought is stated, and then it is re-stated in a slightly different way. So that’s all that was happening in the song that the Israelites were singing about the victory, recorded in verse seven: Saul has killed thousands; David, ten thousands.

Saul should have known that this was just a poetic way of celebrating the victory. In fact, he must have known that. It was just a song, and it was typical of Hebrew songs. But it bothered him. This was a faith opportunity for Saul. He could trust that God was Lord of both him and David, and that God would be merciful and good to him even now. Before this, the Lord had used David’s music to deliver him from his torment of the mind. He had just used David to deliver the whole country from the giant, and the Philistines. He could have been thankful for what the Lord had done for him through David. But he let this poetically expressed song eat into his mind. It bothered him, and he gave in to doubt and insecurity. 18:10 says this:

The next day an evil spirit sent from God took control of Saul, and he began to rave inside the palace. David was playing the lyre as usual, but Saul was holding a spear, and he threw it, thinking, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” But David got away from him twice. (1Sam 18:10-11, HCSB)

We can see a horrifying progression happening in Saul. First, Saul was God’s chosen instrument, and the Spirit of God moved him to lead the people victoriously against their enemies. But then, he began to give in to insecurity. He tried to manipulate the people through religion; he even tried to manipulate God. Then, he stopped seeking the Lord whenever it was inconvenient. After that he flat out disobeyed God, and then lied about it. He lost his status as the Lord’s instrument, but the Lord reached out to him, allowing him to be in need, and then providing a way to meet that need through David’s music.

Previously, when the Lord used the evil spirit to try and bring Saul to repentance, Saul was able to find hope and relief by God’s spirit working through David’s music. But at this time, it seems that Saul utterly rejected God’s spirit. He chose to not live by faith. He chose to try and control his own fate, apart from God’s plans. And so when David played music for him after this, there was no relief, because Saul had cut off all of God’s efforts to reach him. Now, instead of bringing relief, David’s music made Saul worse. He threw a javelin at David, while he was playing. Apparently, David thought this was just one of the fits that Saul had. It seems like he didn’t, at that point, believe that Saul was truly, actively, trying to kill him. So after the fit passed, David returned to Saul’s service.

Before Goliath was dead, Saul had promised that whoever killed him would be made rich, would marry the King’s daughter, and his family would be freed from taxes. But after David killed Goliath, Saul did not immediately let him marry his daughter. Instead, he added conditions, saying that David must join the army and prove himself. David’s response: “Who am I, that I should become son-in-law to the king?” was probably just the normal, proper form in such a situation. It didn’t mean David was refusing the marriage, it just meant he was proving his humility and loyalty to the king. Saul, however, ignored his promise, and had his eldest daughter married to another man. It is possible that Saul did this to try and provoke David into anger, so that David would respond in some way that could be called treasonous, after which Saul could have him executed. But if that was Saul’s plan, it didn’t work.

In the meantime, Saul’s youngest daughter had fallen in love with David. In those days, in that part of the world, a prospective groom was supposed to give goods and property to the father of the bride. This gift was called the “Bride Price.” They did the same thing in Papua New Guinea where I grew up. In New Guinea, the price was usually paid in livestock and other property, and ancient Israel was probably similar. In chapter 17, Saul promised that killing Goliath was the bride price for marrying Saul’s daughter. Yet, Saul didn’t let him marry the first daughter, and when he finally offered his youngest daughter, Michal to be married to David, in verse 23, David said basically, that he couldn’t afford to become the king’s son in law. Probably David said this as a gentle reminder that Saul had already promised the marriage as a reward for killing Goliath. It would give Saul the opportunity to say: “No, no, don’t worry about it, you’ve already paid the bride price.”

But Saul didn’t say that. Instead, he actually demanded something more from David than the death of Goliath. In other words, he did not keep his promise. Second, David’s statement that he was poor, and couldn’t afford the bride-price meant that Saul must have also gone back on his promise to make the giant killer a wealthy man (17:25).

Saul’s new bride price was that David had to kill 100 Philistines, and mutilate their bodies to bring back a certain gruesome proof of each death. He was hoping that the Philistines would get so angry about this that they would hunt down David and kill him.

None of this is fair. None of Saul’s treatment of David from here on out was righteous or godly. David was God’s chosen instrument – and yet through Saul, the devil was continually cheating him and threatening his life.

Even so, David voluntarily paid double what Saul asked – he killed not 100, but 200 Philistines. So Saul finally let David and his daughter, Michal get married. But even then, he treated David poorly. The law of Moses says this:

⁵ “When a man takes a bride, he must not go out with the army or be liable for any duty. He is free to stay at home for one year, so that he can bring joy to the wife he has married.( Deuteronomy 24:5, ESV)

But Saul made David continue to serve in the army. So, in his hatred of David, Saul was willing to hurt his own daughter. In spite of all this, David did not become bitter, or even disrespectful toward Saul. He did not even confront him about his false promises. He continued to trust the Lord to work in him and through him. He continued to do what the Lord put in front of him to do, which in this case, was to fight in Saul’s army. And through the Lord, he was protected and blessed in his endeavors.

I want to point out a few things that come out of this particular chapter. First, let’s look at the negative example of Saul. When we close the door on God, it means we open a door to the realm of Satan and evil spirits. I don’t mean that this happens every time we make a single mistake and choose wrongly or fall into sin. But Saul persistently and deliberately rejected God over a long period of time. When he experienced the torment that resulted from that, God sent him help. But at this point in his life, he deliberately and explicitly refused the help that God sent. Therefore, it seems to me that chapter 18 records a time when Saul makes a firm, final decision to not trust God. As a result, God had no way to reach him anymore. And since Saul put himself beyond God’s reach, he was a sitting duck for the devil.

Second, we see the intention of all evil spirits – to destroy the work of the Holy Spirit. David was the instrument of the Holy Spirit at that time. The evil spirit, when given control took the most direct route – destroy God’s chosen instrument.

I think it is important for us to recognize the spiritual war that this reveals. David was aware of it in the battle against Goliath. Jonathan was aware of it in his earlier battles. The devil wants to destroy the work of God. Jesus, talking about Satan in John 10:10 said, “a thief comes to kill, steal and destroy.” Peter wrote this:

Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. (1Pet 5:8, HCSB)

This world is not neutral territory – it is a battle ground. All of us who trust in Jesus are now the chosen instruments of the Holy Spirit. The devil cannot kill us all. But he seeks to undo the work that God wants to do in and through us. We don’t need to fear the devil – Jesus told us that he has won the definitive victory over Satan.

And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:18-20, ESV)

Satan cannot harm us if we remain in Jesus. Therefore the New Testament tells us to be alert (1 Peter 5:8), to remain in Jesus (John 15:1), to resist the devil (1 Peter 5:9 and James 4:7) and to take our stand against all the powers of evil in the spiritual realms (Ephesians 6:10-18). We don’t need to be afraid, but we shouldn’t be naïve either. If the devil could, he would drive a spear through you too. Saul shows us the only way the devil can get at us – when we shut God out. No doubt it would have been hard for Saul, given his insecurity, to keep receiving help from David, whom he now saw as a rival, but that help was there for him. However, he was not willing to humble himself to receive it. He was unwilling to trust God’s goodness, and so he put himself into a very bad situation.

We have several positive things in this text, also. Jonathan, as I mentioned earlier, shows us a bit of what Jesus is like. He made a covenant of grace with David, and by giving David his clothes, made him able to stand without shame or fear in the king’s court. This is exactly what Jesus does for us. We do not have to be ashamed or fearful in the presence of God, because Jesus has clothed us in his own righteousness. He made a covenant with us, though we have nothing to give to him in return. David was not too proud to receive that grace. I believe that we too, should give up our own pride and our own “rights” so that we can receive the grace that is offered to us in Jesus Christ.

There is something else here. Yesterday and today I saw items in the news that bothered me deeply. People with a great deal of power are using it to impose their own personal view of the world upon others. When I read things like this, I feel angry and worried about the future. But then I think about today’s text. David was God’s own chosen instrument. Yet he encountered massive injustice. The king was changing the terms of his own promises, making things harder and harder on David, and there was no one to hold him accountable. David had no option but to live with the injustices, and they kept piling up. Even so, the Lord was with him, and there was nothing that king Saul could do that would stop God’s work in David’s life. David’s response was to trust God, and do the work that was in front of him to the best of his ability.

We are not promised a life free from hardship. But we are promised that God’s presence is with us, no matter how difficult things get, or whether or not we can consciously feel that presence.

We tend to look at David as a special person, and of course, he was. But what was most special about him was that he trusted the Lord. Do you know that the Lord does not love David any more than he loves you? If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a chosen instrument of the Holy Spirit, just like David was. There is no quality of love or grace that God gave David that he withholds from you. His grace to all of us is overwhelming. His desire to save each one of us is powerful. If you look at David and think “He was special to God,” you would be right. But you are no less special to God than David was.

Receive the grace of the Lord now. Ask the Lord for the faith to trust Him.

1 SAMUEL #18: FACING THE GIANT

On February 17, 2024February 17, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The story of David and Goliath is one of the best known Bible stories in the English-speaking world. We love hearing about the underdog who, against all odds, conquered the intimidating, unconquerable giant. However, the main point that is made in the text is that the victory was possible because it was actually a spiritual battle. It wasn’t young David against a battle-hardened giant. It was an arrogant, profane giant against…the maker and ruler of the universe. David won, not because he was brave or skilled, not because of anything within himself, but because he aligned himself with the Lord, and allowed the Lord to use him as his instrument.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 18

1 SAMUEL #18. 1 SAMUEL 17:1-57

1 Samuel chapter 17 contains one of the most familiar incidents in the whole bible: the fight between David and Goliath. Now, most of us know the story outline pretty well: a young man (almost certainly a teenager) defeats a hardened warrior twice his size. Before we get to the good stuff, let’s deal with a few historical facts and questions. Goliath was about nine feet, six inches tall – almost three meters. He was huge. If you browse the internet, however, you might find out that other sources suggest he was considerably smaller. The Greek version of the Old Testament (called the Septuagint) gives Goliath’s height as something like 6 feet, maybe six feet five inches. One of the Dead Sea scrolls, and the historian Josephus also record Goliath as around six feet, but it is likely that both of those documents got their information originally from the Greek Old Testament, so it really boils down to just that source. Six foot five would be about a foot taller than most men in that era of history, a very large person by comparison for sure. However, I think the smaller size is unlikely, and I think it is the result of a translation or copying error when the Jews were creating the Greek Translation of the Old Testament (remember, the original language of the Old Testament was Hebrew).

You see, in addition to Goliath’s height, we are given the weight of some of his armaments, and the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) agrees with those measurements. But the weight of those things matches a nine foot man much better than one who is only six feet tall. His mail coat (a kind of body armor) weighed 125 pounds. This means that it was extremely large. That amount of weight would not be necessary on a man who was 6’5” – the mail should be smaller, and therefore weigh less. Even a man who was six foot five would find it difficult to run and use a sword and spear while carrying an extra 125 pounds. But that isn’t all of the extra weight he carried. The text says his spear was as thick as a weaver’s beam, and just the iron tip weighed about sixteen pounds. If you put 16 pounds at the end of a long pole, say four inches in diameter, even someone who is 6’5” would have a hard time using it effectively as a spear. Maybe a big strong guy that height could use it with two hands, but it would be unnecessarily difficult to use, much harder than one better matched to his size. Also, Goliath wore bronze leg protectors and carried a bronze javelin, and a sword, adding significantly to the weight he carried. By the way, I suspect that the sword was probably a normal-sized blade. It’s size is not described anywhere, and David, still a teenager, was able to use it to cut off Goliath’s head after the battle, and he used it again a few years later.

Anyway the point is, we’re probably talking close to two hundred pounds of gear. Not even a six foot five man would have had armor and weapons that weighed that much, especially not in those days, when those things were rare and expensive. So we’re going to stick with the nine foot height.

This is my friend, Barry. He says he is 6’3″, but I think he’s closer to 6’4″. The replica of Goliath behind him is 9 feet, to scale.

There is another puzzling thing about the text. After the whole thing is over, Saul asks his military commander a strange question about David: “Whose son is this youth?”

The question is strange because at the end of chapter sixteen, prior to the fight with Goliath, David was brought to court to play the lyre/harp and sing for Saul. The text even says that Saul loved him. And David’s father, Jesse, is mentioned by Saul’s courtiers in those same verses. This is one of those places where some people claim that the Bible contradicts itself. I want to point out to begin with that there is no theological or spiritual significance to this “contradiction” even if it exists. There is no doctrine or principle at stake here.

Some scholars speculate that chapter 16 and chapter 17 came from two different sources, and the source for chapter 17 was unaware of the account of how David came to court as a singer. In fact we do know that the author potentially had three different sources:

²⁹ Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the Chronicles of Samuel the seer, and in the Chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the Chronicles of Gad the seer, ³⁰ with accounts of all his rule and his might and of the circumstances that came upon him and upon Israel and upon all the kingdoms of the countries. 1 Chronicles 29:29-30, CSB)

So it is possible that the end of chapter 16 came from one of these sources, and chapter 17 from another. However, whoever actually wrote down the book of Samuel put these two stories right next to each other, and he must surely have seen the apparent contradictions – but he made no attempt to explain it. Therefore it is safe to assume that whoever wrote the history that we call “1 Samuel” saw no necessary contradiction between these two chapters, and in fact, assumed that readers would be able to understand the apparent contradictions. And, as it turns out, there are several possible non-contradictory explanations.

Chapter sixteen records how Saul was afflicted with an evil spirit. The manifestation of this was apparently some kind of mental illness. In fact, continuing on through 1 Samuel, Saul exhibits some of the classic symptoms of paranoid-schizophrenia. So Saul’s question may have been partly a result of the confusion he experienced because of that affliction.

Notice also that verse 15 tells us that David was now going back and forth between his own home, where he tended the sheep, and the place where Saul’s army was encamped. So apparently, when the Philistines came out to fight, David’s status changed. Saul released David to go back and help out at home. Verse 16 tells us that Goliath issued his challenge every day for forty days. But when David arrived, it appeared that he had not yet heard Goliath’s challenge. This means he was gone from Saul for at least forty days. The last time Saul saw him might have been even longer than that, because apparently, when David came to visit the army, it was not to play music for Saul, but rather to bring supplies to his brothers. So it’s likely that Saul hadn’t seen David in several months, possibly longer. Since David was still a teenager, he had probably grown and changed a great deal in a short amount of time, as teenagers tend to do. That alone could account for Saul’s confusion.

On the other hand, it might not have been confusion at all. Saul promised a reward to the person who killed Goliath. He said the person who did it would be married to his daughter. He also said that the whole family of the victor would be exempt from taxes. In order to keep these promises, he needed to officially verify the identity of David’s father, since the father was the key figure in both the marriage arrangements and tax exemption. Remember, Saul does not ask, “who is that young man?” – he asks, “who is his father?”

It is true that in chapter sixteen, someone mentioned that David was the son of Jesse, but that may have been the only time it was mentioned to Saul, and he might not have paid a lot of attention at the time. I know I easily forget the names of people I have never met, and who are mentioned to me only once. So it is possible that Saul knows the victor is David, but he can’t remember David’s father’s name.

It’s also possible that Saul was confused, because he did not think of David as a warrior, but rather as a minstrel. So when he saw him accomplish a great feat of war, he thinks, “Is that really David? Can’t be. It must be one of the soldiers.” So he asked Abner, who as the commander of the army, would know who the soldier is.

All this is to point out once more that there is no necessary contradiction between this and chapter sixteen. There are several reasonable explanations, and obviously, the person who put together the book of Samuel expected that his readers would not read it as a contradiction. Once again, I say that even if there was a contradiction it wouldn’t mean anything, anyway. It would have no significance to any part of the Christian faith.

All right, now let’s turn to the story. The tribes of Israel are faced with a giant. Remember, though, that Israel had a very large man on their side also – King Saul was likely around six foot five, since he was described as roughly a head and shoulders taller than any other person in Israel. Certainly, that was smaller than Goliath, but he was bigger than anyone else in the Israeli army. He should have been the natural choice to face Goliath. But Saul was afraid just like everyone else. By this point, he had already rejected his role as God’s chosen instrument.

Everyone else looked at the external situation. Here was a man almost twice as big as anyone else. He was well armored, with potent modern weapons that others would have a hard time even lifting. It was like fighting an intelligent, well armored grizzly bear. To send a boy with a sling against a giant with armor was crazy. The odds were completely in favor of the giant.

But David saw it primarily as a spiritual battle. What it looked like on the outside made no difference to him. In David’s eyes, Goliath wasn’t challenging him, or Israel – he was challenging God. When he first saw the situation, he said:

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26, ESV)

You can almost picture the men around David staring at him, and then at each other, and then thinking: “Is David blind? Does he not see the nine foot guy with the giant spear?”

I already mentioned Goliath’s armor. Leaving aside the difference in the size of the armor, only two people in the Israeli army had equipment like it: Saul and Jonathan. The armor and weaponry was iron age technology. The rest of the Israelis were using bronze age weapons. The difference, and the advantage it gave the Philistines was a little bit like the difference between muskets and modern semi-automatic rifles. Both can kill you, in roughly the same way, but the more modern weapon is far more deadly.

For this reason, once David volunteered to fight the Giant, Saul tried to get him to wear his own armor, to even out the advantage. David ultimately rejected it for three reasons. First, it didn’t fit him. Saul was a much bigger man. Second, it was not David’s style. David had fought for his life before against lions and bears, and he didn’t use that sort of thing. God used him differently. Third, David did not believe he was at a disadvantage. He rejected the armor for much the same reason as he was willing to fight in the first place: the weaponry didn’t matter. What mattered is that God was on his side. He said to Saul:

³⁶ Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” ³⁷ And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” (1 Samuel 17:36-37, ESV, italic formatting added for emphasis)

So, in David’s eyes, it wasn’t a boy against a giant. It was an arrogant giant…against the Creator of the Universe. All David had to do was give God a chance to strike Goliath down. It didn’t matter what weapons or armor he had. Using the sling wasn’t a clever surprise tactic. It was just the tool that was most handy and familiar to David. The real weapon, in David’s eyes, was the power of God.

Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. (1Sam 17:45, ESV)

The outcome, of course, made history. David killed Goliath with a stone slung into the skull. He completed the job for certain by cutting off the giant’s head with his own sword. David predicts what will happen, but most importantly, why:

And this whole assembly will know that it is not by sword or by spear that the LORD saves, for the battle is the LORD’s. He will hand you over to us.” (1Sam 17:47, HCSB)

David actually ran toward the giant. I don’t think he was stupid, and though he was brave, it wasn’t primarily bravery. He had the confident faith that the battle was the Lord’s. The Lord used what David had, which was a sling. In his encounters with the bear and lion, most likely he stunned the animal with a stone from his sling, and then finished them off with a club. He felt that the Lord protected him then, and sees no reason not to expect the same protection now. So he whipped a stone at Goliath, and scored a shot right on his forehead, where the helmet did not protect him. He took Goliath’s own sword and made sure he was dead by decapitating him. This created a tremendous uproar among the armies that were witnessing it. The Philistines were filled with dismay, and then terror. The Israelites finally realized that David was right, and the Lord was fighting for them, so they rushed on the disheartened Philistines, slaughtering them, and chasing them all the way to the gates of the nearest Philistine walled city.

I invite you to pause for a moment to consider what the Lord might say to you through this. What are you facing in your life that seems like a giant threat? Is there any place where you feel that the odds are stacked against you doing what God wants you to do? I encourage you to see God’s battles from God’s perspective. Now, sometimes we are fighting battles that are not God’s – that is a whole separate issue. But if we are walking in faith, letting Jesus live his life through us, the battles we encounter in the course of doing what He wants to do in us and through us – those are battles that He will fight. We don’t need any special equipment. All we need to do is grab whatever is most handy and comfortable, and let the Lord do the fighting.

There is a related truth here. God will use you – the unique person that he has made you to be. Others pressed David to take Saul’s armor, to fight the way everyone thought he should fight. David politely but firmly declined. He was just fine being who God made him to be. So when it comes time to rise to the challenge, I am not saying you should despise advice. But it is OK to approach your challenges as the person that God made you to be. You don’t have to pray in the fashion of “all good prayer warriors.” You don’t have to look or sound exactly like other good Christians as you face your giants. But do listen to the Lord, and do what he tells you.

Do you realize also, like David did, that our battle is not in the arena of flesh and blood, but is actually a spiritual conflict? David actually had to fight a flesh and blood conflict. Even so, he recognized that it was primarily about what was happening spiritually. So, we have to face trials and difficulties of various kinds – and yet it is good to remember the spiritual reality behind it all. Maybe we have to pay bills and it is hard to make ends meet. That is flesh and blood. But there is a battle that goes along with that – the battle of discouragement and hopelessness and the challenge to trust God as provider. Yes, we must deal with the flesh and blood, but the battle is spiritual.

Maybe you have to deal with someone in your life who is difficult, or troublesome or who causes you anguish. Obviously, you encounter that in flesh and blood situations. But the real battle is to trust God, to continually allow God’s power to forgive that person, to recognize that the devil wants you to hold on to rage and bitterness.

This isn’t a blank check to say: “God will do whatever I want him to, as long as I do it in his name.” But it is an invitation to see the spiritual reality behind our physical life, and to trust God to do good things in us and through us.

So where are you intimidated right now? What “giant” are you facing? A relationship? Finances? Health? Career? Does it look like all the advantages are against you? Hear the Lord’s invitation to trust him right now. Although it wasn’t written until a thousand years after David, he knew the truth that is in Romans chapter 8:

²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. ²⁹ For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
³¹ What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. (Romans 8:28-34, NLT)

Trust in the Lord right now. Let him speak to you.

1 SAMUEL #17: AN EVIL SPIRIT…SENT FROM GOD?

On February 9, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible Teaching, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment

At first glance, this seems to be a horrifying passage of scripture. Did God really send an evil spirit to torment Saul? However, when we understand all of the context, and consider the solution that was available to Saul, it becomes a powerful witness to God’s never ending grace. Although he couldn’t use Saul as his chosen instrument, the Lord never gave up trying to reach Saul’s heart.

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For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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1 SAMUEL 16:14-23

¹⁴ Now the Spirit of the LORD had left Saul, and the LORD sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear. (1 Samuel 16:14)

When we first read this, it almost feels like one of the most troubling verses in the Bible. God sent a tormenting spirit? The word for “tormenting” could also be translated “evil,” which does not make it any better: God sent an evil spirit? It almost seems like God first rejected Saul, and then decided to torment him out of spite. This seems completely out of character for the God we worship. I believe, however, that when we really understand what was going on here, the Lord’s action with Saul in these verses becomes one more instance for us to thank him for his incredible grace to human beings.

Let’s begin with the context. Saul, since the very first record of him in the Bible, has either ignored God, or considered Him a tool to be manipulated and used. Time after time, Saul revealed his own insecurities, and chose to act in ways motivated by his fear. Time after time, he refused to trust the Lord, and sought instead to protect his own interests. When he did engage with God, it was to get the people to remain in the army, or to try and manipulate the Lord into helping him, or guiding him. Saul represents the very worst in religious leaders – he tried to use religion as a way to exercise power over others, all the while avoiding personal trust in the Living God.

Finally, the Lord told Samuel that he had rejected Saul as king:

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
He has rejected you as king.
²⁴ Saul answered Samuel, “I have sinned. I have transgressed the LORD’S command and your words. Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them.²⁵ Now therefore, please forgive my sin and return with me so I can worship the LORD.”
²⁶ Samuel replied to Saul, “I will not return with you. Because you rejected the word of the LORD, the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel.”²⁷ When Samuel turned to go, Saul grabbed the hem of his robe, and it tore.²⁸ Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingship of Israel away from you today and has given it to your neighbor who is better than you. (1 Samuel 15:23-28, HCSB)

This happened after several incidents when Saul either ignored God, or tried to manipulate him, or used religion to manipulate others. He had many, many chances to turn to the Lord, but he never did it. The Lord simply could not use Saul as His chosen instrument in that generation, because Saul wouldn’t let him. Saul refused to trust the Lord.

After this became painfully obvious, the Lord directed Samuel to David – a boy who had given his heart fully to God. David became the Lord’s chosen instrument in that generation. (Remember in those days, Jesus had not come, and so the Lord worked usually only through one or two people at one time. Today, all believers are given the Holy Spirit. We are all supposed to be his chosen instruments in this generation).

Now, to come to terms what happens next, to make sense of God sending an evil spirit to Saul, we need to understand this situation completely. The Lord rejected Saul from being king. He rejected him as His chosen instrument for that generation. Samuel makes this quite clear in the passage I just quoted. But this does not mean that the Lord has given up on Saul as a person.

When I was a child, I remember I desperately wanted a knife. A knife represented power and maturity. It was both a weapon and a tool. It was the next logical step in my progression to responsible adulthood. After a lot of powerful legal maneuvering on my part, I got my parents to give me one. Looking back, I realize now that my wise parents gave me a tiny pen-knife, something I couldn’t do much damage with. I didn’t realize that at the time, however. After carrying it around for a while, it seemed to me that I wasn’t really using it. Out in our yard we had a clothesline made of rope. I opened my knife and took a swing at it. To my delight, the line parted like the waters of the red sea. Later on I examined the metal fly-screen on one of our windows. I wonder if this knife will cut metal? I thought. There was really only one way to find out. It did. I was awed by the power I held.

I don’t remember much about the discipline that followed these incidents. But I do know this: my parents continued to love me and teach me, while at the same time, they took away the knife until I was older. I wasn’t ready for that kind of power. Even so, they loved me. They didn’t reject me. They just rejected the idea of me with a knife.

I think that when they took the knife away, I was probably more upset about losing the knife than I was about the fact that I had done wrong. I don’t remember, but I probably had to be disciplined in other ways so that I could see that what I had done was wrong.

Saul was in a similar situation. The Lord didn’t reject Saul as a person; instead, what he rejected was Saul, as his chosen king. When Samuel told him that the Lord had rejected him as king, Saul was naturally upset. But to me, it reads like he was upset about losing his position as God’s chosen instrument, far more than he was upset about the fact that he didn’t trust God. As we continue through 1 Samuel, we will see that this is in fact the truth.

Now, even though the Lord rejected Saul as king, as His chosen instrument, he did not force Saul to abdicate the crown. He remained king until the day he died. It’s just that he was no longer God’s chosen king, and Saul wouldn’t start a whole dynasty. What grace – that God allowed him to continue as the king, even when he couldn’t use him.

Second, though he was rejected as king, what 1 Samuel 16:14 means is that God did not reject Saul as a person. In fact, he did not leave Saul alone. He was still working on him, trying to bring him to a place of repentance and trust. If God’s plan was just to send Saul to hell, he could have let him be killed soon after. Short of that, he could have simply ignored Saul, and left him to his own selfish insecurities until he died naturally.

Instead, God sent an evil spirit to torment him. I realize that this sounds awful at first reading. We know that those who go to hell will suffer in torment, likely torment augmented by evil spirits. So why did God let it start before Saul even died? Was he just especially vindictive toward Saul? That isn’t the kind of God that the rest of the bible reveals. So what other reasons could the Lord have for doing this?

To bring Saul to true repentance.

There are several other places in the Old Testament where the Lord used evil spirits to accomplish his purposes: Judges 9:23-24, 1 Kings 22:18-23; 2 Samuel 24:1 (combined with 1 Chronicles 21:1); and Job 1:6-12. In each case the picture we get is the Lord allowing an evil spirit to affect a particular person or group. In each case, the evil spirit wants to do the evil, but must get permission from God first. God’s permission seems to be limited to what will accomplish his purpose. In most of these cases, the purpose is to bring judgment, and if possible, repentance. I want to make sure we understand: Even evil spirits are made to serve God’s purposes, though they do so unwillingly.

Therefore, as we look at the whole of the Bible, I think the most accurate way to understand this is that the Lord allowed a demonic spirit to have a certain limited influence on Saul, with the purpose of bringing Saul to repentance and true faith. When we look at what follows, I think the text confirms this.

The NLT says the spirit filled Saul with depression and fear. Although that’s a bit of extra interpretation (in Hebrew it just says that it was a “tormenting spirit”) it is probably pretty close to reality. Even so, I don’t want anyone to get crazy ideas here. This scripture is not saying that all depression is caused by evil spirits. It does not say that whenever someone feels depressed, it is an attempt by God to get them to repent. We are learning here specifically about Saul. In Saul’s case, these things certainly seem to be true. But I don’t think we have here a blanket teaching about all cases of depression.

Saul’s courtiers recognized that at times, he seemed to be affected by something that caused torment in his heart or mind. They thought the problem might be eased by music. Their search for a musician lead them to David – who was now the chosen instrument of the Holy Spirit. They got David, to come and play and sing for Saul. Listen to the result:

23 Whenever the spirit from God troubled Saul, David would pick up his lyre and play, and Saul would then be relieved, feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. (1Sam 16:23, HCSB)

God allowed the spirit to trouble Saul. But he also gave Saul the means to be free from it. And what freed Saul from the evil spirit was the Holy Spirit, working through David. In other words, even though the Lord couldn’t use Saul as his chosen instrument any more, He was not just abandoning Saul as a person. He had to remove the anointing of his Spirit from Saul, but he gave him a way to still receive grace from the Holy Spirit. He allowed him to experience a problem that could only be fixed if Saul would trust the Lord, and rely on the Holy Spirit’s work through David. I think the Lord was still trying to teach Saul to have genuine faith.

Do you see what grace the Lord had on Saul? Saul viewed God as a tool, and paid attention to Him only when he could see some benefit from it. And yet, if anything, it was supposed to be the other way round. Saul was supposed to be the Lord’s instrument. When Saul could not be used as his tool anymore, the Lord did not just cast him aside. He still worked to get Saul into a true, heart-and-faith relationship with Himself.

There are so many applications here. First, this is a great faith-strengthener for me. I used to view this passage as one of the most troubling in the Old Testament. Now, I can hardly stop praising God for his incredible grace to people like Saul, and me.

I think of the words of CS Lewis:

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

God wasn’t being mean. He was trying to get Saul’s attention. He was trying to get at his heart. Though the Lord had to give up on using Saul as his chosen instrument, he didn’t give up on Saul as a person. He was still calling to Saul, trying to teach him to rely on His grace.

The writer of Hebrews says something interesting:

5 And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly or faint when you are reproved by Him, 6 for the Lord disciplines the one He loves and punishes every son He receives. 7 Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline — which all receive — then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had natural fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but He does it for our benefit, so that we can share His holiness. 11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the fruit of peace and righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Heb 12:5-11, HCSB)

(By the way, if you are female, I want to reiterate that you too are a “son.” In Hebrew culture, it was the son that carried the father’s name, the son that inherited from the father. So too, all of us who are in Jesus, whether we are male or female, are counted as God’s chosen people to receive and inherit his grace.) The main point is, sometimes we have to endure discipline in order to mature and fully receive the Lord’s grace. This discipline is positive, not negative. It is a sign of God’s grace and love, not of anger or rejection.

If God was still trying to reach Saul’s heart, after all the ways that Saul had rejected him, you can be sure He won’t give up on you either. Turn to him, and receive that amazing grace.

Another thing that strikes me about this passage is the role of music. The Holy Spirit used music to try and reach the heart of Saul. I have mentioned this before. Music can be a powerful tool in God’s hands to call to our hearts. Five-hundred years ago, Martin Luther wrote: “He who sings, prays twice.” He also wrote this:

Experience testifies that, after the Word of God, music alone deserves to be celebrated as mistress and queen of the emotions of the human heart… A greater praise of music than this we cannot conceive. For if you want to revive the sad, startle the jovial, encourage the despairing, humble the conceited, pacify the raving, mollify the hate-filled—and who is able to enumerate all the lords of the human heart, I mean the emotions of the heart and the urges which incite a man to all virtues and vices?—what can you find that is more efficacious than music?

He was right. Pay attention to the music that speaks to your heart. Let God use it to draw you to Himself.

One other thing that amazes me as I read this passage. Even today, we know some of the songs that gave Saul peace and relief. They were written and played by David, and we have many of them preserved for us in the book of Psalms. Many times when my heart is troubled, I find relief from reading the psalms, and even singing some of the modern songs that are made from them. I encourage all of us to do that.

Take a moment to pray and let the Lord speak to you about this scripture now.

1 SAMUEL #16: THE BOY WITH A GOOD HEART.

On February 1, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Saul was willing to grudgingly obey to a certain extent, but he never gave the Lord his heart. What God wants from us, above all, are hearts that seek him, and have found their belonging in him. What we look like, our personal history, our talents – all these things are secondary to our hearts. The Lord found that kind of heart in young David. When our hearts belong fully to God, he can use us. No one in this life perfectly surrenders their heart to the Lord, of course, but when we trust him, he begins a work that will be complete and beautiful in the new creation. All of the good that David did, his lasting, permanent legacy, is that his heart belonged to the Lord.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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1 SAMUEL #16. 1 SAMUEL 16:1-13

I mentioned previously that we need to understand the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament. It contains the first two acts of a three-act play. It won’t make sense until you also see the end. It is all about Jesus. If we just read the Old Testament alone, we get a message that seems to contain a lot about following rules and a mean, incomprehensible God. But every once in a while we get a hint that this is a set up for something more to come – the more that was fully explained and fulfilled in Jesus. In 1 Samuel 16, we get another of these hints.

Saul struggled with insecurity. In his fears he did not turn to God for mercy and grace – instead, he tried to control and manipulate God through religion. He did not want a relationship of trust in the Almighty – he just wanted an Almighty who would do what he (Saul) wanted him to. When it came right down to it, Saul wanted God to serve him, not the reverse. Ultimately, he rejected God, and so God made plans to bring in a different king. That is how things stood at the end of 1 Samuel chapter 15.

The prophet Samuel grieved over this turn of events, and even mourned for Saul personally. This shows us something of the man Samuel was. He knew it was wrong for the people to want a king. He knew that Saul was insecure and not a true follower of the Lord. But Samuel hated to see him fail, hated that he had turned away from God. He knew that because of Saul’s own choices, God could not do anything more with him, but even so, he grieved for Saul.

Here in chapter sixteen, the Lord told Samuel to go anoint the one who would be the next king of Israel. It is interesting to note that Samuel, for all his care for Saul, had no illusions about what kind of man he was. He thought Saul would have him killed if he found out he was anointing another person to be king. Even so, he obeyed and went to the home of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, who lived in Bethlehem.

He had Jesse bring his sons with him to a sacrifice that they offered to the Lord. When Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son, he was impressed.

⁶ When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!”
⁷ But the LORD said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:6-7

This is one of those times when the curtain is drawn back, and the Old Testament shows plainly what God is after. It may be one of the most important verses in the Old Testament. God looks at the heart. The word for “heart” is a form of the Hebrew word “leb.” This is a word with a rich meaning, just as “heart” is in English. In Hebrew this word means innermost being, intellect, the center of a person or thing.

Writer Brent Curtis points out how important the heart is:

We describe a person without compassion as “heartless,” and we urge him or her to “have a heart.” Our deepest hurts we call “heartaches.” Jilted lovers are “brokenhearted.” Courageous soldiers are “bravehearted.” The truly evil are ‘black-hearted” and saints have “hearts of gold.” If we need to speak at the most intimate level we ask for a “heart-to-heart” talk. “Lighthearted” is how we feel on vacation. And when we love someone as truly as we may, we love “with all our heart.” But when we lose our passion for life, when a deadness sets in which we cannot seem to shake, we confess, “My heart’s just not in it.”

[Curtis adds], “it is in our heart that we first hear the voice of God and it is in the heart that we come to know him and live in his love…For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart.”
Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance

No wonder Solomon calls the heart “the wellspring of life”(Proverbs 4:23). Both Saul and Jesse’s son Eliab were impressive on the outside. Though probably not as tall as Saul, Jesse’s first born, Eliab, was apparently tall and impressive looking.

There is a reason the creator of 1 Samuel put this narrative right after the one about Saul’s failure. Saul’s problem was that his heart was not turned toward God. Outwardly, he was impressive. Outwardly, he pretended to follow God by being superficially religious. But God is after our hearts. Saul’s heart was closed to him. Eliab’s also, apparently. What the Lord wanted was not an impressive looking person. He wasn’t after a great warrior or commander of men. He wanted first and foremost a heart that would belong to him.

Samuel went down the line of Jesse’s sons – seven of them. The Lord did not choose any of them. Finally, they called in the youngest, a boy named David. The fact that David was not at the sacrifice with the others opens up the possibility that at this time he was younger than thirteen years old, and so not a normal adult guest at an audience with the Prophet. We can’t know this for sure, however. At any event, he was quite young, and unimportant enough in his family to be left tending the sheep while the older men held council with Samuel. If I had to guess, I would say that this event was pretty close to David’s thirteenth birthday, either just before or after, because in those days, a male was considered a man at his thirteenth birthday. This brings to mind the history of Samuel himself, who was very young when God began to speak to him. God told Samuel that this youngest brother was the one he had chosen to be the next king of Israel.

I want to give us a bit more background on how surprising God’s choice was. David was born into the tribe of Judah. Although the founder of the tribe, the patriarch Judah, was eventually considered the leader among his brothers, he had a inconsistent spiritual history, to say the least. Judah was the one who saved his brother Joseph when the others wanted to kill him. But he “saved” Joseph by suggesting they sell him into slavery. Later, Judah participated in deceiving his father Jacob about what had happened to Joseph. A few years on, Judah slept with a woman pretending to be a prostitute, and his ultimate line of descendants – including Jesse and David – came from that union. Centuries later as the Israelites were entering the promised land, a Canaanite prostitute named Rahab converted to the worship of the Lord. A man from the tribe of Judah married her, and she became one of the ancestors of David’s family as well. Three generations before David, his great-grandfather married a widow woman who wasn’t even an Israelite. So in David’s family history are two prostitutes, and two women who didn’t even come from the tribes of Israel. If you were imagining the family that God would use, you might not think it would be one like this.

Next let’s look at David’s own position in the family. In those days, firstborn sons were considered more important than all other children. The firstborn usually got twice as much inheritance as anyone else. The family line was usually counted through the firstborn. The remaining birth order was also generally considered important. So, the second born was next in importance, and so on. There was also some significance to the number seven, which was associated with God’s perfection. David however, was not the firstborn, and not even the seventh! He was eighth, and last, and barely thirteen years old. There was nothing about his position in his own family that would make him important.

All of this may not be such a big deal to us, but to Samuel, and David, and the others alive at that time, the idea that David would become the Lord’s new anointed king was utterly surprising, maybe even flabbergasting.

However, we have seen that Samuel was a true and faithful follower of the Lord. So, he obeyed the Lord, and anointed David with oil. Up until Saul was anointed by Samuel, anointing usually meant pouring oil on vessels that were dedicated to be used in worshipping God, or pouring oil on a priest to show that he was set apart to serve God. No one except Samuel and Saul had been present when Saul was anointed to serve God as king. Therefore, though the his family probably understood that David was being set apart to serve God in some way, most of them would have been fuzzy on exactly how he was meant to serve. In other words, though his father and brothers were present when Samuel did this, it is not clear that any of them understood that David was being chosen as the next king of Israel.

The physical pouring on of oil was a symbol of what the Lord did spiritually. For at that time, the Spirit of the Lord came into David, and left Saul. Remember, before Jesus, the Spirit of God usually worked only in one or two individuals or one small group in any given generation of people.

Now I want to stop with the text here, and seek some application. I cannot over emphasize the importance of the heart when it comes to our interactions with God. If the Lord has your religious service, but he doesn’t have your heart, he doesn’t have you. If God has your intellectual agreement, but he doesn’t have your heart, he doesn’t have you. I think this was partly what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote this:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1Cor 13:1-3 (ESV)

We are going to learn more about David. He became a fierce warrior. He turned into the greatest king of Israel in a thousand year period. He was wise. He was a tremendous musician, with the soul of a poet, who wrote worship songs that are still being used today, three thousand years later. But ultimately, the legacy of David was this: his heart belonged fully to God (1 Kings 14:8; 1 Kings 15:3; Acts 13:22). Everything that David achieved was merely a result of that.

Listen to David’s heart, expressed in the words he wrote:

1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?  Ps 42:1-2 (ESV)

1 God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. 2 So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory. 3 My lips will glorify You because Your faithful love is better than life. Ps 63:1-3 (HCSB)

Now sometimes, I think we don’t give our hearts to God because we don’t recognize it when he calls to our hearts. Like Saul, we tend to think God mainly wants religious service. And in some ways, he does, but he wants that to flow out of hearts that belong fully to him. David heard God calling his heart as he was alone in the wilderness with sheep. Somewhere inside that sharp pang of loneliness he heard the voice of the Lord, and he answered in faith, and wrote songs and poems. He recognized God was romancing his heart through the beauty of the wild lands. He recognized God reaching to his heart through the excitement and fierce rushing joy of protecting his sheep from bears and lions. When he saw beauty and was drawn to it, he recognized that it was ultimately God’s beauty and God seeking his heart.

We can do the same. Maybe there is music that stirs your soul, that wakes you up and makes you yearn for something – you might not even know what. Recognize that that yearning is actually for God. He is reaching out to you through that music (I don’t think it matters if the music is overtly Christian or not). Listen to it more. Let God into your heart through it.

Maybe being in nature causes a stirring in you, a desire. Recognize that the God who made nature is reaching out to you. Don’t mistake nature for God himself. But let him use the beauty of the mountains and fall colors and rushing streams to draw you to Him.

Maybe you long to have a soul mate, another person who really knows you completely and accepts you for who you are. Sometimes the Lord fulfills that desire partially through the person we marry. Often, however, we get disappointed. I don’t know about you, but the soul mate of my wife Kari turned out to be a sinful, flawed human man, who often fails to meet her needs. I bet if you are married, the same thing has happened to you. We can rejoice at the gift our spouses are. But what our spouses lack is supposed to help us desire God even more. He is calling to your heart with that yearning.

Perhaps you long for adventure, for the rush and thrill of danger or accomplishment. We can get some of that in this world, and there is nothing wrong with it. But recognize that we can only get part of it without God. The true fulfillment of that yearning is found when our hearts belong to the God of adventure.

I think one common mistake we make is to believe that our yearning can be fully satisfied in this mortal life. That is why we chase desperately after achievement, money, sex, adventure, and relationships. It is also why, when we are disappointed in those things, we often turn to drugs, alcohol, or overeating. But we were not meant to be fulfilled in this life. Our desires here and now are supposed to point us toward God, and eternal fulfillment. C.S. Lewis wrote:

“The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and pose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain)

God is calling your heart. In this life, while we still inhabit these mortal bodies, the call is bittersweet, and never fully satisfied. The presence of sin prevents full satisfaction. But when we give him our hearts, he begins in us the work that will be complete in the new creation. There, and only there, we will be fully satisfied in our hearts.

David was the eighth son of a family with a pretty sketchy history, and barely thirteen years old. None of that mattered. What mattered then and through all history was that he turned his heart toward God as fully as a sinful person can. What you look like, what you do for a living, how successful you are – none of those things really matter. What God looks at is your heart. Does it belong to him? Will you trust that He is both the source and fulfilment of all your heart’s longing?

The truth is, we can’t even recognize his call, or trust that he is the source of our desires, without help from the Holy Spirit. Take a moment now to ask him to give you a heart that seeks him above all else. If you will, you might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

1 SAMUEL #15: TRUSTING OBEDIENCE

On January 27, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Faith, Jesus, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized3 Comments

The essence of following Jesus can be summed up in three words: Trust and Obey. But it is so very important that we keep the concepts in that order. Without trust, all the obedience in the world is only a pointless work of the flesh. And if we truly trust Jesus, we will naturally obey him. The two are deeply connected. Saul shows us a negative example: he did not trust God, and therefore he did not obey him. On the other hand, Jesus obeyed perfectly on our behalf.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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1 SAMUEL #15. 1 SAMUEL 15:10-26

The Old Testament has a lot of value for us in many ways. We can learn from examples, both positive and negative. We can see how God deals with people who live by faith, and with those who don’t. We can receive comfort in God’s promises to his people (and if we trust Jesus, we are his people, those promises are for us). We can learn about God’s standard for holiness.

But we must never forget that the Old Testament is first and foremost about Jesus. The Life, death and resurrection of Jesus are the central concern not only of the New Testament, but also of the Old Testament. Luke describes how Jesus helped his disciples to understand this.

He said to them, “How unwise and slow you are to believe in your hearts all that the prophets have spoken! Didn’t the Messiah have to suffer these things and enter into His glory? ” Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted for them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Luke 24:25-27

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures
Luke 24:44-45

The Jews divided the Old Testament into two parts: “the Law” or “the book of Moses” which are the first five books of the Bible. The second part was called “the Prophets” and it included not only the books which we call “prophetic” but in fact, all of the other books of the Old Testament. So when the New Testament says “the Law and the Prophets” or “Moses and the Prophets” (as it does in the verses above) it means “the entire Old Testament.”

The purpose of the entire Bible is to help us to know Jesus better and walk with him in faith. So even as we read these Old Testament scriptures, we should be asking, “Holy Spirit, show us Jesus in this part of scripture.”

I think this is particularly important when we come to a section like 1 Samuel 15. We talked about the concerns of Holy War for two messages. Let’s be done with the considerations of Holy War and get to the main point of this passage: the obedience that comes from faith.

Saul disregarded the Lord’s command to utterly destroy the Amalekites. He spared the life of the Amalekite king. Quite possibly he did this because, out of fear for his own head, he wanted his followers as well as foreign armies, to differentiate between royalty and ordinary people. In any case, he disobeyed God’s command in this respect. He also allowed his followers to keep the best livestock alive. When Samuel first confronted Saul about what he had done (or, failed to do) Saul claimed that he saved all the animals for sacrificing to the Lord. He was lying. He got caught in disobeying the Lord’s command, and so he decided in that moment to make up for his failure to obey by making a sacrifice with the captured animals.

Samuel didn’t buy it. He said:

²² “Which does the LORD prefer: obedience or offerings and sacrifices? It is better to obey him than to sacrifice the best sheep to him. ²³ Rebellion against him is as bad as witchcraft, and arrogance is as sinful as idolatry. Because you rejected the LORD’s command, he has rejected you as king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23, GNT)

Saul’s warriors may have been grumbling about pointlessly killing good animals. Even if they weren’t, he may have wanted to appear gracious and become popular by rewarding those who fought with him. There may not be anything wrong with that, except that the Lord clearly commanded otherwise. In fact, Saul himself told Samuel that he failed to kill the animals because he wanted the approval of his men:

²⁴ “Yes, I have sinned,” Saul replied. “I disobeyed the LORD’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of my men and did what they wanted. (1 Samuel 15:24, GNT)

Samuel’s proclamation that obedience is better than sacrifice is a theme repeated throughout both the Old and New Testaments. The Psalms reference this exact concept several times. So does Isaiah, and also Hosea. Jesus mentioned the idea a few times in the New Testament. Even so, we need to be careful as we apply this to our own lives. It is very easy to say, “That’s right. I just need to obey God. We just need to do the right thing. What’s the point of saying we follow God if we don’t obey him?” I understand this attitude. There are in fact times when some people just need to step up and obey what God tells us through the Bible. Some of us ought to stop making excuses, quit fooling around, and get serious about doing what Jesus tells us to do. It’s appropriate for some of us to take this approach at times. But this attitude, if it is applied in the wrong way, can also lead us away from what God is really after. It can tend to make us rely on our own strength and effort in the flesh.

So, first, we need to understand that Jesus fulfilled this passage on our behalf. The writer of Hebrews quotes Psalm 40, and says that it is fulfilled in Jesus:

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.  Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:  I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”  Ps 40:6-8 (ESV)

Jesus delighted in God’s will. He didn’t live according to religious rules – the law of God was within his heart and during his time on earth he lived out that law through dependence upon the Father. He obeyed God perfectly. We cannot obey perfectly. So Jesus did it on our behalf. The obedience we owe God is complete and perfect in Jesus Christ, and only in Him. So when you think, “Oh, I have to obey God, because to obey is better than sacrifice” actually what you should hear is “I need to trust Jesus even more. Trusting him is my obedience, because he has already done the obedience for me.” Jesus even said so:

⁸ Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” ²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28-29, ESV)

I think in the New Testament most of the times it says “believe” it would be more helpfully translated as “trust.” So, trusting is our obedience.

One reason we sometimes get confused is because obedience and trust can sometimes look the same. When you live by faith, it does result in certain actions. It does eliminate other actions. The Bible does use the term “obedience.” But we must remember, it is the obedience of faith – not the obedience of self-effort and religion.

Saul was religious, but had no relationship with God. He claimed that what he did was good, because he was thinking about religious appearances. Saving the animals to sacrifice later was a religious thing. After all, sacrifices were part of Jewish religion. But Saul used this aspect of religion to keep from actually interacting with God, actually listening to him and responding in faith to what God said. Jesus said the Pharisees were religious in this way, also. Instead of listening to what the Lord actually said, they obeyed man made rules and put their trust in their own efforts. Religion keeps track of rules and regulations to follow, instead of living in a real, faith-relationship. The Pharisees obeyed religiously. But, again, they put their trust in man-made rules, and also in their own efforts to keep those rules.

So, what does living in faith look like? Are we supposed to obey, or not? Let me give you a little analogy to help us understand this.

I love spy/suspense shows like the Bourne Identity. Not everything in these shows is entirely righteous, but living in faith, we can find good things in them. Sometimes in shows like this, one of the characters may encounter a bomb that is counting down to an explosion. Picture a scene like this, where the heroine of the story has just a minute or so to defuse a bomb. She doesn’t know how to do it. But she gets on the phone with her superior officer who does. He tells her, “cut the blue wire, but be sure not to cut the red one.” So she carefully cuts the blue wire, but not the red one.

Now what is going on here? Is she obeying her boss, or trusting him? Reflecting on this takes us right to the heart of the matter. Before you read on, think about this for a moment.

She is doing, both, of course. But you see, her actions of obedience proceed from her trust of her chief. She trusts that he knows how to save her. She trusts that if she does what he says, she will be safe. And so, because of that trust, she acts according to what he says – that is, she obeys. She isn’t just doing what her bomb-expert supervisor says because obeying superior officers is the right thing to do. She isn’t doing it from a sense of moral obligation. She is “obeying” him because she trusts that he wants to save her life, and has the power (in this case knowledge) to do so.

You could call it obedience. But I would call it primarily trust. The obedience is a result of the trust. This is so important: we obey because we trust. Sometimes Christians call this “the obedience of faith.”

I want to pursue this analogy a little bit further so let’s return to the time bomb scene. In order to get this kind of trust-obedience, you need several factors. First, the heroine had to believe that her life really was in danger. If she didn’t believe the bomb was real, chances are, she wouldn’t have called her boss anyway. She would not have been seeking to follow his instructions, because she wouldn’t have believed she had any reason to do so. Second, she had to believe that her supervisor had the knowledge that could save her. Third, she had to believe that he wanted to save her.

When we encounter problems with obeying God in our own lives, I think it is usually a combination of these factors at play. Maybe we believe that the situation isn’t really very serious. Although we think obeying God is the right thing, when it comes down to it, we think we’ll be OK even if we don’t. We don’t see his words as life and salvation. So we don’t obey because we don’t believe our problems, or struggles with sin, are really that serious. We aren’t truly convinced that we need saving.

Second, maybe we doubt whether God truly has the answers we need. Perhaps we don’t obey him because we aren’t sure that what he is saying to us is relevant and helpful to us in our own situation. I think this was one of Saul’s major issues. He seemed to feel that God was fine for religious things, but in everyday life, you had to take care of yourself and use your common sense. Saul didn’t seem to think the commands of God had any value in his own situation.

Third, we sometimes don’t obey because we aren’t sure we can trust God. Maybe we aren’t sure if he really has our best interests at heart. This was also part of Saul’s issue. He was insecure about his position as king of Israel, even though God had called him to be king. Saul felt he had to look out for himself; he didn’t trust God to protect or defend him.

Do you see the solution to the obedience problem – no matter what causes it? Faith. In each case, we need to address what we believe; it is essential for us to learn to trust God more deeply. We must accept that our situation is in fact serious – deadly serious, fatally serious – and that we really do need the Lord at the very deepest level. We need to trust that the Lord really does have what it takes to save us, that his words are life. We have to develop the confidence that He is relevant in every moment of our lives. And we ought to rely on the fact that he truly loves us and has our best interests in his heart. I think this last one is where a lot of us struggle. We tend to think that what we want is best, and if there is a conflict between what we want and what the Lord wants for us, our own way is better. We have to abandon that attitude entirely, and place our hope in His goodness and grace.

Peter expressed this attitude of faith. A lot of people had turned away from following, and Jesus was left with just the twelve apostles.

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

Peter understood that there was no alternative to Jesus. “Where else would we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life.” That is magnificent trust. He knew he needed help. He didn’t think he could, through his own effort, please God. He trusted that Jesus, and only Jesus, could save him. He actively trusted that God’s way was always best.

The reality is, we all behave according to what we believe to be true. In the past, I’ve mentioned the story of the four minute mile. For decades, no one believed that a person could run a mile in less than four minutes. Then one man began to believe it might be possible. Within six weeks of believing it, he had done it. As soon as he proved it could be done, several others broke the same barrier within a matter of months. A few decades later, hundreds of people had done it. The only thing that changed from before was that people believed it could be done. What I’m trying to say is that if you truly do trust Jesus, your actions will begin to reflect that trust. It might be slow, with fits and starts, but over time, you will act differently. You will obey him because you trust him.

The devil likes to trick us into religion. Do the right thing because it is the right thing. And something in us responds to that. After all, it is the right thing. But it is the wrong path, the wrong way to go about it. This attitude can lead us to trust in our own efforts. We can do the right thing with our own effort – for a while. If we manage it, the devil leads us astray through our pride in our own accomplishments. But most of us fail eventually because it is based upon our efforts, not the obedience that Jesus has already done on our behalf.

Instead, we should do the right thing because we believe we are in desperate need of help, and we trust that only God can help us, and that he really does want the very best for us.

When we fail, the devil likes to beat us up: You just aren’t obedient enough. You just don’t try hard enough. But the problem isn’t effort. The real solution lies in trusting more. Jesus has obeyed perfectly. His righteous obedience has become ours (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our part is to trust. If we do truly trust, then our lives will reflect the kind of actions the Lord desires. But it doesn’t start with our action, it starts with our trust. You see, because Jesus has perfectly obeyed in our place, we can no longer fail at this. The more we truly believe that, the more our behavior reflects it.

So let me put it to you today. Do you trust that your situation is serious? Do you remember that no one gets out of this world without dying? Do you recognize that even handling day to day life is difficult? Do you know that you are in a desperate place, the bomb is about to go off and you can only get help from one place?

Do you trust that the Lord has the right, relevant Word for you? Do you accept that he knows better than you, that he will save you and guide you if you trust him to?

Do you know that he wants to save you and help you? Do you trust his goodness?

And finally, do you accept that Jesus has already obeyed perfectly as a “stand in” for you? In other words, do you trust that you are safe, that you can no longer fail?

Take a moment right now to let the Lord into your thoughts and prayers as you consider these things.

1 SAMUEL #14: HOLY WAR, PART II.

On January 18, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Whether or not we take the command to kill every last Amalekite as literal, and even though these commands are strictly limited to specific historic situations and places, we still have to deal with the fact that God commanded a very violent action against a few Canaanite tribes. This time, we will grapple with the reasons a loving God might give such a command.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 14

1 SAMUEL #14. 1 SAMUEL 15:1-35 (PART 2)

Last time we considered the topic of Holy War. I suggested that in the rare places when the Bible commands the killing of every man, woman and child, it may not mean that literally. That sort of talk was typical for the ancient middle east, and there are many instances from history, and within the Bible, that helps us to see that it was normal to use such exaggerated language. It is similar to the way we talk of one sports team “obliterating” another.

Having said all that, I don’t think we can say definitively that it is not literal. I could be wrong about it being expressed in cultural idiom. And even if it doesn’t mean the death of literally every last person in the tribes named, it clearly does mean death for a great number of them, and the complete destruction of their cultures. Therefore, literal or not, we need to grapple with this issue. How could a loving God command such violence?

First, God does not answer to us. The questions are natural, but the truth is, God does not owe us an explanation. Our human nature wants God to justify himself toward us. But this is exactly the opposite of the situation the Bible describes. We are accountable for our actions before God, not the other way around. If God indeed made the universe, if he is infinite and we are not, then he has the right to do what he wants.

Not only that, but he may choose to do something that looks terrible to us, and yet, if we only had the knowledge and wisdom he has, we would be able to see that it is actually good and right. In short, God’s ways are often beyond the ability of our limited minds to comprehend.

The third thing to consider is that this is about holiness. Several weeks ago I shared what happens when pure sodium is exposed to water. The sodium explodes and burns up. Pure sodium simply cannot exist in the presence of water. The greatest scientist in the world cannot bring the two things into actual contact without creating spontaneous combustion. In the same way, sin simply cannot exist in the presence of God. So unless there is some kind of intervention, God’s presence will destroy sin. We live after the time of Jesus. Jesus and his sacrifice have eliminated the holiness problem for us, if we trust him. He has made us holy. He took the destruction of sin into himself so we could be spared. But we sometimes forget that without Jesus, God’s holiness is a huge problem for sinful people (which is to say, all people). Sin is so serious and God’s holiness is so pure that if it wasn’t for Jesus every living thing associated with sin would have to be destroyed.

The Israelites, however imperfectly, were living in faith that God’s promises to Abraham and Moses were true, and that God would redeem them from their sins. So the Lord included them in what he was going to do through Jesus. Their faith in God’s promises protected them from the effect of God upon sin. Paul writes to the Romans:

1 So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? 2 Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God. 3 What then? If some did not believe, will their unbelief cancel God’s faithfulness? 4 Absolutely not! God must be true, even if everyone is a liar, as it is written: That You may be justified in Your words and triumph when You judge. 5 But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? I use a human argument: Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? 6 Absolutely not! Otherwise, how will God judge the world?  (Rom 3:1-6 )

Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not. His presence destroys sin, whether or not you believe his words. The only salvation is through Jesus Christ, by faith. This was true even for the generations who lived before Jesus came:

We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:22-26 NLT, emphasis mine)

Everyone in the past who believed God’s promises was included in what God was going to do through Jesus. But in Old Testament times, before Jesus had come, those who rejected God became physical illustrations of how serious God’s holiness is, and how big a problem our sin is. God was showing the world their desperate need for a messiah who could bridge a gap between our sin and God’s holiness.

The fourth thing to consider is that all these people groups were given both a witness to God’s holiness and grace, and an abundance of time to repent and turn to him. All the way back in the time of Abraham, the Lord said this:

13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be foreigners in a land that does not belong to them; they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. 14 However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. 15 But you will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. 16 In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Gen 15:13-16 (emphasis mine)

The Amorites were just one of the cultures that Israel was supposed to drive out or destroy. All of the Canaanite tribes were witnesses to the truth of God through Abraham, Lot, Isaac, and Jacob. They had four hundred years after Jacob to correct their ways. This was while Israel was in Egypt. God was still giving them a chance to repent and live in faith. Then, for forty years, after the Israelites left Egypt the nations in Canaan heard about what God did for his people. They had the chance to repent during that time, also, and a few of them did (Joshua 2:9-15).

The Israelites invaded the Canaanite lands under Joshua. Subsequent generations did not overcome the Canaanite cultures as they were supposed to. During that time, those Canaanite tribes often corrupted the Israelites, and led them away from worshipping the Lord. Even so, as it worked out, the tribes of Canaan had four hundred more years through the time of the Judges to repent and follow the Lord.

I want to make sure this is clear: If anyone in these tribes wanted to repent and serve the Lord, they were welcomed into the people of God. One of king David’s mighty men was a Hittite (one of the Canaanite tribes) who did exactly that. So did other, less famous people.

All told, these cultures had roughly 800 years before the time of Saul to repent and follow God. During all of those centuries, they were witnesses to the truth about God through the Israelites. So it isn’t as if God suddenly woke up one day and said, “ You know, I hate the Amalekites.” Basically, the Canaanite cultures had showed, over the course of those 800 years, that most of them would not live by faith in the Lord, that they would not repent, that they were determined to continue in their sinful, rebellious ways. As such, there was no purpose in giving them more time, and until they were eradicated, they remained a spiritual and military threat to God’s people.

Another reason for this harsh command was that while the Canaanite peoples continued to live in the land next to the people of Israel, the people of God were often led astray. The Israelites were the only people in the whole world who understood about living in faith. They were the people entrusted with the Word of God, as Paul points out in the first Romans passage I quoted above. God could not allow them to be corrupted and lose that truth. If they lost it, the whole world lost it. So the Lord commanded his people to take extreme measures to make sure the world did not lose the truth about faith-relationship with God.

Yet another point is this: the Promised Land was situated at a crossroads of civilizations, and the people who lived there influenced many, many other nations. Trade routes flowed through the land from Africa to Asia and Europe, back from Europe to Asia and Africa, and from Asia to Africa and Europe. It is the meeting place of three continents and two oceans. Whoever lived in this geographical location from the beginning of civilization until the fall of the Roman Empire was in a position to spread ideas, culture and religion to most of the people in the world. In fact, one reason Christianity spread so quickly and influentially is because it began in the Holy Land. It is not coincidence that the three most influential religions in the world – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – all began in the Holy Land. The reasons these three are so widespread is due in part to geography. Even today, Israel is a major epicenter of the world political situation.

Back in the time of Saul, God did not want the depraved, evil practices of the Canaanites to spread around the entire world. The Canaanites engaged in prostitution as a part of worship. They sacrificed their children to false gods in acts of demonic worship, burning the infants alive. They accepted sexual perversions without question, even bestiality. Their religion and culture was like a cancer. It was a cancer situated in a prime spot to spread quickly around the entire world. So God had to take the extreme measure of completely removing the cancer before it metastasized. He did not want traders and travelers carrying these depraved demonic ideas around the world. In Leviticus 18:21-30, the Lord describes some of the vile practices of the Canaanites.

21 “You are not to make any of your children pass through the fire to Molech. Do not profane the name of your God; I am Yahweh. 22 You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable. 23 You are not to have sexual intercourse with any animal, defiling yourself with it; a woman is not to present herself to an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion. 24 “Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves by all these things. 25 The land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its sin, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants. 26 But you are to keep My statutes and ordinances. You must not commit any of these detestable things — not the native or the foreigner who lives among you. 27 For the men who were in the land prior to you have committed all these detestable things, and the land has become defiled. 28 If you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it has vomited out the nations that were before you.

We don’t have God’s all knowing perspective. Last time I mentioned how the Allied nations annihilated Germany and Japan, dismantling their economies, and their cultures of brutal conquest. It is possible that one of the Canaanite tribes could have become the Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan of the ancient world. We don’t know what kind of horror might have been unleashed upon the world if these tribes had been allowed to grow and prosper.

Another thing I mentioned previously is that Jesus made it clear that his disciples are not to engage in war to kill his enemies, nor to convert them. Just to make sure, here are some verses that are pretty clear:

52 Then Jesus told him, “Put your sword back in its place because all who take up a sword will perish by a sword. 53 Or do you think that I cannot call on My Father, and He will provide Me at once with more than 12 legions of angels? (Matthew 26:52-53)

49 When those around Him saw what was going to happen, they asked, “Lord, should we strike with the sword? ” 50 Then one of them struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear. 51 But Jesus responded, “No more of this! ” And touching his ear, He healed him. (Luke 22:49-51, HCSB)

36 “My kingdom is not of this world,” said Jesus. “If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. As it is, My kingdom does not have its origin here.” (John 18:36 HCSB)

³⁸ “You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. ⁴¹ If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. ⁴² Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.

⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. ⁴⁶ If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. ⁴⁷ If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. (Matthew 5:38-47, NLT)

So if someone ever comes to you and says, “the bible commands holy war, just like the Koran,” you know it is not true. The two are in fact very different. Even in the Old Testament this kind of “holy war” is very rare and limited both geographically and historically. In addition, the New Testament shows us that Jesus completely rejects it. We Christians interpret the entire Bible in the light of Jesus and the New Testament. The teachings of Jesus and his apostles are the lens through which we understand even the Old Testament. So this is absolutely clear: Christians are not to engage in literal warfare to spread the gospel, nor to kill the enemies of the gospel.

But there is still a kind of Holy War for we who have put our faith in Jesus. It isn’t literal warfare. But it is an internal commitment to follow Jesus, even if it means utterly rejecting something in our lives that is holding us back from him. Jesus did command this type of “war”:

29 If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell! Matt 5:29-30 (HCSB)

In many ways, the challenge to obey this is the same as Saul’s challenge. Is there anything this coming year that God wants you to leave entirely up to him? Anything about which he is saying to you, “this belongs to me – all of it. And it all belongs to me alone. It is time to give it up.”

Maybe you like to drink sometimes. Drinking moderately – drinking without getting buzzed/tipsy or drunk – is something that the Bible does not condemn. But maybe in your own personal relationship with the Lord, alcohol is a hindrance. Maybe you can’t drink without getting a buzz. Maybe it is costing you too much money. Maybe it is something you find comfort in instead of seeking God. It could be that the Lord is calling you to stop consuming all alcohol. Maybe that feels radical. But the Lord may be calling you to that kind of radical obedience.

Maybe it is a friendship or relationship. I’m not talking about marriage now, but maybe you are dating someone that the Lord is asking you to break up with. Or maybe you are hanging out with friends who are actually a hindrance to you growing in your faith. I am not saying you should cut off all contact with them. But I am saying that sometimes the Lord calls us to obey him radically in that kind of situation, so radically that he does ask us to do those sorts of things. So, ask him, and pay attention.

God is compassionate and gracious. But this scripture reminds us that he also calls us to a life of radical obedience. It reminds us that he does not want anything to get between us and him. We might not understand immediately why we have to take such a drastic step, but we can trust that his reasons are good, even when we don’t understand. Let him speak to you right now.

1 SAMUEL #13: HOLY WAR, PART I

On January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment

God’s commands to the Israelites to wage “holy war” are difficult for us to understand today. How could a holy and loving God desire the deaths of women and children, and even animals? Why would texts like this one be included in God’s Word? How can Christians still trust the Bible as God’s Word when things like this are in it?

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1 SAMUEL #13. 1 SAMUEL 15:1-23

There is one big and totally natural question when we read 1 Samuel chapter 15: Why did God want the Israelites to destroy every living Amalekite? Why the women and children and babies too? How can we accept that God wanted this, and yet still believe that he is merciful, forgiving and loving? There are a handful of passages like this in the Old Testament, and for the modern Western mind, it seems inexplicable and even repulsive. We will dive into this topic in detail. Many people who aren’t Christian or Jewish use these sorts of bible passages to criticize and even mock the Bible, so it’s worth spending some time on the issue.

Before we get into detail however, I want to point out that every single religion and worldview has a similar problem. Even now, in the 21^st century, Buddhists in Myanmar are brutally persecuting Muslims and Christians in the name of Buddhism. The Japanese used their Shinto Buddhism to justify the Second World War, and many of the atrocities they committed during it. The history of Hinduism includes wars to spread it, and to suppress rival religions. Even today, Hindus severely persecute Christians in India. We all know that Islam has a history and culture of war and terrorism in the name of Allah.

Some atheists tend to get smug at this point, and claim that religion in general is the big problem. However, when it comes to the genocidal extermination of enemies, history shows that no one is more relentless and vicious than atheists. Hitler and the core Nazis were atheists who were deeply influenced by Darwinism and by the atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. That’s right: it was atheists that tried to exterminate the Jews, Roma, Slavs, etc.. Joseph Stalin, who ordered the killing of tens of millions directly and indirectly, was a committed communist atheist. So was Mao Tse Tung, the communist leader of China who was responsible for more than 100 million deaths, and likewise Pol Pot, and Ho Chi Minh in South East Asia. In the 20^th century alone, atheism inspired the brutal deaths of almost 200 million people, many of them women and children.

So don’t let anyone get smug. If someone doesn’t like this part of the Bible, they must reckon with the same issues – usually at a much worse level – in every other major worldview, including their own, no matter what it happens to be. In other words, if this invalidates the Bible, it also invalidates every single worldview held by humans.

Even so, let’s be honest: knowing the fact that every world view has a similar problem does not really answer any questions about the issue as it pertains to Christianity. So we’ll dig into it.

I’ll talk more about this next time, but I want to note first that Jesus makes it very clear that from his time onwards, the people of God are not to engage in physical warfare in his name. After Jesus, the focus is on the spiritual war, and nothing in the New Testament supports the idea of fighting a literal war in the name of God.In other words, the Christian reading of the Bible does not teach or endorse wars in the name of God. In fact, the main reason we have issues with texts like this in the present day is because of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Just to be perfectly clear, the Bible does not prohibit people from being soldiers. What I’m saying is, we are not commanded to fight in the name of Jesus. There may be other legitimate reasons to participate in a war, but eliminating non-Christians, or converting people by force, are not legitimate reasons for Christians to fight. I know that to some extent Christians did those very things in the wars and persecutions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe, but they did them in contradiction to the teachings of Jesus. In other words, though they claimed to be fighting in the name of Jesus, those wars were clearly against his own teachings.

Now, let’s get to it. Throughout the history of both Judaism and Christianity, God’s commands to destroy the Canaanites (and Amalekites, as in our text today) have been understood to be severely limited. These wars were to be against only certain specific peoples at specific times and specific places. The texts make it clear that this is not a general endorsement of war in the name of God, and the overwhelming majority of Jewish and Christian theologians throughout the past 3,000 years have seen these commands to war as historically and geographically limited to those specific instances. In other words, even in Old Testament times, this was not an endorsement of “holy war” as a general thing.

Second, it is also important to understand that the language of killing every single man, woman and child is a figure of speech. This kind of hyperbolic exaggeration was quite typical of the ancient Middle East. For instance, Tuthmosis III, Pharoah of Egypt about five hundred years before king Saul, boasted that when he fought the army of Mitanni, they were “annihilated totally, like those (now) not existent.” But historians know that actually, at least some of Mitanni’s soldiers survived. In fact, they even survived as an effective fighting force, and went on to engage in later battles. Ramses II, about two hundred years later, announced that he killed the “entire force” of the Hittites, however, the truth was that he merely defeated them. In about 835 BC, the king of Moab declared that the Northern Kingdom of Israel had “utterly perished for always,” but once more, we know that actually, that kingdom survived for another century before the Assyrians devastated it. Other ancient middle eastern leaders used similar language in the same way. So, this language of killing every man, woman and child is not meant to be understood at face value. It’s a bit like how we in modern times sometimes speak about sporting events. A sports announcer might say: “The Seahawks obliterated the Rams, 42 to 3.” When we hear that, we know that the Seahawks won an impressive victory, but we also know it was not literal obliteration for the Rams. After the game, there was still a normally functioning team called “the Rams.”

In the same way, “kill every man, woman and child, do not spare them,” is just typical language for the situation, and it is an exaggeration for illustration. The people at the time would have understood that God’s command didn’t mean to literally kill every single human, including women and babies. (I do want to say that the command to kill the animals was different, and was literal. We’ll come back to this point in a moment.)

It’s not that the writers of the Bible were trying to be deceptive. They were using words and idioms that the people at the time knew were not meant to be taken literally. Actually, even people reading today should be able to realize that this kind of language was not meant literally. All we have to do is keep reading the book of 1 Samuel. Look at chapter 15, verses 7-8:

⁷ Then Saul struck down the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is next to Egypt.⁸ He captured Agag king of Amalek alive, but he completely destroyed all the rest of the people with the sword. (1 Samuel 15:7-8, HCSB, italic formatting added for emphasis)

So it says Saul completely destroyed all the rest of the Amalekites with the sword. Now fast forward to chapter 30, where the same writer in the same book, says this:

¹ David and his men arrived in Ziklag on the third day. The Amalekites had raided the Negev and attacked and burned down Ziklag. (1 Samuel 30:1, HCSB)

Wait, what? The same writer who told us that all the Amalekites were completely destroyed now tells that they still had an army big enough to mount an effective raid. Is he an idiot, who can’t even keep track of what he’s already written? No. He is simply using typical Middle Eastern exaggeration to describe decisive military conquests. So we can see clearly for ourselves that the language of killing all human beings is just a figure of speech.

By the way, included with the command completely wipe out these peoples is another command forbidding the Israelites from marrying any of them (Deuteronomy 7:1-6, quoted below). This makes no sense if they are supposed to all be dead. Therefore, the command against intermarriage is another clue that they didn’t need to kill literally every single human of these tribes.

Now, if we don’t take the killing of every human being literally, how should we understand this sort of language? Actually, it isn’t too difficult. It’s a lot like asking, “How should we understand it when we say the Seahawks obliterated the Rams?” It means “a very decisive victory.” When the Bible records God commanding this type of Holy War, it means that the Israelites were to utterly defeat the enemies in question. Specifically, there should be no peace treaties, nor intermarriage, and the Israelites were to continue the warfare until the Canaanite tribes no longer functioned as distinct societies.

One analogy might be the way Germany and Japan were defeated at the end of the Second World War. Many Germans and Japanese survived the war – many millions, in fact. But the allies utterly defeated them, and destroyed not only their armies, but also their economies, institutions, and all ability they had to sustain themselves as independent nations. The allies dismantled the cultures of pride and conquest that led those nations to start the war. Both countries were essentially rebuilt from the ground up, with an entirely different cultural ethos. This is the sort of thing God is commanding the Israelites to do.

Again, I want to emphasize that the Bible does not command the Israelites to do this with all of their enemies. In fact, this kind of holy warfare is only ever commanded concerning the people groups who were living in the promised land, plus the Amalekites, who were nomadic, but roamed within the promised land. The reason is to protect the true worship of the Lord, so that God’s people would remain his people.

¹ “When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess, and He drives out many nations before you — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and powerful than you —² and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you and you defeat them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.³ Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons,⁴ because they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods. Then the LORD’S anger will burn against you, and He will swiftly destroy you.⁵ Instead, this is what you are to do to them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn up their carved images.⁶ For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be His own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:1-6, HCSB, bold format added for emphasis)

Out of all the people in the world at the time, only the people of Israel, as a nation, worshipped the one true God. Sometimes, it might be hard for us to realize how different the world was back then. The idea that there was only one God was considered ludicrous. The morality of the Israelites – not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, being honest, and so on – was considered weak and pointless. The big danger to God’s people was that they would turn away from God because of the influence of the pagans living around them. If the Israelites did not resoundingly defeat their neighbors, they were in danger of being led astray into the worship of false gods, and leaving no one in the world who worshipped the one true God. So the command was given for them to defeat the people of Canaan so completely that they no longer functioned as separate, ungodly societies in the holy land. This didn’t actually require that every single Canaanite human being be killed, but rather that they were so thoroughly defeated that they ceased to function as separate cultures within the land of Israel, and instead became assimilated into the nation of Israel and the worship of the one true God. The commands for this to happen were written in typical ancient middle eastern exaggerated language.

Just to be clear: if a Canaanite wanted to convert to the worship of the Lord and join the Israelites, they were welcome to do so. Many did, including famous individuals like Rahab of Jericho, and Uriah the Hittite, who was one of David’s mighty men. The problem wasn’t their existence as individuals, but rather the cultures that led the Israelites astray. It was those cultures that had to be utterly defeated. This was one reason it was so bad for Saul to keep the Amalekite king alive. A king is a unifying figure for a group of people. The people needed to stop seeing themselves as “Amalekites” but by keeping their king alive, Saul preserved some of their sense of cultural identity.

Also, the Bible is radically different from other middle eastern sources in that when God commands this war to be waged, he commands that all the animals and goods belonging to the defeated foe must be destroyed. This is wildly different from other ancient middle eastern wars, and I do think this part was meant literally, as 1 Samuel 15 confirms.

The killing of animals seems strange to modern people. But in those days, animals were wealth. Everyone lived by farming. The more animals you had, the wealthier you were. Typically in warfare, the animals of the defeated were seized by the victorious army, and this enriched them immensely.

By commanding that all the animals be killed, and all the loot destroyed, it meant that these wars did not make the Israelites wealthier. In fact, it would cost them in material goods and lives lost, without them gaining anything. This was to keep the Israelites from making war simply in order to enrich themselves. In other words, no one would fight this way to benefit themselves. The only reason to do it was because God commanded it. God’s command to kill the animals kept the Israelites from becoming habitual warriors in order to get rich.

Secondly, killing all the animals and destroying all goods makes much more sense if, as I have been saying, they did not kill literally all of the human beings. The people who were left would have no animals, no wealth or economic base from which to build a separate culture, or to influence the Israelites. Destroying the economic base of a people group means that they have to assimilate into the more powerful society.

Saul did not trust that God knew what he was doing. He wanted to enrich himself with the animals. (His claim that he kept them for sacrifice is almost certainly a face-saving lie). I think he kept the king alive because he was afraid that if he let his men kill the king, they might start to think that kings were no different from anyone else, and then they might consider killing him. In short, Saul was not willing to trust the Lord, and therefore he did not obey him. That is the real point of this text. That is what we should meditate on. Obviously we should think about how we can be different from Saul when the Lord asks us to do something we don’t fully understand.

Now, I don’t want to pretend that we have solved all the problems raised by these kinds of texts. In fact, we’ll have another message on this topic, and even after that, it won’t be all wrapped up in a tidy bow. We can see Saul’s issues of trust and obedience, but still, the holy war thing seems difficult to wrap our heads around. I think we are dealing with things here that human beings may never fully understand.

However, though we may not understand God when he commands Holy War, (even though it is in a very constrained and limited way), we cannot deny that God is gracious, loving and forgiving. Jesus commanded his followers to love their enemies, and forgive them. He told his followers not to fight back when he was arrested. In fact, he allowed his enemies to kill him. He suffered in ways we cannot even comprehend to save anyone (including the Amalekites) who is willing to put their trust in the Lord. Paul Copan writes:

Since God was willing to go through all of this for our salvation, the Christian can reply to the critic, “While I can’t tidily solve the problem of the Canaanites, I can trust a God who has proven his willingness to go to such excruciating lengths—and depths—to offer rebellious humans reconciliation and friendship.” However we’re to interpret and respond to some of the baffling questions raised by the Old Testament, we shouldn’t stop with the Old Testament if we want a clearer revelation of the heart and character of God.

… Though a Canaanite-punishing God strikes us as incompatible with graciousness and compassion, we cannot escape a redeeming God who loves his enemies, not simply his friends (Matt. 5:43–48). Indeed, he allows himself to be crucified by his enemies in hopes of redeeming them.
(Copan, Paul. Is God a Moral Monster? (p. 197). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Let’s be different than Saul today. Let’s entrust ourselves to a God who has proved his trustworthiness and love by dying for us. As a part of that trust, let’s obey him, even when we don’t fully understand his ways.

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