SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: I want to welcome our guests this morning, especially uniquely, those UND students who are perhaps checking us out for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Jason.
SPEAKER_00: Glad to have you with us.
SPEAKER_00: We have been spending the last several weeks walking through the Old Testament book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: And while it is a history book for a single nation, an ancient nation, it's pretty relevant to us when we consider its sad trajectory of a people belonging to God, like Christians today, who lost sight of their first love and became fascinated with and then in love with the world around them, and ultimately they were no different from the world around them.
SPEAKER_00: That trajectory is a path the Apostle John warned the New Testament church about in 1 John chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't love the world, and don't love the things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So in Judges, we saw the danger of what I've called living in the middle, with one part of us in love with the world and the other part of us desperately trying to hold on to our faith in God and our position in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But it's rare for that to be a static or unchanging position.
SPEAKER_00: Our natural tendency as human beings is to drift away from God and toward the world until tragically our choices reveal that we are no different from the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: We finished the book of Judges last Sunday with a very difficult passage.
SPEAKER_00: But we are not done with the judges.
SPEAKER_00: We will look at some more judges this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Next Sunday, we will wrap all of this up with a, Lord, what will Lord willing be a unique communion Sunday that ties all of this together with Jesus as our Savior and Judge.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks from today, we will have another special service, which will be an ordination service for Webb Gehring.
SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to make sure that you're here for that.
SPEAKER_00: Judges revealed that being in love with the world means we do whatever is right in our own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the book of Judges ends.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone did what was right, not according to God, but what was right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: When God command what God commands is disregarded for our own heart's desires and the flesh's lusts.
SPEAKER_00: Said differently, what we we do what is right in our own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: We do what is right in our own eyes when the world's demands dictate our thoughts, our hearts' affections, and our actions more than God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
SPEAKER_00: We do what is right in our own eyes when it's the world that dictates everything about us rather than God's word making us who we are.
SPEAKER_00: When we arrive at the place where we are in love with the world, we have lost any resemblance to the Lord who bought us.
SPEAKER_00: And so judges end with that sad statement: In those days there was no king in Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And so we saw that at every level of society, everyone did what was right in their own eyes, from the individual to communities to tribes of Israel to the whole nation.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Even the Savior judges that God gave the nation and the political leaders, everyone did, including the religious leaders, what was right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: With God's law, God's word, and God's commands explained to the people by the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: But at every level, the people were rotten to the core because they did what was right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Now the structure of your Bible, just the way it's laid out, can lead us to think that Judges is done at the end of Judges chapter 21.
SPEAKER_00: That the historical account just ends with the end of the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: But the account doesn't really end there.
SPEAKER_00: The story of Ruth, for example, says that the salvation of Ruth, that Gentile Moabite woman, occurred during the time of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: And Ruth ends with a future look.
SPEAKER_00: Ruth was the great-grandmother of the future king of Israel, David.
SPEAKER_00: But Scripture doesn't just jump from the end of Judges to David.
SPEAKER_00: There are two more Savior judges beyond those we find in the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: We find them in the book that we know as 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, 1 Samuel is a depressing account of hopeful optimism crushed by sinful human reality.
SPEAKER_00: You ever been there?
SPEAKER_00: Where you've been hopeful and optimistic about something and then something sinful in our world or in your life or in your family's life just crushes that optimism?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: And the history recounted in 1 Samuel warns God's people against pursuing what seems best to them.
SPEAKER_00: First Samuel concludes the times when the judges judged.
SPEAKER_00: And it details a new era in ancient Jewish history.
SPEAKER_00: That new era answered the cry resounding at the end of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: Give us a king.
SPEAKER_00: So Judges shouts the depths of human depravity.
SPEAKER_00: For Israel was given a new start, if you will, at the at the beginning of Judges, about God providing a new kind of Eden for them.
SPEAKER_00: A promised land flowing with milk and honey, an opportunity for a fresh start.
SPEAKER_00: But like our ancestors in the first Eden, Israel could not escape the lure of sin in their world.
SPEAKER_00: And in the end, they would not have their Redeemer as their savior judge.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they pursued their own desires.
SPEAKER_00: So 1 Samuel tells us what happened next.
SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with it at all, you well know that it begins with God providing a child.
SPEAKER_00: That often happens throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: A child to a woman named Hannah, who named her son Samuel and gave him to God.
SPEAKER_00: But Samuel was also a judge.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Samuel chapter 7, it says in verse 15 that Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.
SPEAKER_00: So Samuel was a different kind of judge.
SPEAKER_00: He was a prophet judge.
SPEAKER_00: He did the same kind of leading, same kind of general leadership of Israel that the other judges did, but in a different kind of way, he also spoke for God.
SPEAKER_00: He was a prophet judge.
SPEAKER_00: And our focus this morning begins in chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel, it says, made his sons judges over Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But they weren't like their father because in verse 3 it says they took bribes and perverted justice.
SPEAKER_00: And if we've been through the book of Judges, we begin to think, here we go again.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, we get a good guy, Samuel, but it's a one-time thing.
SPEAKER_00: He can't pass on his righteousness to his children.
SPEAKER_00: The cycle is repeating itself again.
SPEAKER_00: And we then learn that Israel didn't want Sam's sons to succeed him as their savior judges when he died.
SPEAKER_00: They want another judge.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Samuel chapter 8, verse 5 tells us that the people thought about this and they decided they wanted what they thought was right.
SPEAKER_00: So all the elders of Israel gathered together with Samuel and they said to the prophet in chapter 8, verse 5, listen, Sam, you're old.
SPEAKER_00: You're old.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like what your sons are doing.
SPEAKER_00: So appoint for us a king to judge us.
SPEAKER_00: Like all the nations.
SPEAKER_00: There are two significant problems there.
SPEAKER_00: The first is that Israel wanted to be like all the nations around them.
SPEAKER_00: They had become so like the world that they wanted to join the world.
SPEAKER_00: Living in the middle eventually leads to leaving the middle and joining the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's why John says in the New Testament, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Don't live in the middle.
SPEAKER_00: Israel no longer wanted to be the distinct people of God.
SPEAKER_00: They no longer wanted to be unique as God's people.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be like the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's hard to stand out, it's uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the lure of the world is so strong.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first problem.
SPEAKER_00: God Himself points out the second problem in chapter 8, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh says to Samuel, give the people what they want.
SPEAKER_00: Obey the voice of the people, and all they say to you, Why?
SPEAKER_00: For they have not rejected you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a problem with you, Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even a problem with your sons.
SPEAKER_00: It's that they've rejected me from being king over them.
SPEAKER_00: God then commands Samuel to warn the people about what a king would be like and what he would do.
SPEAKER_00: That's in chapter 8, verses 10 and following.
SPEAKER_00: And it's harsh.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to end up serving your king.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be like slaves to your king because choosing to be like the world and rejecting God as king comes with consequences.
SPEAKER_00: But they refused to hear.
SPEAKER_00: If you look all the way down in chapter 8, verses 19 and 20, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and they said, No, there will be a king over us.
SPEAKER_00: Stop, Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to hear anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We want a king.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20 tells us why.
SPEAKER_00: That our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.
SPEAKER_00: This is then the last judge after Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: In their collective wisdom, God's people believed that a new judge after Samuel, who was a different kind of judge, a king judge, would bring them the salvation, the rescue, the life, the prosperity, whatever term you want to throw in there that they desired.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be like the rest of the world, to have what the rest of the world has, and they decided a king judge would bring that to them.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not God's king judge, but it's a king judge that matches the kings that all the other nations have.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been in church for very long or grown up in Sunday school, you may know that Israel's first king was King Saul.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Samuel chapters 9 and 10 detail how Saul became king.
SPEAKER_00: Those chapters highlight how humans select leaders based on appearances and personal desires.
SPEAKER_00: And so leaders become leaders because people do what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I like that person.
SPEAKER_00: They promised to give me what I want, what makes me happy, what satisfies me, and so they wanted a warrior king who stood out from the rest of the people.
SPEAKER_00: And God gave them exactly what they wanted.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if you desire to be like the world, you need to beware that God may give you exactly what you want.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Now we get to 1 Samuel chapters 13 and 14, where we begin to see the kind of king, the kind of king judge that Israel wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And they got what they wanted.
SPEAKER_00: They got a warrior king like all the other nations.
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 13, we begin to see some warnings about Saul, some warnings about his kingship, that ultimately are warnings for God's people about falling in love with the world and doing what's right in your own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: The first warning is that Saul's kingship warns us that collective wisdom, specifically collective human wisdom, doesn't bring you what you really want.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it brings you a faulty kind of rescue of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Israel gained what they wanted.
SPEAKER_00: They got a warrior king like the rest of the nations.
SPEAKER_00: It says in chapters 13 and 14 that Saul led wars against the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, at the end of chapter 14, in verses 47 and 48, it says he fought against enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, against the Philistines.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever he turned, he routed them.
SPEAKER_00: He did valiantly and he struck the Amalekites and he delivered Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Israel wanted.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted a warrior king who would fight their battles for them.
SPEAKER_00: So they got what they wanted: a rescuer, a savior, a deliverer judge.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Israel also had a religious opportunist as their king.
SPEAKER_00: Just like what we saw in the book of Judges, someone who thought that he could worship his God, Israel's God, in any way that he desired.
SPEAKER_00: And so in chapter 13, verses 8 through the end of the chapter, we see the situation with Saul where he was given instruction by Samuel, the prophet, to function in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Samuel said, We're going to offer a sacrifice, and here's how it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to wait for me, and then when I get there, we're going to go together and we're going to offer a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: But Saul got impatient.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to wait for Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: So he went ahead and he functioned like a priest, doing his own thing in his own way, worshiping God however he wanted to do, because he was impatient.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14 of chapter 13 tells the consequence.
SPEAKER_00: Actually begins in verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: You've done foolishly, you've not kept the command of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: But now your kingdom shall not continue.
SPEAKER_00: You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, and so the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and has commanded him to be prince over his people.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the situation.
SPEAKER_00: But they also got a religious opportunist who did everything in his own way, what was right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And what's right in his eyes, God says, is not what's right in God's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, I'm taking the kingdom away from you.
SPEAKER_00: You will not continue as king.
SPEAKER_00: Your descendants will not continue as king.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm going to have somebody who rules and judges after my heart, not after what they think is right.
SPEAKER_00: How discouraging would that be as an Israelite?
SPEAKER_00: To finally have what you think is right and then God to say, yeah, you messed up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm starting over.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the kind of starting over that happened with the great flood in the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a minor version of that.
SPEAKER_00: I gave you Eden.
SPEAKER_00: I gave you an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: I've even given you what you wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And all you do is what's right in your own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Israel had another faulty judge, only now this judge was their king.
SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, in chapter 14, we see that Saul had an honorable son.
SPEAKER_00: Not only an honorable son, but a courageous son.
SPEAKER_00: He went with his armor bearer and fought the Philistines with just the two of them.
SPEAKER_00: And God worked amazingly through them, bringing great victory.
SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan, his son, and his armor bearer were out routing the Philistines, and Saul is with his army, thinking, what's going on?
SPEAKER_00: Why are the Philistines running away?
SPEAKER_00: We haven't done anything.
SPEAKER_00: In the process of finding out what's going on, we discover that Saul had the same fault as other judges.
SPEAKER_00: He was hasty and unwise.
SPEAKER_00: You remember that judge named Jephthah?
SPEAKER_00: Jephtha was the one who made a vow to God, saying, God, if you will do this, I will offer to you whatever comes out of my house the first thing when I get home.
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that came out of his house to welcome him was his daughter.
SPEAKER_00: We're told in chapter 14 and verse 24 that the fighting that particular day was very difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Again, chapter 14, verse 24, the men of Israel had been hard pressed that day.
SPEAKER_00: So Saul laid an oath on the people, saying, Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my enemies.
SPEAKER_00: So none of the people had tasted food, except for, and we are prepared for this by the book of Judges, except for Saul's son.
SPEAKER_00: Because whenever a judge makes a hasty oath, it doesn't turn out well.
SPEAKER_00: So here is exactly what the people want, and he's no different than all of the other judges.
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan and his armor bearer are chasing after the Philistines in the forest, and they come upon some honey.
SPEAKER_00: And Jonathan eats the honey, which gives him some energy.
SPEAKER_00: It revives him.
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't know about his father's oath.
SPEAKER_00: So when they come together, the father realizes this is what's done, and he says, Jonathan, you have to die.
SPEAKER_00: Because I made an oath.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't quite end the way that Jepta's story ends in the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: In this situation, the people say, uh-uh-uh-uh-uh, that's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan has been very courageous and brought about a great victory today, and it says they ransomed him, they bought him back.
SPEAKER_00: So they offered something to God to rescue Jonathan from death.
SPEAKER_00: But what we know here is that Saul carries on Israel's values.
SPEAKER_00: He did what was right in his own eyes by vowing a vow, just like Jephthah, that put his son in danger.
SPEAKER_00: Saul was deceived by his own heart and mind.
SPEAKER_00: He acted according to what he believed was right, but he couldn't see that it was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't see that it was hasty and foolish.
SPEAKER_00: What was wrong had become right in his mind.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the danger of hearts and minds conformed to the world rather than transformed by Scripture is that conformed hearts and minds conformed to the world deceive us.
SPEAKER_00: Transformed minds, on the other hand, lead to wisdom and truth.
SPEAKER_00: A transformed heart and mind doesn't mean that we're sinless.
SPEAKER_00: David was a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: He knew the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He was not sinless.
SPEAKER_00: No, what it means is that there's humility, there's discernment, and there's Godward thinking that seeks divine wisdom over what I think is right.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 14, verses 47 and 48, we see that God rescued Israel from her enemies through Saul's military prowess.
SPEAKER_00: God was merciful in spite of this king judge.
SPEAKER_00: But the meager salvation brought by Saul's military prowess brought with it faulty wisdom, hasty decisions, and human strength.
SPEAKER_00: How much would we want to follow someone who is willing to sacrifice his own son over a little bit of honey?
SPEAKER_00: But this is what Israel wanted.
SPEAKER_00: Saul's kingship was the result of the collective wisdom of a nation.
SPEAKER_00: And you can trace this, friends, all throughout human history.
SPEAKER_00: That when collective human history, when collective human wisdom rules, you end up with a faulty, crumbling kind of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Saul's kingship, though, also warns us that human wisdom leads to a limited salvation.
SPEAKER_00: A limited salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The people had rejected God as their king, so he gave them the desire of their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them a king like all of the other kings of the world: a foolish king, a sinful king, and a selfish king.
SPEAKER_00: Saul was a judge king, but as a human judge king, he was always divided in his focus.
SPEAKER_00: He tried to obey God, he wanted to follow God in most instances, and he tried to listen to Samuel, but he was imperfect, he was self-focused, and he was prideful.
SPEAKER_00: And the only salvation that Saul could bring was a military salvation that was temporary at best.
SPEAKER_00: And if you seek a human savior, you will get a human savior.
SPEAKER_00: There comes a point at which human wisdom ends.
SPEAKER_00: And with human beings, sin is always present.
SPEAKER_00: And a genuinely selfless human king is only a dream.
SPEAKER_00: But that's what Israel wanted.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted their dream.
SPEAKER_00: But they couldn't see that they were deceived by their own dream.
SPEAKER_00: Are we deceived?
SPEAKER_00: We want to say, oh no, no, no, no, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is there are Christian and non-Christian forms of this kind of hope in human wisdom at work today.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who puts their hope in a human leader of any kind, be it at a local level, at a state level, at a national level, at an international level, sets themselves up for disappointment and servitude.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, a human leader can bring salvation of some kind.
SPEAKER_00: It could be economic freedom, it could be governmental freedom or something else, but it will always be limited and it will only be partially satisfactory.
SPEAKER_00: Even Christian efforts to transform sinful nations or sinful groups may have some positive effects.
SPEAKER_00: But they will always be limited because human effort is limited and it will always be connected to sin, to foolishness, and human limitations.
SPEAKER_00: Why would God's people ever put their hope in those kinds of efforts?
SPEAKER_00: When we hear it put like that, we think, well, duh, we wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Oh yes.
SPEAKER_00: But see, when we live in the middle, or we've shifted out of the middle, drifting towards the world, what seems wrong is now right, and what is right is now wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And we're all distorted.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of hope that results when God's people abandon their trust in God for some other form of worldly savior judge.
SPEAKER_00: And God may just give people exactly what they want.
SPEAKER_00: Now I've used up the majority of my time this morning to get to the place where I want to spend the majority of my time.
SPEAKER_00: That's in 1 Samuel chapter 15, where we see the warning that Saul's kingship provides.
SPEAKER_00: It warns us that human wisdom doesn't provide us the redemption that we want.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it only leads to rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 15 recounts a divine war.
SPEAKER_00: God, it says at the beginning, has commanded Saul through Samuel to destroy the Amalekites.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, it says, Thus says Yahweh of hosts, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way that they came out of Egypt, so go and strike them and devote them to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: This is a divine war.
SPEAKER_00: And a divine war involves a divine command for war.
SPEAKER_00: It involves specific instructions for the war.
SPEAKER_00: And a divine war involved faithful obedience, that was an act of worship and offering.
SPEAKER_00: When you see in verse 3 of chapter 15, go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction, that's what the English Standard Version has there.
SPEAKER_00: That's a very specific term that is connected with divine wars.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Hebrew word harem, which means you devote something, you destroy something as if it's a sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible doesn't try to justify divine wars.
SPEAKER_00: Those kinds of things are struggles for modern sensibilities sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Why would God do that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't try to justify it, it only accepts it as a fact.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't help us.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no matter how awful the destruction involved in a divine war might feel, we as God's people know that a just and holy God initiated those biblical wars.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we have to start, is with the person of God.
SPEAKER_00: Who is God?
SPEAKER_00: What is he like?
SPEAKER_00: And so our sensitivity standards must be calibrated to God's character, not to human feelings.
SPEAKER_00: I have a, I have a, I should have brought it this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I have a digital angle finder for my saws, my woodworking saws, that will tell me if something is a perfect 90-degree angle or a perfect 45-degree angle or whatever angle I'm cutting.
SPEAKER_00: But if I calibrate that according to a different kind of standard, then my results are going to be off.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing when we try to understand difficult concepts in Scripture like the justification of divine wars.
SPEAKER_00: We have to start with calibrating ourselves to the right standard.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not what we think is right.
SPEAKER_00: The right standard is God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Thus, a divine war is both just and holy, since God's character cannot be contradicted.
SPEAKER_00: God cannot contradict himself.
SPEAKER_00: He cannot not be just, he cannot not be holy, he must always be holy, he must always be just, he must always do what is right.
SPEAKER_00: And so a just and a divine war displays God's rightness.
SPEAKER_00: We may not be able to grasp that, but that's what it tells us.
SPEAKER_00: I may not be able to see that a cut on a piece of wood is an exact 90-degree angle, but if I know that I have calibrated my instruments in exactly the right way, then I know that my feelings, my perceptions are wrong, and it is right.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, if we come upon something in Scripture that we feel is not right, it is right if we have the right calibrated standards.
SPEAKER_00: So when we come to a divine war in 1 Samuel 15, we know the judge of all the earth did what was right, whether he explains himself or not.
SPEAKER_00: Now the act of divine war and the completeness of obedience meant the objects of the war belonged to God as a worshipful offering.
SPEAKER_00: When it says devote to destruction, that is a worshipful offering.
SPEAKER_00: That's obeying what God says as an act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do that, if you have incomplete obedience or partial obedience, that is theft of God's glory because you rob him of worship, you rob him of the offering that he has commanded you to give.
SPEAKER_00: And in a divine war, a biblical divine war, that disobedience comes with consequences.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to look at it this morning, but you can go back and look at the account in the book of Joshua, where they crossed over the Jordan River and they destroyed the city of Jericho, and God said, Destroy everything, keep nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing belongs to you.
SPEAKER_00: This is all devoted to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Anything that is left, like silver and gold, belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was one man named Achan who said, I want to keep some of that.
SPEAKER_00: So he took some of the things that were supposed to be offered to God, and as a result, Israel was defeated in their next next battle.
SPEAKER_00: So there are consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the level of commanded destruction as an act of worship in chapter 15, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel says that God has commanded him to go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have.
SPEAKER_00: Do not spare them.
SPEAKER_00: But kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
SPEAKER_00: Now do you see why we have to calibrate to the right standards before we get here?
SPEAKER_00: Because if we haven't calibrated our standards, our emotions get stirred up right away.
SPEAKER_00: So that is the level of commanded obedience.
SPEAKER_00: We see the level of actual obedience in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is east of Egypt, and he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword.
SPEAKER_00: But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and the oxen and the fattened calves and lambs, and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them.
SPEAKER_00: All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Let me translate that for you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's give all the stuff we don't want to God and keep the good stuff for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's the level of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have some commentary on that.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 10 and 11, God tells Samuel, who wasn't there, hey Sam, let me tell you about this king that people wanted.
SPEAKER_00: God said to Saul, to Samuel, I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And so he rejects Saul as king.
SPEAKER_00: The king judge and his people had fallen in love with the things of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to have my people led by a man who does what's right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the one hand, that's a gracious thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: But this is what the people wanted.
SPEAKER_00: We can't forget that everyone's doing what's right in his own eyes, and the only way that that gets remedied is if God steps in and says, no more.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 12, Samuel comes, and as he comes, he is informed that Saul has set up a monument for himself.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: What are we to make of that?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly what that means.
SPEAKER_00: But it probably points to a common way of showing off as a king in this kind of context.
SPEAKER_00: During these ancient biblical times, if one king defeated another king and captured him alive, he would parade him around at critical points in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: To say, look what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: And to say, look what happens if you oppose me.
SPEAKER_00: It's a way of elevating oneself to say, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: Now remember, Agag shouldn't be alive.
SPEAKER_00: He shouldn't be alive.
SPEAKER_00: He was among those whom God said to destroy as an act of worship and offering.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, Saul shows him off.
SPEAKER_00: And so in verse 13, Samuel comes to Saul, and Saul is all happy and proud and wants to show off to Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: Saul says to the old prophet, Oh, how blessed of Yahweh you are.
SPEAKER_00: I have performed the commandment of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I love Samuel's reply.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I would have been there to hear the tone.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm just imagining the tone.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00: Then what's up with the bleeding of the sheep and the lowing of the cattle that I hear?
SPEAKER_00: Saul explains in verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: We devoted, we devoted the rest of the things to Yahweh, but the people wanted to bring the best of the best of everything, to sacrifice to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00: What does God think about that?
SPEAKER_00: In verse 18, we are told the reason for this divine war, and that was to destroy sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, now we understand.
SPEAKER_00: God's holiness had reached its patience limit.
SPEAKER_00: He was done with being patient with this group of people in their sin and their rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And so this divine war was an act of justice to satisfy God's holiness.
SPEAKER_00: God intended to use Saul to eliminate sin, and instead of eliminating sin, Saul saves some.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great idea, right?
SPEAKER_00: Says that in verse 19, Saul and the people pounced on the spoil for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting choice of words.
SPEAKER_00: It gives this sense that they couldn't wait.
SPEAKER_00: Here's our chance.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the best of the best in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We have our opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take it.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't intend it for genuine worship, but to have it for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Saul and the people pounced on the spoil for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And then Saul attempts an excuse in verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: I have to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_00: We did what God said.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's not my fault, Sam.
SPEAKER_00: The people kept the best for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to do it for a good reason.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to sacrifice to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: But notice what he thinks of the God of Israel in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: They took the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: My God.
SPEAKER_00: Samuel says, has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as an obeying the voice of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And to listen to what God says than the fat of rams.
SPEAKER_00: For rebellion, that's what you've done here, Saul, is you and the people have rebelled, is as the sin of divination and presumption, that is, thinking that you know what's right, is as iniquity and idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: And because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.
SPEAKER_00: God desires obedience more than sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means that the heart matters more in worship than the expression of worship.
SPEAKER_00: It means that God looks at the heart more than at the outward action.
SPEAKER_00: So if the heart is disobedient, then the effort of sacrifice is worthless.
SPEAKER_00: God gave Saul a command and Saul disobeyed.
SPEAKER_00: That disobedience came from a lack of faith and trust in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's a heart issue.
SPEAKER_00: A heart that trusts God desires to listen and obey.
SPEAKER_00: A heart with no faith lacks desire.
SPEAKER_00: Saul had a faith and trust issue that displayed itself in disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: So offering sacrifices and giving offerings doesn't fix a disobedient heart.
SPEAKER_00: God has a greater delight in a right heart that follows his word than in sacrifices and offerings that come from a faithless and trustless heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get to the real core of the times of the judges, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: The people don't have faith and trust in their Savior Judge.
SPEAKER_00: In our day, we might say singing and being moved by the music and putting an offering in the offering box is unholy.
SPEAKER_00: It is unholy if you love the world and the things in the world and you don't care a lick about listening to God and living that out.
SPEAKER_00: God loves a faith-filled, trusting, listening heart that seeks to obey more than giving all your extra hours to religious activities.
SPEAKER_00: To think that doing something good and right while ignoring what God has clearly said is to presume that you know better than God.
SPEAKER_00: Which is a rebellion and idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: Saul, Israel's judge and king, was the one the Jews hoped would bring redemption, but he only led them into rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: So let's take this.
SPEAKER_00: We've taken this one step further.
SPEAKER_00: The people couldn't fix their problems, the judges couldn't fix their problems, and now even a king can't fix Israel's faithless heart.
SPEAKER_00: He can't draw them back from love for the world and to God.
SPEAKER_00: God's people do what's right in their own eyes, and when they refuse to listen and obey what God has clearly stated, they have rejected the Lord as their savior, judge, and chosen human wisdom and human leaders instead of worshiping through obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And that leads to rebellion, not redemption.
SPEAKER_00: So what are we left with?
SPEAKER_00: We are left with this.
SPEAKER_00: The era of the judges warns us about pursuing human wisdom over devotion to our divine Savior, Judge.
SPEAKER_00: I wish we had time to spend on this, but don't miss chapter 15, verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: Then Samuel went to Rama, that's his home, and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been following along, you recognize Gibeah as that awful, no good, very bad community of the last account in Judges.
SPEAKER_00: That community that destroyed a poor woman's life because they did what was right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: And that's Saul's home.
SPEAKER_00: Israel wanted to be like the world rather than stand out as God's unique people.
SPEAKER_00: And so they pursued human wisdom in their pursuit of the world, and in so doing they lost sight of the only one who could be their true Savior judge.
SPEAKER_00: And so the apparent application is don't be like that.
SPEAKER_00: But we do need to hear that, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Don't be like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's why John wrote what he did in 1 John.
SPEAKER_00: Don't fall in love with the world or the things in the world.
SPEAKER_00: We should be urged to not guide our lives like the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Avoid that.
SPEAKER_00: But even more, friends, we ought to hear the hopelessness of doing what seems best to us.
SPEAKER_00: And instead turn and look to God who came in the flesh to be our own savior and judge.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who can be our righteous, just, and faithful King, Judge, and Savior if you put your trust in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Turn your heart toward Him in loving faith.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to His word and respond with worshipful obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, forgive us for going our own way and doing what's right in our own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Give us new sight, we pray, of our King in all of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: We have a king, not like Saul, but a faithful and righteous one.
SPEAKER_00: A judge who will do what is right, and in doing what is right, who gave himself, laid down his own life to save us from our sin.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, draw our hearts and minds to trust in you, to worship you properly with the right heart and the right attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: So that one day when we hear that call, we will rise to join you with joy forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.