11th September 2023

11th September 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - 1 Samuel 13:1-7


Message Alan Burke 


The account of Saul is one that I find tragic yet at the same time I know that his failure as king was not because of the Lord, rather it was was because of his own heart. It’s one of those things that we often fail to appreciate just how deceitful our hearts are, just how desperately sick our hearts are (Jer 17:9). For the believer we are given a new mind and heart but it is a constant battle every day against the old man or woman that lives within and that sinful nature that once controlled us. In this chapter although we won’t get through all of it today we learn that it was ultimately Saul’s heart was not what it should have been, Samuel pronounced that in the place of Saul there would be a new king one who was after his own heart (14). In these opening verses it sets the scene of Saul’s failure, he was king, the one whom the people desired, the one who would make them like the nations around them and lead them into battle but we soon discover that while he started well and everything looked good on the outside, Saul’s heart was not truly God’s. He was not a man after God’s own heart.


Look at what we are told, Saul had v1 three thousand experienced men, two thousand with Saul, one thousand with Jonathan. There is a massive difference in the fighting force in comparison to the numbers we are given in chapter 11 with the defeat of the Ammonites, there three hundred thousand men of Isreal and thirty thousand men of Judah (11:8). Some difference, this force is less than 1% of the fighting force that were previously gathered, but then before it was the Lord that brought Isreal out as one man. While Saul was King, while he was to be the one that who was to deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines, it was his son Jonathan who was doing the fighting and here in v3-4 as Israel celebrates the first defeat of the Philistines seeing their king victorious it is not Saul at all who has won them the victory. It seems curious that it is Jonathan and not Saul who we are told of having the victory that is unless all was not as it should be for Saul and his reign and this isn’t the first indication that things were not going to go well was when Saul was found hiding in the baggage before he was anointed (10:23) 


Jonathan not Saul had initiated the battle with the Philistines, as the Philistines muster Saul has the trumped blown throughout the land, he claims responsibility and as he does he is seeking to muster all of Isreal as before with the battle against the Ammonites, but do we see what is missing there, there is no report in this account of any of Isreal gathering at Gilgal to seek the Lord before any of this takes place, in contrast the Philistines gather together a fighting force that has three thousand chariots, six thousand charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as sand on the seashore. While it is God’s enemies that are as numerous as the sand on the seashore coming before God’s people and their king. In all of this the sheer gravity of the situation is being underlined to us Saul should have remembered the one that he served is the Lord the maker of Heaven and earth and he could be trusted.


Saul failed here because what he lacked, he lacked a heart, a heart for God and it was his own undoing. His failure as king though was not because he failed to defeat the enemies of Isreal and free them from the fear and oppression that they faced but it was his failure to serve the Lord with all his heart to trust his Lord (12:20) as the people were warned by Samuel, failure here and his ultimate defeat in battle later in the book (Ch31) are merely a consequence of his failure to serve the Lord with all his heart. Let us put our hope and trust in what ever lies ahead in our Lord, in the salvation he has brought us through Christ the Son, who died to address our heart issue so that we might be forgiven and become a child of God.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q43 What is the preface to the ten commandments?
The preface to the ten commandments is in these words, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (Exod. 20:2)
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