So 1 Samuel 31, verse 1, let us hear God's word. Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons, and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, Saul's sons. The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was severely wounded by the archers. And Saul said to his armor-bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me. But his armor-bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul, his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all his men died together that same day. Now when the men of Israel, who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were on the other side of the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel had fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled. And the Philistines came and dwelt in them. So it happened the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim it in the temple of their idols and among the people. Then they put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shon. Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and traveled all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shon, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. May God add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word. Well, we come here, obviously, to the end of this book, but also to the end of this section that we've been looking at, chapters 27 to 31. And in this section, we've seen this comparison and contrast, this back and forth between David and Saul. We've seen that both are sinners. Both have lived by fear. Both have had to face the consequences of their sin. Both have sought God, at least to some degree, But David, of course, is the one who has genuine faith. Saul is not a true believer. And so, the author is trying to say, okay, Israelites, we want David as our king. We do not want Saul, or now, of course, after this chapter, we don't want one of Saul's descendants as our king. But even so, ultimately, as we learned all the way back in chapter eight, we want God as our king. We do not want a human as our king. We want God to run his government the way he thinks is best, which is local and limited, some of the things we've talked about, not with a centralized power. We'll remember this on Tuesday. All right, now, chapter 30, we saw David facing the consequences of living by fear. Because of his fear in chapter 27, he had various problems, and in particular, we see that he lost everything. Not only did he face the prospect of having to fight against Israel, but then he lost everything he had, his wife, his possessions, and all those of his men. But we also saw God's grace to David. He regained everything, and he was nowhere near Saul when what we see in this chapter took place. We also learned about David's character, that he was kind to the Egyptian slave, he was fair to the 200 that stayed behind, and he was generous to the cities in southern Judah. And so David lived according to God's grace. We're gonna see a clear contrast here with Saul. And so this contrast really has been setting itself up since all the way back in chapter 11 in many ways, but especially in chapter 14 where Saul offered the sacrifice when he should have waited. He then did not kill the Amalekites like God said, not all of them. And then he was seeking to kill David on multiple occasions. He killed the priests in Nob with dough egg. He made foolish vows. He feigned repentance. He showed outward forms of religion, but without substance. And here most recently, we've seen him seek out a necromancer. And now it all comes to an end where he kills himself. David, or excuse me, Saul has been living by fear, you might say his whole life, but especially since chapter 14 in particular. So we come here to this kind of an end anyway, the end of the Saulide era. And so in verse one, again, it says, now the Philistines fought against Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Alright, now a few things here. First of all, recall that the events of chapter 30 occurred at the same time as these events. Again, David is nowhere near Saul when this happens, but this is happening at the same time. You remember I've given you a handout on the back table that gives us a list of what happened on the particular day surrounding all these events. So if you haven't picked one up, I encourage you to do so and look at it. It's very helpful. But let us do a little of that here now. Let's turn back to chapter 28. And verse 1 kind of starts this whole sequence of these final chapters. Chapter 28 verse 1, now it happened in those days that the Philistines gathered their armies together for war to fight with Israel. And of course, Akish wants David to go along. So that's, you might say, step number one. In chapter 29, verse one, this is step number two. Then the Philistines gather together all their armies at Aphek, and the Israelites encamp by a fountain which is in Jezreel. All right, now, here's where I want you to pull out your maps for your moment. And on this one, anyway, the land of the 12 tribes side is probably most helpful for us. You see where Ziklag is, where David was, and on up to Ekron. And then if you keep going up to Aphek, there, right on the border of Manasseh and Ephraim. And then you keep going up north and east, you come to Jezreel, the Jezreel Valley, right along the border of West Manasseh and Issachar. So this is the basic location. If you look north of that, you see Mount Mora and Mount Tabor on this map. If you look to the right of Jezreel, you see Bashan and the Jordan River. And a little south of that, Jabesh Gilead. So this is the general vicinity where all this is happening. Now on the other side of this map, you can see the same general area and see Mount Goboa is listed there. And it's a little closer to Bashan compared to those other mountains. But again, this is the general vicinity where these things are happening. So they want to go to war. They go up to Aphek. Okay? So then if you look at chapter 29 and verse 11, it says, David and his men rose early to depart in the morning to return to the land of the Philistines, and the Philistines went up to Jezreel. So they had come to Aphek, and they said, no, David can't be a part of it. They send David back, and the Philistines continue. So then back to chapter 28, verse 4, this is our next step chronologically. Then the Philistines gathered together and came and encamped at Shunem. So Saul gathered all Israel together and they encamped at Gilboa. And so Saul, of course, is very afraid, and he goes and seeks out the necromancer. And so at the end of the chapter, then, verse 25, it ends, the last sentence, then, they rose and went away that night. All right, so this is our clues here for the chronology. And so now, possibly within 12 hours, all these events here in chapter 31 come to its conclusion. in particular, Saul's death. And so back here in chapter 31, verse 1, Philistines rout the Israelites. It's not just Saul and his sons that die, but many Israelites die on the mountain. All right, so verse 2 then. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons, and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malkishua, Saul's sons. Now, of course, we've been introduced to these men before, and we know Jonathan fairly well, especially in chapter 14 and following. But it wasn't just Jonathan, but these other two brothers were killed. Now, if you recall, there is a fourth son of Saul, and sometimes his name is Eshbaal, sometimes it's Ishbosheth, depending on which passage you're looking at. He had both names. he escaped, he survived. It is most likely he was somewhere else, maybe on a different ridge or something to that effect, because Abner survived too, the leader of Saul's army. And so many Israelites died, but those two did not. If you turn over a moment to chapter two in 2 Samuel, And if we look at verses eight and following, 2 Samuel 2, verse eight, it says, but Abner the son of Ner, commander of Saul's army, took Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim, and he made him king over Gilead, over the Asherites, over Jezreel, over Ephraim, over Benjamin, and over all Israel. Ishbosheth, Saul's son, was 40 years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. Only the house of Judah followed David. So there's that overlap. David rules in Hebron for seven and a half years, and part of that time, Ish-bosheth is ruling in the northern kingdom. So one of the sons of Saul survived, and not surprisingly, they tried to make him king, even though God said no. So do you see how Ish-bosheth was really the same kind of person as Saul? All right, now. As we come back here to chapter 31, we don't know much about these three brothers. You know, this little bit about Ish-bosheth, we don't know much about the other two. We know Jonathan was a godly man. Possibly one of these other two were godly. We just don't know. But what is clear is do you see something that I've told you since chapter 14? Saul's sin impacts godly Jonathan. The sadness of that story is most tangible here in chapter 31. Saul's sin affected his other sons, in fact, all of Israel. Now, again, we need to make a fine distinction here. Saul's sin was not judged upon Jonathan and the sons, but they were affected by Saul's sin. They lost their lives. Jonathan's obedience to God, can you say, led to his death? He stood by his father's side even at the end, and God did not spare Jonathan, even though Jonathan, you might say, was worthy to be spared because of his faithfulness. He was killed nonetheless. And so we have to take these examples into our system of thought here. Psalm 1 is very straightforward, right? If you obey, you're gonna be blessed. If you disobey, you're gonna be cursed. But there's a lot of nuance to that. Sometimes our obedience actually leads to cursing, not ultimate cursing. But here in this life, we may face God's curses, not because of our sin, but because of the sin of those around us. God does not always spare us from the sin of others and the consequences of that. And so Jonathan's faithfulness to Saul, in many ways, led to his death. But his faithfulness to God ultimately led to heaven. I don't mean work salvation, of course, but his faith showed itself in his faithfulness. And I fully expect to see Jonathan someday in glory, but of course not Saul, and probably not Ishmael either. And so again, godliness does not necessarily mean we will not have problems, and that we will always have blessings. Sometimes that's true, but it's not always true until glory. And so in the meantime, persevere in godliness, even when your godliness leads to hard things, like here with Jonathan. So it's a point I initially started bringing to our attention back in chapter 14. Now it comes to its conclusion here in this way. All right, let's keep going. Verse 3. The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was severely wounded by the archers. So we move from Saul's sons now to Saul himself. Obviously, he's hit with an arrow. May not have seen it coming, we don't know, but you can imagine watching movies and so on and so forth, people getting hit with arrows and so on. You can see how severely wounded, but he's not yet dead. The Hebrew actually says that he was writhing exceedingly. And that word for writhing could actually mean to dance. Well, he was dancing in pain, that's for sure. And so writhing is maybe a better way of translating the word here. So again, Saul's not dead yet, but he's in a great amount of pain. So verse four, then Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me. Do you see what's motivating Saul at the end? Fear. Nothing new. We've been seeing it all along. Here Saul is afraid even at the very end. Now, on the one hand, we could say that it's understandable. He does not want the Philistines to come and abuse him and kill him. is probably likely that if they would have found him alive, they would have cut off his thumbs, cut off his big toes, gouged out his eyes, some other form of torture. It might have forced him to beg at the king's table for food. They may have paraded him around for all to see, and then eventually killed him. Who knows? Maybe they would have helped him recover from the arrow wounds that he would survive and be tortured. We don't know, but you can at least understand to some degree why Saul is afraid. But again, do you see his fear? He's afraid that this is going to happen. Even here at the end, he is not trusting in God's providence for him. So he asked this armor bearer to kill him. The armor bearer says no. He was afraid to kill the king. This is Yahweh's anointed. David refused to kill Yahweh's anointed, and here the armor bearer is doing the same thing. The armor bearer is better than Saul in this way. So Saul kills himself, and he falls down on his sword. Now it is common, even in some cultures today, to say that suicide in this kind of context is virtuous, a tragic hero kind of setting. And in the pagan world, in Israel's day, this was certainly the case. And so Saul's reasoning is really a pagan reasoning. He is thinking, it's better to take my own life than to be abused by my conquerors. But through it all, he's basically saying, I am not trusting God. I'm gonna take matters into my own hands. He did that in chapter 14 with the sacrifice. Did that in chapter 15 with the Amalekites. He's still acting like he's been acting all along. Now when it comes to this topic of suicide, obviously this is a very difficult one and there is much to say. But what we see in the scriptures are actually six examples of suicide. and all of them are presented as a sinful act. In Judges chapter nine, Abimelech asks his armor bearer to kill him so he's not abused, and the armor bearer did so there, so it was suicide by proxy, you could say. Here Saul does it himself, and we'll see in the next verse Saul's armor bearer does it too. Ahithophel kills himself, Zimri kills himself, and probably the most famous, Judas. that in all these settings is presented to us as a sinful act. And isn't that what suicide is really saying? I am not trusting that God is in control of my life. And I am not going to trust him even at this moment. We often hear that it's an act of desperation, and that's certainly true. But it is also an act of unbelief. Now I am not saying that suicide definitely means the person was not a Christian. I'm not saying that. I do not agree with the Catholic position on this. But what I am saying is that even for a believer, at that moment, at that moment they said, I am ending it all, they were not trusting in the Lord. That doesn't mean they did not trust in God for salvation, necessarily. but they were not trusting that God is in control of all things, including the hardships they were facing at that very moment. Now there is so much to say about this topic, and I don't want to treat it carelessly or flippantly in any way. But what we do see here, and what we do see as a regular pattern in the scriptures, is it is an act of not trusting in the Lord. And that's clearly the case here with Saul. Well, let's continue then to verse 5. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him. Rather than Saul modeling faith at the end, we could have hoped that at the very end Saul would finally come to his senses, but he doesn't. And he models unbelief. And here now his armor-bearer follows that example. It's so sad. So then verse six, so Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men died together that same day. All right, now there's some question here, what does all men die mean? Because as I said a little bit ago, Abner survives, Isphoseth survives, so maybe it's all in general, but there are some exceptions. Other people take it to mean that all who were around Saul died. and Abner and Ish-bosheth were somewhere else. That may be the case. At the very least, those who were around Saul, maybe he had, whatever, 10 or 20 bodyguards or something at that moment. Maybe he had a garrison of 100 men or something like that. But all of them died, is the idea. Do you see the end of Israel's askings All the way back in chapter 8, they asked for a king, and this is what they got, a miserable failure. Alright, this is also a fulfillment of God's promise. In chapter 8, chapter 10, chapter 12, it tells us that their desire for a king was sinful, and He was going to give them a king as punishment Well, here's part of that punishment. Many Israelites were lying dead on Mount Gilboa. And so, again, so sad, but here it is. More immediately was Saul. If you turn back to chapter 15 and verse 28, Samuel was speaking here. And he says, chapter 15, verse 28, Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you. Well, remember, Saul was clinging on to the throne. And for 15 more years, he kept doing it. He's clinging to it even here at the end. And it's torn away from him with this arrow and even Saul's own sword. If you turn to chapter 28 and verse 19, this is when Samuel is speaking and the necromancer and all this setting here. In verse 19 of chapter 28, moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. God's word is fulfilled. Israel sinned, asked for a king instead of God. Here's the result. Saul refused to obey God as king. Here's the result, death. Saul refused to trust and obey God. Israel refused to trust and obey God. The way of unbelief, the way of disobedience is death. And sometimes, that includes those around us, here, like Saul's sons, Jonathan in particular. But again, really, it's a consequence for Israel's sin, not just Saul's. So you might say that Saul self-destructed here, and yes, that's true, but you have to also say this is a consequence for his behavior, and it's a consequence of Israel's behavior. And so the ask theme, you might say, is coming to an end. As Hannah asked for a son and received Samuel, and remember the name Samuel comes from the word ask, well, he is faithful to the end. But then Israel asked for a king, and remember Saul is that word for ask, and here's the result. So we've been talking about the ask theme since chapter one. And here we see, in some ways, it's terminus. By way of contrast, and to emphasize Samuel here, the way of faith is life, eternal life, ultimately. Blessings in this life many times, sometimes not as much as we would think. Again, you think of the situation with Jonathan. So, briefly, I certainly could say much more, but I'm building on the things we've said over the last number of months. Here comes to this conclusion. So what then is the response for us? Be careful what you ask for. Be careful whom you place your trust in. Don't just think of that on Tuesday. But every day, in whom are you trusting? God is our ultimate king. He is the one we really want as our king, not a human king. And God tells us that our governance should be local and limited, not centralized and powerful. If we're not gonna listen to what he says, then we're gonna have people strewn on Mount Gilboa, dead. If we listen to what God says, there are blessings, there are good things. So in a nutshell, these are some of the ideas that we've talked about throughout this book. So what then are the responses here immediately? Well, in verse 7, we first see this. When the men of Israel, who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were on the other side of the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel had fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt in them." All right, now, it is very likely that those who were across the valley could see what was happening. Might have been a couple, three, four miles away, possibly. And especially if Saul had someone carrying a banner next to him, or if Saul was dressed in a certain way that made him stand out as king and his sons, maybe they had special markings on their armor or on their helmets or whatever it was. You could see that from possibly a few miles away. And so I don't think that's out of the question. But certainly we also need to assume that words spread. Now for those who are on the other side of the Jordan, you may want to look at your maps here again. That's about seven miles away. from Mount Gilboa and depending on where they are on the mountain, okay, could have been farther from that. Maybe it could have been out of sight. So how do you understand this? Maybe those on the other side of the Jordan saw masses of Israelites fleeing and they drew conclusions and eventually heard what happened. All right, there are questions here, obviously. But for all the questions, the point is clear. Everybody was fleeing. The king failed. And so everybody is running, and so the Philistines win. They come, they take over, they possess these places in this area, and even some across the Jordan seems to be the implication. So then verse eight, so it happened the next day when the Philistines came to strip the slain that they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. What they're doing here is certainly nothing unusual. After battle, you loot and you plunder and so forth. Here is the next day, and they find Saul and his sons. Possibly they recognize them, but again, maybe there were certain markings on their armor. If there was someone holding a banner nearby, they would see that and so forth. Whatever the case, they find Saul and his sons. And so in verse 9, and they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim it in the temple of their idols and among the people. Again, these are quite common things. We might think they're a bit brutal or unusual or whatever, but in the day, this was quite normal, decapitating the defeated, okay, like maybe in the Lord of the Rings, you know, the orc head on the top of the spear or something like that. But words spread throughout Philistia. Their enemy of the last 40 years is dead. And they're a bit excited about that. And you can understand why. And so in their temples, they set up some of these things. And again, this makes a lot of sense. It's showing victory, it's saying, our gods are greater than your god, and so forth. They probably offered sacrifices and praise and so forth to their gods. Remember, we saw this all the way back in chapters 4, 5, and 6 when they brought the Ark of the Covenant to the Temple of Dagon. But of course, Dagon's the one who lost his head. here at Saul. Remember when David beat Goliath and cut off his head, Goliath's sword ended up in the tabernacle. So it's, again, just common things, what they did here. And word spread then among the people. Now let me pause here just a moment. Remember our chronology. David maybe is on his way back to Ziklag. Maybe he is starting to spread the loot, as it were. But again, there's overlap in action here. It's not until the next chapter that David's informed. Remember, they didn't have cell phones or satellites or anything at that time, so it took some time for word to spread. All right, so verse 10. Then they put his armor in the temple of the asterisk, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shon. All right. Let's turn a moment to 1 Chronicles chapter 10. I do want to return here in a moment or so, so stick something here. But in 1 Chronicles 10, we have basically the same description as 1 Samuel chapter 31. There are a few additional details, though. So let's read verses 9 and 10, 1 Chronicles 10 verse 9. And they stripped him and took his head and his armor and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among the people. That much is the same. Then verse 10, then they put his armor in the temple of their gods and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon. Maybe because Dagon's head kept falling off or something, I don't know. But I think the connection is not to be missed with what happened earlier. So here they are displaying Saul's armor, like they did Goliath's sword. They are displaying his head. And then, coming back to our section here, they displayed his body on the wall of Beth-shon. Now, it's not just Saul's body, but the bodies of his sons too. There's no indication that their heads were cut off, but maybe they were too. All of this is to send a message of shame against Israel, shame against Saul and his house and so forth, victory for the Philistines and a warning to anyone who might defy them. Now, a couple other brief comments here. The Ashtoreths, that's a plural form. The Asherah is the singular form of that word. And so we also know her, this goddess, as Ishtar and Astart. Other cultures have different names for her. She is a fertility goddess and a war goddess. Excuse me. And so, putting These things in her temple made a lot of sense as the war goddess. Now as for Bashan, again I call your attention to the map there where it's shown there for us right near the Jordan River. This was one of those cities that Israel never conquered. under Joshua or even after that. It was not conquered till at least David or Solomon, one of the two. And so it was already, likely, allied with the Philistines. And it was at the end of the Jezreel Valley near the Jordan River. The Viamaris passed through it. It was very wealthy, very heathen. And so it is no surprise that they would mock Saul in this place. All right, now, note this other response, verse 11. Pause the sentence here. Notice that word not only spread in Philistia, but it spread to Israel. And here in particular, we were told it spread to Javish-Gilead. Again, call your attention to the map there. And it's roughly 13 miles across the Jordan from Beth-Shon. But also call this to your attention. If you turn back to chapter 11, you remember that the first thing that Saul did after he was anointed was to help the people of Jabesh Gilead. Remember the Ammonites and Nahash came and such and they wanted to take them and they said, well, hey, give us a few days here, see if anybody will come and help. Well, Saul came and helped. And he drove off the Ammonites and rescued the people of Jabesh Gilead. That's the first thing Saul did as king. And now here at the end, when Saul is dead, Jabesh Gilead is mentioned again. It's a kind of inclusio, bookends here for the story of Saul. And remember also that Saul was very likely a descendant of Jabeshkiliad. Remember how the Israelites killed the Benjamites and they went and took the women and all that sort of mess and so on. And so Saul had helped his extended family. Now his extended family is helping him in this way. So back to our text, and the next verse, of course, finishes our sentence. All the valiant men rose and traveled all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bashan, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. All right, so they go through the night traveling these roughly 13 miles. Okay, that'd be like going from here to beyond Walmart on your way to Mercer or something like that. And so imagine doing that through the night, having to cross the Jordan River, which is not much different than Wolf Creek, except in flood stage. And they're entering enemy territory. They recover Saul's body, not his head, of course, and they recover the sons of Saul, their bodies, maybe their heads, again, we're not told, and they return to Jabesh Gilead. Note their boldness. They return here then and burn the bodies. This is not cremation because look at the bones that they bury in the next verse. So this is not cremation. But what it was, was to destroy any germs. The body surely would have been decaying to some degree by this time. And so this would help to prevent disease. So then verse 13, then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. All right, note they are seeking to honor Saul. Let me read just briefly from This is the InterVarsity Bible background commentary. And these few sentences say this. A final ironic note in the Saul narrative has him buried beneath a tamarisk tree. He is portrayed as assembling his troops and exercising his power as king under or near a tamarisk tree in 1 Samuel 22. His grave is marked by this simple desert growth rather than a palace, capital city, or kingdom." And he goes on to talk about the tree and its uses and so on and so forth. What I found interesting about that and what I'd like to bring out here simply is this. Saul never really had a palace, though his headquarters were in Gibeah. Notice he's not buried in Gibeah in his home. He's not buried with his father, even. He's buried in this remote place among his ancestors, which is certainly better than hanging on the wall in Bashan. But yet, you see this honor given to Saul, but not a full honor, can you say? And so, again, here's a clue that God was not very happy with Saul, even in death, even in burial. It's, can you say incomplete? It's just under a tree. It's not even a family graveside. At least not to this point. And then it says they fasted for seven days, so back to the honor that the Gileadites here are trying to show. Obviously, they would mourn for him for these seven days. Now let's look at a few more passages here. Let's come back to 2 Samuel and chapter two again. Now here in chapter 2, beginning in verse 4, note what it says, So David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh Gilead and said to them, you are blessed to the Lord, for you have shown this kindness to your Lord, to Saul, and have buried him. And now may the Lord show kindness and truth to you. I also will repay you this kindness because you have done this thing. Now therefore, let your hands be strengthened and be valiant for your master Saul is dead, and also the house of Judah has anointed me king over them. As I've said a number of times, one of the key purposes of 1 Samuel especially, and even here in 2 Samuel as we call it, is to vindicate David, to say that he is the right kind of king. Do you see how he responds to the news of not only Saul's death, which is in chapter one, but here to the word that he receives and how Saul's body was treated? David doesn't rejoice in Saul's death. David doesn't care less about what happened to his body. He's not careless or flippant in these ways. You see the respect that even David is showing toward these men of Jabesh Gilead for what they did. So yes, it's true, God's not very happy and he's just buried under a tree, and yet you see how honor is shown to Saul, God's anointed, and even now David is showing honor to God's anointed in this way. Let's turn then to 2 Samuel chapter 21. Now, we don't have time to get into all the details here, but I encourage you to read verses one to 14. And let me just summarize here briefly. Some things weren't going so well in Israel. And there's famine for three years. And so David says, okay, Lord, what's going on? And God answers him and says, well, Saul, you see there in verse one, killed the Gibeonites, at least some of them. You remember the Gibeonites were those who pretended to be from far away and convinced Joshua to enter into covenant with them and they were actually Canaanites, you remember that story? And how God allowed them to be preserved and they actually even ministered in the temple and so forth. you know, being a typical politician says, I'm going to do something against these people to show how great we are, you know, whatever. And he goes and tries to kill the Gibeonites when he shouldn't have done that. He should have been killing all the Amalekites instead. Well, because of this sin of Saul, Israel is suffering even now, however many years later. And so God tells David about it and David goes to the Gibeonites and basically says, hey, what could we do to make this right? And so they say, okay, take seven of Saul's descendants and put them to death and we'll call it even. Now, if you look at verse seven, David does not allow Mephibosheth to be killed because that was the son of Jonathan. So David kept his promise to Jonathan. But notice there in verse 8, some of the sons of Michael, his wife that was given to somebody else, five of those sons were killed. Look at verse 12, then David went and took the bones of Saul. and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the men of Javish-Gilead who had stolen them from the street of Beth-Shon, where the Philistines had hung them up after the Philistines had struck down Saul and Gilboa. So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from there, and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son, in the country of Benjamin and Zelah in the tomb of Kish's father. So they performed all that the king commanded. And after that, God heeded the prayer for the land. So the famine went away. Again, you see the kind of man that David is. Not perfect by any means, but you see the honor he is giving to Saul in this way. Yes, some of Saul's descendants are killed, but basically God said to do that. But David is still showing respect for Saul by, in this case, taking their bones and burying them in the family cemetery. Now, one more passage. Let's turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 10 again. And the end of the chapter, verse 13. So Saul died for his unfaithfulness, which he had committed against the Lord, because he did not keep the word of the Lord, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance. But he did not inquire the Lord, therefore he killed him, and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse. For all this respect that we see shown to Saul here at the end by the men of Jabeshgilead, even by David, all that's great. Let's learn from that. Okay, let's add that to our ideas of godliness and respect. But in the end, Saul was a sinner, and he deserved judgment, and that's exactly what he got. He had ignored God, he had done things his own way, he pretended to be a religious man, but in the end, he was not a believer. The end of this section is, can you say, the ultimate contrast to David. David is a man after God's own heart. Imperfect, yet a man after God's own heart. A godly man, as we saw in the last chapter, but Saul, totally different. And so, as I've done a few different times now here in this section, which are you? Are you like David or like Saul? Now don't just give the answer you want it to be. What is it really? Again, Saul went to church every week. He sought after God, sort of. Let's examine ourselves here. And yet again, Israel is judged too. They had asked for this king. and now he's dead. It's a total disaster. With their sons being killed, lots of things taken, the priests killed, their land taken by the Philistines, it's all a mess. And so hope in God, hope in David, but hope in God even more. Hope in David's greater son, the true king, the true king that we asked for. So I always feel when we come to the end of the book that I never can say enough. But here are a few words to bring these thoughts to a conclusion here in 1 Samuel. And so may God seal these words on our hearts and on our lives. Now, Lord willing, next time we will turn back to the pastoral epistles. And so we have looked at 1 Timothy, and so now we're gonna look at Titus. And so we will start on that, Lord willing, next Sunday night. Let's pray together. Our Father and God, we thank you again for your word and the things that we have learned here even in this final chapter. Our Lord, we thank you that you are sovereign over life and death, that you are just and that you are righteous. We are thankful, Lord, that you do judge and punish the wicked for their sin. We are thankful, Lord, that you do not let them go and ignore it. We are thankful, Lord, that you do not overlook the sin of your people, especially when we are looking to things here on earth for our salvation rather than to you. And as Israel did that, asking for a king, you are saying quite loudly that that approach is foolishness, because it ends in death. Lord, help us not to follow in the ways of Israel, help us not to follow in the ways of Saul, but to follow you, to follow your people here, David, and especially the greater David, and his greater son. Lord, we are thankful that you are our king and that we can trust in you. We are thankful, Lord, that we can trust in you in our days of obedience. And even when those obedient things lead to hardships, we are thankful that we can trust in you like Jonathan did to the end. We're thankful, Lord, that we can trust in you at our final moments of life, that we don't have to take matters into our own hands, whether you are in control of all things, maybe learned from Saul what not to do. Lord, there's so many lessons for us here, so many important truths, but we thank you most of all that you are our God, that you are our King, that you are the one in whom we find our hope and our strength and our confidence. And so we give you praise and we give you thanksgiving for this. And may we as a local church, may we as individuals of this church, may we even as a church here in our land, regain this focus. And not just to get the right person into office, that we might truly return to you as a nation, and that we might truly turn to you and serve you and love you and obey you in all things. But as we live in a land where the church has turned away from you, as we live in a culture that has no interest in following your word, I'm sure many of us We'll be like Jonathan in the end, being faithful unto death. And so we pray, Lord, for your mercies in this way, for your goodness to us in spite of ourselves, and that your name would be magnified in it all. And so we pray for all these things. And again, thank you for the message of this book. and the many things that we have learned in it. And so we pray all this then in Jesus' name, amen.