God will condemn his enemies. He will redeem his servant's life. God can do both of these things. He can do both of these things on the same battlefield. Let us turn our reading, 1 Samuel chapter 31, the last chapter of 1 Samuel. Now, 1 and 2 Samuel are one book, and so the ending place is a little bit arbitrary. It's basically where the First scroll was full and you had to start a second scroll. We will, Lord willing, have two sermons into 2 Samuel to conclude our series. And so we'll go through the anointing of David as the king of Judah is the plan, Lord willing, in 2 Samuel 2 verse 11. And I think that'll take us two weeks. And so this will not finish our Samuel series, but almost. It is, in many ways, the end of the lengthy account of Saul and David. We're going to be thinking about what is the difference between Saul and David as part of our sermon this morning. But we really jump into the action in Psalm 31, verse 1. after being back with David in chapters 29 and 30. So just a reminder of where we are. We are in the valley of Jezreel, as it says back in 29 verse 1. Saul is on Mount Gilboa at the edge of that valley. Then we jump into the battle in 31 verse 1 and we'll read to the end of 1 Samuel. 31 verse 13, let us hear the word of God. Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons. And the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Melchizedek, the sons of Saul. And the battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me. But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. Thus Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer and all his men on the same day together. And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. And the Philistines came and lived in them. The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers through the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. But when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan. And they came to Jabesh and burned them there. And they took their bones and buried them under the Tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days. So far the reading, the grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our Lord endures forever. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Pharaohs, Thutmose III, Shishak I, and Necho II, Deborah and Beric and Gideon, Saul and Jonathan, Kings Jehu, Joram, Ahaziah, and Josiah, General Vespasian of Rome, soon-to-be emperor, Sultan Saladin of Egypt, General Napoleon of France, very soon-to-be emperor, General Allenby of Britain. What do these various military leaders have in common? Well, this is a partial list of the pharaohs, the judges, the kings, the princes, and the generals who have fought in the Valley of Jezreel, also called the Valley of Megiddo or Megiddon, also at one point in the Book of Revelation symbolically referred to as Armageddon. It is a place of battle. It is a place where many have died. And so all those names have in common that they fought here as military leaders. But there are many things that Deborah and these men do not have in common. Some were defeated, some were victorious, some survived, some did not. Some were fighting for themselves and some were fighting for the Lord. And the most important of these distinctions is the last one. The most important difference is whether or not one trusts in the Lord. And so as we consider this battle in this valley where many battles have been fought, it's a time for us to consider death. It is not, as it has been simply said, not the most uplifting chapter in the Bible. And as we consider death, It's an important time for us to contemplate the difference between unbelief and belief. The difference between death unto death and death unto life. So that's our theme this morning. Contemplate the just judgment and the great grace of God. Both of which are shown in different ways in this valley. and taken symbolically in different ways in the prophets and then in revelation from this valley. And our first point will be this, what's the difference between Saul and David? And our second point is what's the difference between Philistines and Israelites? And our third point is what's the difference between death and life? Well first, what's the difference between Saul and David. David is spared from this battle in Jezreel completely by the divine providence of God. We saw that back in chapter 29. But Saul is not spared in any way. Saul, who we are told in 1 Chronicles 10, died specifically because of his unbelief, his breach of faith against God. Saul died the way that Saul lived. He died thinking of himself first. He died without any repentance, without any trust in God. There's nothing honorable about the death of Saul. He did not die in battle to save others like an honorable soldier. who would jump on a grenade to lay down his life for his friends. He does not even charge the enemy when he sees he has no way of escape. He simply tries to take matters into his own hands and to define things on his own terms, as he has always done. And when we ask the difference between Saul, who died in this valley, and David, who's spared from the battle entirely, People of God, we must understand that it is the grace of God which makes the difference. We're going to read a little bit of a lengthy quote from Richard Phillips, summarizing the last five chapters of 1 Samuel in this way. Quote, in chapter 27, David seeks salvation from Saul's malice by turning to the Philistines. In chapter 28, Saul seeks salvation from God's rejection by turning to an occult medium. In chapter 29, David is saved from the Philistines. In chapter 31, Saul is destroyed by the Philistines. The point of this arrangement is not that David is wiser or more virtuous than Saul. The point, rather, is that David's relationship with the God of grace makes the vital difference. David is saved from his error, while Saul, having turned his heart away from the Lord, is destroyed in his folly. End of quote. Now it is true that there have been portions of the narrative of 1 Samuel which have emphasized differences between David and Saul. It is true that as God's people we are called to be sanctified, to be holy, to grow in grace, to be the light of the world. But of course we stumble in that calling. And it's not our nature to grow in grace and obedience to God. That's something which the Holy Spirit works upon us. And so the narrative of 1 Samuel, it's as though we can summarize it this way. At times, we see the difference between God's faithful servant, David, and God's unfaithful king, Saul. But in the end, in the end, what makes the difference? It's the grace of God sparing David from his stumbling unbelief and judging Saul for his unbelief. In the end, we're not supposed to say, well let me go out and be like David and slay my Goliaths and serve God and not be like Saul. No, in the end we're supposed to say this, I stumble like David, I am unrighteous like Saul. But by the grace of God, I am saved. By the grace of God, I am preserved from my own weakness and sinfulness. We are all in need of the greater son of David of the greater King Jesus Christ the apostle says it this way in Ephesians 2 and and. There's no doubt that this applies to all believers. Ephesians 1 is all about election from the very foundations of the earth. In other words, this is not just a word to the Ephesian Christians. Ephesians 2, verses 4 and 5. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead and our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved. Grace is what makes the difference. It is the grace of God that would save us, even as it is the just judgment of God, which judges Saul for his disobedience. Now let's come to our second point because this is not only true on the individual level, it's also true on the national or communal level. What's the difference between Philistines and Israelites? Our second point. Now the Israelites are defeated by the Philistines who have no idea what actually makes for good news. Look at verses eight to 10. They're honoring, the powers of their false god, their honoring idols of wood and stone for their victory. And the text says in verse 9 that they carried the good news of their military victory throughout all of Philistia and to all the Philistine people. Why does the text say good news? It's speaking from the perspective of the Philistines. The Philistines think this is good news. After all, they have won a crushing victory by taking over the Jezreel Valley, it says, and all the people, when they saw the Israelite army defeated, they left. By defeating this huge central valley, they've essentially crushed Israelite opposition. They've split the nation in half. They've taken possession of of a rich agricultural center of the nation of Israel. This is a crushing victory and a crushing win. And against the king, what's one thing Saul has excelled at? One thing Saul has excelled at is defeating the enemies of the Lord. David has slain his 10,000, but Saul has slain his thousands. And now they have their victory. They have their crushing defeat of the Israelite army. But what do they not realize? They do not realize that they're simply tools in God's hand to judge an unrighteous king of Israel. They have no idea what actually makes for good news. You see, this happens often. Those who worship political powers may celebrate wildly with the swing of political elections from one election cycle to another, but it's not actually good news. Our trust is not in princes, even if they're less wicked princes than others. The scientific community may celebrate another discovery which supposedly proves the theory of evolution and allows them to worship at the altar of atheism, but they are simply being deceived again. These things are not good news at all. In fact, things which they think are good news, if rightly understood, they would see it points always to the one true God. Or consider Consider the death of another. Consider the death of a righteous king. Consider the death of Jesus Christ. Powers of darkness, the demons who knew and trembled, thought that they finally had victory. The Son of God is crucified. But they had no idea what was actually going on. Because what really happened at the cross is that Jesus disarmed the powers of hell to take language from Colossians 2 verse 15. What really happened at the cross is that Jesus died to take our sins upon himself, but then he rose again on the third day and he swallowed the power of death in his power of life to take language from 1 Corinthians 15. The world and the demons and the kingdom of darkness thought that it was good news. They celebrated, they proclaimed it, but they had no idea what God was accomplishing and what God does accomplish. There's only one true gospel, there's only one good news. It's that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from our sins, and as we repent and believe in him, our sins are wiped clean. But now, we ask, are the people of Israel so different from the Philistines? See, the men of Jabesh, Gilead, they are heroic. They are daring as they save the body of the king and the princes from further shame at the hand of the Philistines. See, this is especially verse 12. But they also perform their own desecration. There's no proper burial. They burn the bodies. Maybe they're thinking, you know, Our nation is so crushed and weak right now. This is the only way we can protect the bodies from being captured and dishonored again. But whatever they're thinking, they've not really honored the bodies of Saul and his sons. And just to hear the place, Jabesh Gilead, if we think of our biblical history, it reminds us of a very messy time in the not so distant past of the nation of Israel. Because, again, we're at the, where are we in 1 Samuel? We're at the beginning of the era of kings. We have the last prophet, or the last judge, who's also kind of the first prophet, Samuel, right? So we're just after the end of the book of Judges. Well, what happens at the end of the book of Judges? Here's a very, very quick summary. The men of Jabesh-Gilead refused to fight against the Benjaminites with the other tribes who wanted to wipe them out. And so then nearly everyone of Jabesh Gilead is put to death except for some versions of Jabesh Gilead who are given to the surviving Benjaminites so that the tribe of Benjamin can be rebuilt. Reading Judges 20 and 21. We see that it's even messier than the quick summary that I just gave. What is the point of all this, and then what does it end with in Judges 21, verse 25? In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In short, to even see the name of the men of Jabesh-Gilead appear on the scene again is to be reminded that the Israelites are not a perfect nation. It is only by God's grace that God has made them his chosen people and continues to restore them and show mercy to them and draw them back to himself. The story which is true on the individual level is the same story which is true on the level of the nation, of the congregation, of the church as a whole. It is God's grace which preserves. It is God's grace which saves. It's not because the Israelites were some great and righteous nation. They were in complete need of God's mercy and grace. You can think of it this way. We're all hypocritical sinners. The only difference between the world and the church is by the grace of God, Those in the church are saved from their hypocrisy. We're saved from our guilt and our sins, and we're slowly, sometimes very slowly, brought into the sanctified holiness which God calls us to. God calling us to slowly but surely be his light of the world, as Christ calls the church in Matthew 5. Well, let's come now to our third point. What is the difference between death and life. This is the battlefield of Jezreel. Egyptians, many times over. Canaanites, Midianites, Israelites, many times over. Philistines, Romans, Turks, Crusaders, Mamluks, Mongols, French, British, and more have all died on this battlefield from some of the oldest battles of recorded history through the First World War. It is a place where death has been multiplied many times over. It's a place where we would contemplate our mortality. We are all mortal creatures, whether on the battlefield or on the hospital bed. We will all be called before the face of Almighty God. This is part of how this plane, Jezreel, Megiddo, Armageddon, in Revelation 16 verse 16 is used. The Scottish theologian William Blakey once said it this way, it's no wonder that in the symbolic vision of John in Revelation 16, 16, a town in this plane, Armageddon, is selected as the battlefield for the great conflict when the kings of the whole earth are to be gathered together unto the battle of the great day of almighty God." End of quote. Whatever age we are, it's healthy for us to contemplate our mortality, to understand that we are grass, that we will appear before God to understand that there's only two kingdoms, either the kingdoms of darkness gathered together with all the kings of the earth against Almighty God or God's own soldiers and part of the kingdom of heaven and part of God's army. What is going on in Revelation 16? The bulls, which represent The fury of God's wrath are being poured out upon those kings and that army that's gathered against him. Now, we don't always like to think about God's wrath. As J.I. Packer said it some decades ago now, many people today want to believe in a celestial Santa Claus. and hold to Santa Claus theology. They want to embrace the images of the love and mercy of God without thinking of the severity of the wrath and judgment of God which is consistent with it. Packer once said it this way in his classic book, Knowing God, quote, the fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christianity by and large has accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves to never raise the matter. But the Bible behaves very differently. The Bible labors the point that just as God is good to those who trust him, so he is terrible to those who do not, end of quote. Without the Lord, death brings God's judgment, and what the book of Revelation calls the second death. Apart from God, living in unbelief, death brings further death. And the valley of Jezreel, Armageddon, is one of the places where God's wrath has been poured out, such as it was poured out upon Saul, and symbolically where God's wrath will be poured out upon all people who would battle against the Lord God Almighty. But the Valley of Jezreel is not just about judgment. And Lord willing, we'll talk about this more next week, but sometimes God doesn't spare his people from the battlefield. David is spared completely Jonathan, who is faithful, dies alongside his unfaithful father on the same day on the same battlefield. Josiah, the faithful king, died on this battlefield on the plains of Megiddon, as they are called in Zechariah chapter 12. And the whole nation mourns the death of a righteous king. In Zechariah chapter 12, that is used as a picture for those who would mourn over the shepherd who will be pierced. In other words, Zechariah 12 uses the plains of Megiddon as a picture for mourning over the death of the prophesied perfect king, Jesus Christ. You see, it's a valley which is not only a picture of wrath, which not only has Philistines and unrighteous Israelites such as Saul slain justly for God's wrath, it's also a place which symbolizes how death can lead to life because in Zechariah chapter 12 after speaking about the one who is pierced after comparing his death in the morning over his death to the morning for Josiah in the plane of Megiddo verse Zechariah 13 verse 1 then says this on that day There shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. In other words, the Valley of Jezreel, the place of death, is also used to picture the death of Jesus Christ. And that as those who would mourn over that, as we should mourn for our sins, we are then cleansed. There is a fountain opened by that death to lead to life. The language of Zechariah 13, verse one again, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness. You see, it's not only a valley which speaks about death unto death, it's also a valley used by the prophet to speak about death unto life. And the Lord does both. As Hannah prayed, Back in 1 Samuel 2 verse 6, the Lord kills and brings to life. As Jesus said in John 5 verse 24, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. What makes the difference? People of God, all be in this valley symbolically. Will we be standing with the forces of darkness upon whom the bowl of the fury of God's wrath will be poured out or will we by grace be saved by the one who was pierced for us and be saved and stand from death to life as those who are part of the kingdom of heaven. Let us contemplate mortality. Let us contemplate the reality of this valley. And let us look upon our only pure savior, Jesus Christ, for it is faith in him. It is God's grace, which makes the difference. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, we thank You for the truth of Your Word.