The Lord will ever bless Their children's children shall rejoice To see His righteousness Amen, let us turn now to our text for this morning. First Samuel chapter 13, as we continue to work through this book, a quick recap, especially for those who have not been with us. Saul is anointed in chapters 9 and 10. is beginning his rule. He's the first king. They're trying to figure out what is a monarchy gonna look like? Is our king really gonna be doing anything? He's not doing much. He's working in his field. There's no throne room. There's no palace for the king yet. Israel is still getting used to this idea, but then the Ammonites are coming in chapter 11. And Saul rises to the occasion. He is used by the Lord to defeat the Ammonites and to strike a crushing blow against them in chapter 11. And then he's affirmed as God's servant king at the end of 11. Samuel still has a parting warning to give. We might call it the last speech of a judge. In chapter 12, Samuel continues to operate, but now as a prophet, not so much as a judge. That takes us to chapter 13. Just a brief note on verse one. It's not an easy verse in the Hebrew. One thing it's most likely telling us is that when he had reigned for two years. So we're two years now into the reign of Saul. And so we'll begin at chapter 13, verse one. Saul lived for one year. and then became king. And when he had reigned for two years over Israel, Saul chose 3,000 men of Israel. 2,000 were with Saul in Michmash in the hill country of Bethel. And the 1,000 were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent. Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, let the Hebrews hear. And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal. And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel. 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped at Michmash to the east of Beth-Avon. When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble, for the people were hard pressed, the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns. And some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal. and all the people followed him trembling. He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, bring the burnt offering here to me and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him. and greet him. Samuel said, what have you done? And Saul said, when I saw that the people were scattering from me and that you did not come within the days appointed and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, I said, now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal and I have not sought the favor of the Lord. So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. And Samuel arose and went up to Gilgal The rest of the people went up after Saul to meet the army. They went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people who were present with him about 600 men. And Saul and Jonathan his son and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin. But the Philistines encamped in Michmash. And raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned toward Orphra to the land of Sheol. Another company turned toward Beth Horon. And another company turned toward the border that looks down on the valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness. Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel. For the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears. But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his plowshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle. And the charge was two thirds of a shackle for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shackle for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads. So on the day of the battle, there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan. But Saul and Jonathan, his son, had them. and the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Michmash. So far the reading of the word of God. Dear congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, momentum is a word that can apply to a rolling ball. It's also a word that can be used to describe our emotions and our spiritual disciplines. We can speak about the momentum of a boulder that begins rolling down the hill. We can also speak about the momentum of sin. A situation might push us to the place of feeling overwhelmed and being overwhelmed, we may fall into one sin. And then one sin may lead to a sinful momentum of another sin and another sin. We might call this the unholy pursuit driven by the downward momentum of our sinful nature. And it's that kind of pattern which we see in our text today. So we'll be considering how we must fight against that pattern. And our theme then is this, that we should humbly pursue holy reactions to hard situations. And the main way we'll see that is by detailing the unholy reactions to hard situations in our text. And so first we'll look at the bad situations, then we'll look at the worse reactions, and then we'll consider In specific ways our own bad to worse. So what is the bad situation? Let's look at it here Towards the beginning of Saul's reign two years into his reign He's he's had that great defeat of the Ammonites and pushed them away But the Philistines they're not going anywhere. They remain not just a lingering problem, but an occupation problem. We read in chapter 10 verse 5 that they have a garrison at Gibeah. Here in chapter 13 verse 3 we see that they also have a garrison in the nearby Israelite town of Geba. Geba and Gibeah being just a few miles from each other. They are an unwelcome ungodly occupying force. These are Israelite towns with Philistine military occupancy. And we don't get many details of what this occupation looks like, but of the few details we get, much of that comes at the end of this chapter. In 19 verse 22, We read that the Philistines are not only skilled in ironworks themselves, such that they have a military advantage, and we read that earlier in the book, but they also used their occupying military force in Israel to force out the Hebrew blacksmiths. So it doesn't tell us if they did this by killing Israelite blacksmiths, enslaving Israelite blacksmiths, or just destroying all of their smithy. But however they did it, what is clear is that they oppressed the Israelites. They made a stranglehold in this area such that they could both maintain their military advantage, their superior weaponry, and create an economic monopoly forcing the Israelite farmers to pay Philistine blacksmiths for even simple tasks like sharpening a sickle. It is, in short, an oppressive occupation. It hurts both the Israelite army and the Israelite pocketbook. And so when there's a desire to push against this occupation, that's a good desire. Now, perhaps Saul should have waited before gathering the army. That's the usual pattern of David, who will be the next king. He will inquire of the Lord before basically any military action he takes. But we cannot be too hard on Saul here. After all, this is an ungodly force in the promised land, in Israel. And so the forces of Israel are gathered. One of the Philistine garrisons is attacked. Jonathan leads the successful engagement of the Philistine garrison. They are pushed back. And now since the king can control the news cycle, Saul lets the word go out and all Israel hears in verse four that Saul won the victory though Jonathan is the one who led that attack. Now this small success stirs up what? A small success stirs up a big hornet's nest. And so the Israelites, in the middle of verse four, it says, they became a stench in the eyes of the Philistines. And so that even as Saul will now gather his force at Gilgal, the Philistines will gather en masse at Michmash to reassert their control over Israel. A huge military force of well-armed Philistines is gathered. the army of Saul will soon begin to disintegrate. Now let's think for a moment about where the army is. There are at least two reasons why Gilgal is the perfect spot to go. The first reason is that Gilgal is a secure location. It's a place where even a small force can be relatively secure. There's It's elevated it has the river and the Fords on one side It's it's where you'd want to be if you're a small military force and in gathering. It's the best strategic place There's a second reason that's more important if you would turn back with me to chapter 10 verse 8 Turn back a page or two to chapter 10 verse 8 Now in this chapter, in the first seven verses, Samuel is giving detailed, he's anointing Saul and he's giving prophecies to confirm to Saul his kingship. In verse eight, the prophecy is a little bit different than most of what is around it. In verse eight, it's not speaking about the more immediate future, but it's looking forward. It's a prophetic command. And so in verse eight, Samuel said to Saul, then go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I'm coming down to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait until I come to you and show you what you shall do. Now, this is a prophetic command that in chapter 13, we see that Saul understood that. He waited seven days, the time appointed. We don't get all the details, we just get that brief prophetic command, Saul understands that when he was being anointed, Samuel gave him a prophetic command about what he was supposed to do when his hands, chapter 10, verse seven, were getting ready for war. This is the command. This is the waiting for the word from the faithful prophet of the Lord. that Saul has and that Saul knows. And Gilgal was the specifically named place for this to happen. Saul, in this moment, in chapter 13, verse seven and eight, is right where he should be. He's called his people, the end of verse four, to join him at Gilgal. To this point, The situation is bad, but what Saul has done is, apart from the pride of his announcements that he won the victory in verse four, apart from that, Saul is doing what he's been commanded to do by the prophetic command of Samuel. Now, in this bad situation, there are going to be many unholy worse reactions. That takes us to our second point. Because people of God, whatever bad external circumstances we have, if we would ever allow them to lead us into sin, the sin is always worse than whatever the bad situation is. How does Jesus say it? Don't fear those who can harm the body, fear those who could hurt the soul, could harm the soul. Fear God who has control over your soul. It is worse to sin against God than to be surrounded by the Philistine unholy military force of thousands and thousands of thousands. It is worse to sin than to be in the foxhole against the worst military odds. And we see sins in this chapter. The first sin, we're going to focus on Saul, but let's talk a little bit about the soldiers. The soldiers are shaking in their boots. They're going to flee before the face of God's enemies. They're not going to wait. Many of them run to the cliffs, swim across the river, they go to wherever they can be to get away from that military force, the forces of darkness. People of God, the army of God, it's no longer the Israelite army, we're no longer to pull out our weapons in the same way, but we're still called to advance God's kingdom. We do it through discipleship. That's the great commission. Go forth and disciple them, teach them. We are to be the salt and light. We are to be speaking the truth. Would we ever look at the forces of this world and say, there's too much darkness. There's too many lies. I can't speak against this. I can only run from this. Well, that would be today's equivalent of the fleeing soldiers of Israel. They look at the forces of darkness. They look at the forces of the evil Philistines and they say this is too much. I cannot stand in God's army. I must run. But no matter how thick the darkness is, no matter how powerful the enemy looks, let us always stand our ground. Well, that is the army. What about the leader? What about Saul the king? There's a number of things to see. There are a number of sins of Saul for which we can take note. The first sin is his impatience. The implication, taking verses eight and 13 together, is that Saul waited seven days. He waited until the seventh day, but he didn't wait all of the seventh day. He waits for that seventh day, but then he can't quite wait the whole time. He's almost patient enough, but he doesn't give Samuel till the end of that day. He takes matters into his own impatient hands, perhaps even offering the sacrifice himself, which would be yet another sin. Possibly he had a priest do it for him. all of this only to have Samuel arrive as the offerings are ending. He was impatient. He was almost patient enough, but he did not wait until the end of the day. He does not give Samuel all the time that is needed. So then when he's confronted, When Samuel arrives and asks, what have you done? The second sin of Saul is to begin blame shifting. When Samuel says, what have you done? Saul jumps to the defensive and he acts as though waiting until the seventh day was long enough. So in Saul's mind, well, I did wait the appointed time. I did do it. But I was just so hard pressed. My situation was just so hard. I had to sin. That's his language. Do you see the language of Saul? Do you see his arrogance? I had to do it. Forced myself, the end of verse 12. Wow, what an excuse for sin. I had to sin, I forced myself to do it. I didn't want to sin. But the situation was just so hard, I had to. I forced myself to do it. All the while, blame shifting. You did not come. Samuel, you did not come in time. If you'd just been here two hours earlier, if you hadn't made me wait all of that seventh day after waiting all of the first six days, none of this would have happened. It's on you. I just forced myself. Saul is facing a well-armed evil army pressing against him. He waited for six and a half days. It's tempting to say, is what Saul does here really that bad? Certainly understandable. What would you do putting your head down six days in a row surrounded by thousands and thousands of well armed evil enemies. But do you see that he adds sin to sin? Once he started the road to sin, the sinful momentum carries him all the way through. There's no confession here. There's no humble humility. There's no humble pursuit of holiness and confession of sin. There is only proud self righteousness and one sin leading to another. He was not patient enough. So now he's going to blame shift, throw it all on those around him. He's going to make every kind of excuse. And so he's rebuked strongly. Now a prophetic judgment from the faithful prophet Samuel. Your kingdom will be taken away. There will be no dynasty. Now Saul's gonna be allowed to reign. God is gracious. God is gonna give Saul 38 more years to reign. The apostle Paul in Acts 13 mentions that Saul reigns for 40 years. Saul is going to have many years to repent and change his ways. Well, you have 38 years, 38 days, who knows how long any of us have to repent. But what we ought to do is to seek to stop our unholy momentum in its tracks, to pursue holy humility today. We know that Saul will just continue down this road From here on out, he is a picture of disobedience and proud arrogance. The kingdom then will pass to another, a man after God's own heart. Those important words in verse 14, they set up and anticipate what is coming. Lord willing, we'll return to those words. That's part of the major theme of this whole book. At this point, let's just say that for those who know the history of redemption already, and know the basics of the wonderful beauty of God's work. What does a man after God's own heart mean? Well, it means that God is going to raise up David and the line of David. And David is going to be much better. He is going to be, in many ways, a faithful king. But we are all sinful by nature. We all fall short of the glory of God. David is not going to be enough. No, we need the son of David, who is Jesus Christ, the only righteous king. to take our sins away. Speaking of humble humility, the humility of Jesus is such that he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross for our sins. Now before we move to our third point, there's one more sin of Saul. This one is easier to miss. It's the fact that after the words of correction in verse 15, there's no repentance. There's no asking Samuel to stay, asking Samuel to give a pleading cry to God for him and with him. What does Saul do? Saul lets Samuel walk away and then goes his own way. The opposite direction. He flees from correction. Do you see that? Do you see where he goes? He goes to his buddies. He goes to Benjamin. He is a Benjaminite after all. Saul is a fool who is increasing his folly The unholy momentum only continues. He wants to hang out with his yes-men. Forget Samuel, who would stand up and bravely correct me and call me back to God. I want none of that. I'm going to go the other direction. I'm going to go with my buddies. Maybe Saul's going to kick back and drink a beer with his old buddies from Benjamin and say, you know, Samuel's getting old. He doesn't really know what he's talking about anymore anyway. Certainly what's coming in the next chapter tells us that that's the kind of attitude Saul will have to correction for the rest of his life. People of God, this is a pattern of prideful, unholy running. It is running from correction. It's running to those who, as Saul might say it, appreciate him, understand him in reality. It is Saul as a coward running from those who are brave enough and faithful enough to love him enough to correct him. So what's our own bad to worse? This is our third point. Do we see this difficult situation. We cannot deny it's difficult. They are surrounded by the hard, pressing, massive army. But we see this pattern of sin. People of God, let us never make our own bad or difficult situations worse by falling into various sins. James will say it this way in the New Testament. Let the testing of your faith produce patience. patience, the exact opposite of the kinds of things we see here from Saul. Let's overview. Let's turn it into a four-step pattern. There's more we could say here, but let's take these four things. First, from the first point, Saul's quick to exalt self. He gives credit to himself rather than credit to Jonathan in verse 4. And then, as detailed in our second point, we see also that he's impatient, verses 8 to 10. that he's quick to blame shift, verse 11, and that he's one who wants to run from godly correction, in verse 15. So let's take this as a four-step pattern of unholy pursuit, detailed in our text, and now let's apply it in some specific ways to how we might fall into these patterns. One way to fall into this kind of pattern would be to abuse authority. Now, in this chapter, we have two authority figures, Saul the king and Samuel the prophet. One is a faithful authority figure, the other one is unfaithful. What makes the difference? The difference is the folly of King Saul, that he did not keep, the end of verse 14, what the Lord commanded him. The difference is obedience to God. There's a faithful authority figure and an unfaithful authority figure in this chapter. For the unfaithful authority, the King Saul, we now think of how easy it is for those in authority to fall into this kind of pattern. After all, you have a position of authority. That makes it easy to exalt self. It's always easy to be impatient with God's commands. It is always easy to blame shift to those who are under us or beside us. And finally, running from correction is a great temptation for those in authority. After all, if Saul runs from Samuel, who else will dare to speak against him? He ran to his buddies in Benjamin, but he probably could have run anywhere. Who else would speak against the king? But those who have any authority in the church, in the home, or even anyone who has some kind of authority in the government or whatever it is, anyone who has authority must be especially diligent to pursue holiness in humble ways, remembering that God is the authority above every authority and will hold accountable all in this life or in the next. Now we can, here's another specific example. We can fall into this pattern We could give more, here's just one more specific example, by a rationalized rejection of the church. Some might exalt self, I love God, but the church is just not the right place for me. They might be impatient with the commands of God, which tell us not only to gather together, Hebrews 13, but also how we are to do that with reverence and awe. before God who is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12. Might be impatient with those commands. Want to do it a different way or not do it at all. Then we blame shift. Well, if only the church did this or looked like this or did that. If only I wasn't so busy, we shift the blame onto busyness. If only there weren't so many self-righteous, pharisaical people who demand that being in church is important. Then I'd be able to handle it. and then finally run from correction. Well, I can find plenty of friends who believe in God and they won't make me feel like I have to be in church. They'll just emphasize the relationship with God, which after all is important and we all know that. People of God, we could come up with many more examples of how we can snowball in sin, how we can allow unholy momentum to carry us through a whole pattern of sinful behavior. Now, those will be our specific examples for the whole pattern. There's many more that we could come up with. If we're having a hard time examining ourselves and seeing how we might fall into a whole pattern all together. All we need to do is step back and examine these things individually. If falling into all four of these things and seeing how we can do that is too difficult, examine them one at a time. Do you ever exalt self? I don't really need to study God's word and meditate on it every day. I understand the Bible pretty well already. Do you ever show impatient disobedience? I know I lost my patience at 4 p.m., but I'd been patient all day until then. Do you ever blame shift? Oh, we could give 1,000 examples here. I know I could give 1,000. Here's one. Oh, I would be nicer to my coworker or my classmate if he just wasn't such a jerk. Do you ever run from correction? It's just so nice to be around people who don't tell me that I'm wrong. People of God, there are so many patterns of sin that tempt us. Now, maybe by God's grace, you've not had many hard situations. You know, the rule of pursuing holy reactions that only applies all the more, not less. People of God, if we are to seek humble, holy attitudes, and if Samuel rightly condemns Saul for falling into sinful patterns when surrounded by thousands of powerful enemies and mutinous friends who are fleeing to the cliffs, How much more ought we to pursue humble humility and put off these kinds of sins in our day-to-day lives, days of blessing or days of difficulty? Now, what is the first part of pursuing holiness? I hope that, to put it one way, we have some degree of sympathy for Saul. Again, he's surrounded by thousands of enemies. And these are the kinds of sins, when we break it down individually, who has never blame shifted? So what's the first step in pursuing holiness? The first step in pursuing holiness is to look to Jesus Christ. to ask for forgiveness of sins. We have all sinned. Don't allow one sin to lead to another. Don't allow the Word of God itself or faithful friends who confront you in your sins to lead you to defensiveness and blame shifting and increasing sins. No. Stop. Confess. Repent. Turn around and pursue holiness. For after that first step of coming to God, we can then be shaped by the Holy Spirit as those who are saved by their only faithful Jesus Christ. We can then be molded and shaped to begin building up holy momentum, growing in holiness and righteousness, being moved by the Spirit. So when we do begin to grow, may we be better and better able to react in a holy and God-honoring way to all of our situations, including those which are most difficult. Amen. Let us pray. Lord God Almighty, let us not Let us not in pride say that we cannot fall in the same patterns of sin as Saul did long ago. But may we also really see that these patterns of Saul on that day long ago and these patterns wherever they exist in our own life today are serious. that you can rightly judge.