66 in 52: A One Year Journey Through the Bible
April 16, 2023 || Glynwood Baptist Church || Prattville, AL || James Jackson, Pastor
Good morning! Please turn to 1 Samuel 15.
Several years ago I got certified as a “Walk Thru the Bible” instructor. WTB is a day long seminar where you learn the major people, places, and events of the Old Testament. Throughout the day, you learn hand signals and key phrases that help you remember the story line of the entire Old Testament from Genesis to Revelation. At the end of the seminar, everybody stands up and goes through 66 hand signals and phrases they’ve learned together in three minutes. It’s super fun, and some of you might remember when we did this together at Glynwood. For those of you that weren’t here for that, I’ll post a video on our 66in52 Facebook page.
But as we get into 1 and 2 Samuel in our reading plan, I want to teach you a few of those hand signals that are going to help you track with what is going on in these two books.
1 Samuel comes right after Judges and Ruth. We were talking about the book of Judges at our men’s prayer breakfast yesterday morning, and how it is one of the darkest times in Israel’s history. It was a dark time because time and time again, God’s people cycled into this pattern of falling away from God and being oppressed by their enemies. Then they would repent and God would send them a deliverer, and then they would have peace for a few years, and then the whole cycle would begin. By the end of the book, people aren’t even bothering to repent anymore, and chapters 19-21 tell another one of those “What is this even doing in the Bible” stories.
And so Judges ends with the verse: “In those days there was no king; everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” So here’s the hand signal: [Teach “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes”]
Now there were two exceptions to this, and in last week’s reading we were introduced to both of them. The first was Ruth. She lived “in the days when the Judges ruled” according to Ruth 1:1, and her story is one of the few bright spots of this entire period of Israel’s history.
The other is Samuel. He is often described as the “last judge and the first prophet,” although that “first prophet” part is usually added by people who don’t think Deborah counts because she was a woman. So let’s add that to our hand signals. Remember the first one: [“Everyone did” signal] EXCEPT (say “Except”) Ruth [raise right hand] and Samuel [raise left hand]
Samuel is the bridge between the time of the judges and what’s called the “Golden Age” of Israel’s history, the 120 year period before Israel split into the northern kingdom and southern kingdom.
So your hands are already up for Ruth and Samuel. Now bring them together over your head and say “UNITED KINGDOM.” How long did it last? Pretend you are making a timeline over your head, and say 120 YEARS.
What do we have so far?
EVERYONE DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN THEIR OWN EYES
EXCEPT
RUTH
AND SAMUEL
UNITED KINGDOM
12O YEARS
Awesome! During this 120 year period, the United Kingdom of Israel was ruled by three kings, each of whose reign lasted about 40 years. The first KING [crown over your head] was SAUL, who had NO HEART for God. [Review] The second KING [crown over your head] was DAVID, who followed God with his WHOLE HEART. Finally, there was David’s son SOLOMON [crown over head] who loved God, but he also loved over seven hundred women, and built idols and shrines to honor all his wives gods. So at best, SOLOMN had HALF A HEART.
And there you have the end of Judges and the entire books of Ruth and 1 and 2 Samuel. So let’s put it all together. Stand up… [Review hand signs].
Great job! Give yourselves a hand!
Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to look at these three kings, and we are going to think about what it means to live a life in wholehearted pursuit of God. So let’s look at 1 Samuel 15 together and learn more about Saul, the King with No Heart.
1 Samuel 15. is a long chapter, and we are going to unpack the whole thing, but I want us to read verses 17-23. Please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has also rejected you from being king.”
[pray]
So here is what is happening in 1 Samuel 15. In verse 2, the Lord speaks to Saul through Samuel, and says,
2 Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”
Now this sounds brutal, doesn’t it? But understand what is happening here. The Amalekites were the enemies of Israel. They had fought against them ever since they came up out of Egypt. And God’s desire for His people is that they will have total victory over their enemy. That’s why the instruction was to destroy everything in Amalek. Every person. All the livestock. Annihilation of everything that is in opposition to God.
Instead, look at verse 8:
8 And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fattened calves[b] and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless they devoted to destruction.
Saul leaves the king alive and takes the sheep and cattle for himself.
God still desires His people to have total victory over our enemy. As Christians, what is our enemy? It’s sin. It’s everything in our lives that is in opposition to God. And God wants to kill it. The problem is, we keep letting sin live. We’ve all got little pet sins that are keeping us from having a whole heart for God.
- I know my body is a temple, and that I need to take better care of it, but there’s that one buffet…
- I know the Bible says “Do not get drunk on wine but be filled with the Spirit,” but there’s that one substance…
- I know we have to guard our minds, but there’s that one show…
- I know we are supposed to be faithful to our spouses, but there’s that one relationship…
What are your pet sins? What are those things you are keeping alive that God says to kill?
In 1 Samuel 15:11 we read these words from God. He tells Samuel,
11 “I regret[c] that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”
This isn’t God saying he made a mistake. He is grieving at the choice the people made for a leader, and the choices the leader made against God. Let me just say, I hope I never give God a reason to grieve that he called me to be a pastor. I hope we never give God a reason to grieve that he brought us together as a church. And I pray that you never give God a reason to say, “I grieve that people know she’s a Christian. She’s not representing my name with the things she is doing.”
How did it come to this? Well, before God rejected Saul as king, Israel had rejected God as king. Flip back to 1 Samuel 8. The elders of Israel went to Samuel and basically give him and his family a vote of no confidence: Read verse 5 with me. They say to him,
5 … “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
Now Samuel is kind of hurt by this, I guess I would be too if the deacons came to me and said, “James, you are old. Go find us a young hip pastor so we can be like all the other churches. But when Samuel prays about it, God says to him,
7 … “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
You know, it shouldn’t really surprise us that Saul had no heart for God, because the people didn’t care whether he did or not. Samuel spends the rest of the chapter warning the people of the consequences of having a king that “they choose for themselves” (v. 18)
And it’s like they don’t even hear Samuel. Look at verses 19-20:
19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
Having a heart for God wasn’t even on their Tinder profile! The only thing on their list was “We want to be like all the other nations.” They were looking for a human leader who would “go out before us and fight our battles.” But guess what— that is what God longed to be for them! Way back in Exodus 14, when the Israelites were on the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army in hot pursuit, Moses said to them,
13 “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:13-14).
The people chose a king for themselves so they could be like all the other nations, when God had set them apart. They chose a king who would go before them and fight their battles, forgetting that in Yahweh, they already had one. And for the next four hundred years, with only a few exceptions, they had kings that would lead them further and further away from God.
Israel wasn’t concerned about whether or not Saul had a heart for God because they didn’t have a heart for God either.
So even before we get to Chapter 15, Saul has already started to go off the rails. In chapter 13 he offers the sacrifices that the Law said only the priests could offer. In 14, he makes a stupid vow that almost gets his son killed. And in chapter 15, he disobeys the specific commands of God. God tells him to completely wipe out the Amalekites their king, and every living thing in their city.
When Samuel confronts him on it, watch what happens:
First he denies it (v. 13): “I have performed the commandment of the Lord”
Then he justifies it (v 15): “Well, we spared the best of the sheep and oxen so we could sacrifice it to the Lord.”
Then he blames someone else (v. 21): “It was the people who took of the spoil. It was their idea to take the sheep and the oxen.”
Saul does everything except the one thing that he needed to do. Confess it and repent. When he finally admits that he has sinned in verse 24, he still wants to maintain appearances. He says to Samuel in verse 25, “Please pardon me and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord.” He wants God’s prophet to go with him, arm in arm, back to the camp, so none of his people will know about his sin.
But Samuel says, “That’s not how this works. I will not go with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” (v 26).
So God appoints Samuel to be a one-man search committee for Israel’s next king. Only this time, it’s not going to be someone the people choose. It will be a man whom God chooses. A man after God’s own heart.
Before we get to David, let me ask you relate to the Israelites that made Saul king?
- Do you look for human beings to meet the needs God wants to meet in your life?
- Does character and integrity matter to you when you decide who to follow? I’m not talking just about political or church leaders. I’m talking about who you follow on social media. Who is influencing you on Twitter. Who you are trying to be like at school?
Do you relate to Saul? Do you tend to take matters into your own hands when it seems like God isn’t moving fast enough?
If you get called out on sin in your life do you try to rationalize it, or spiritualize it, or blame it on other people? Or do you own it and thank the person who called you out.
I’m afraid that most of us are a lot more like Saul than we want to admit.
Now, let’s turn to the one who followed God with his whole heart: David. Go back to chapter 15: After Saul’s disobedience with the Amalekites, Samuel confronted him and said,
14 …the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”
We see the difference already. Saul was the king the people chose (8:19) David was the man God sought out.
In chapter 16, God directs Samuel to the house of Jesse, and Jesse parades his seven sons in front of Samuel, starting with the oldest. Samuel sees the first one and thinks, this must be the guy. But apparently even Samuel is prone to that Israelite mindset of judging from outside appearances. And God sets him straight. He says,
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Finally, the youngest son, David, is brought before Samuel, and God says, “This is the guy. Anoint him.”
The wording here is really similar to the wording in the gospels, when Jesus is baptized. God says to Samuel in verse 12, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”
What does John the Baptist say when he first sees Jesus? “Behold, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he, of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’
And when Jesus was baptized, Mark’s gospel says that the heavens were torn open, and a voice said, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11).
And then, Jesus began his public ministry. Before He overcame temptation in the wilderness. Before he had performed any miracles. The Father said, “This is my beloved Son.”
Remember that God chose David before he defeated Goliath, the enemy of God’s people.
And before the foundation of the world, God chose Jesus to be the one who would defeat Satan.
You probably grew up hearing the story of David and Goliath. Even if you didn’t grow up going to church, you still understand what the guys on ESPN mean when they talk about an upset victory as a “David and Goliath” story.
But most of us grew up with a wrong understanding of the story of David and Goliath. I grew up hearing inspirational sermons and Bible stories about how Goliath stood for obstacles in my life, and that I was David. And the gifts and talents I had were like the five smooth stones David had, and that if I just put my trust in God and use the gifts He’s given me, I can face the giants in my life.
But that isn’t the point of the story. The point of the story is that David stood alone against the giant when all the armies of Israel were still cowering in their tents. This was representative combat. Look quickly at just a couple of verses from 1 Samuel 17. Beginning in verse 8, Goliath taunts the Israelites and says,
Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.” 10 And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together.” 11 When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid.
Verse 24 piles it on: All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid.
And guess who was right there with them, fleeing from the battle and trembling with fear: Saul.
Remember when Israel demanded a king? Look again at what they told Samuel in chapter 8. We want a king who will go out before us and fight our battles.
20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
Saul could never be the one who could go before the people and fight their battles for them. But when David, the Lord’s chosen king, faced Goliath, he was doing exactly what the people had asked for. He was fighting the battle they couldn’t fight. He was killing the enemy they couldn’t kill.
David was never meant to be an example for us to follow. His job was to point to the only Savior that is worth following. And that’s Jesus.
[Invitation]
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