Abounding Grace

Larry: Next, on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: You don't have to take things into your own hands. Whenever I began to take things into my own hands is when I really messed things up. And I can make a royal mess of things. How important it is just to learn just leave it with the Lord. The Lord is my defense. If the Lord wants to take care of Saul, he'll take care of Saul. But I'm keeping my eyes on the Lord. I'm serving him with my life. I'm giving myself completely over to him. He owns my life. He's responsible for my life so that when you come to a problem and you come to something that even when you're lacking faith, you can just ride on it.

This is a problem, but I belong to the Lord, so this is the Lord's problem. And you can trust him.

Larry: A couple of years ago, a dear friend of ours, Jeff Johnson, went home to be with the Lord. And what a great example he was on how to finish the race well. But there are other examples we could cite of those who had a terrible ending to their lives. Today on Abounding Grace, we'll draw attention to some of King Saul's final words. I played the fool and erred exceedingly. He made a series of bad decisions late in life that we can learn from and can serve to help us trust in God from start to finish.

Here is Pastor Ed Taylor in 1 Samuel 26.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Back in 1 Samuel, this is where you and I have to be careful. Please listen. Please listen. Because let's just say let's just say that you do see with eyes of faith. You do see the chariots of fire. You do have faith in God. You do trust the situation is difficult. The situation is opportunistic, whatever it might be. We need to be careful of verse 8. In verse 8, Abishai gives some advice. And in this vulnerable moment, Abishai says in verse 8 of 1 Samuel 26, he says Abishai said to David, God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day.

Is that true or false? It's false. But it is coming from your closest associate. The guy you went down with, the guy that had enough bravery to go down with you into the camp could end your life. Very similar to David and Jonathan when they went to go fight at the Philistines and take them on all by themselves. He gave them he gave them advice as close as you could probably feel his breath is how close they are. And you could feel the tension in the the the the quietness and every There he is. Let me now There he is.

God is taking him in, but I you know, it's almost like I remember what happened in the cave. Let's not do that again. I'll take care of him. And if David wasn't walking in the spirit, he could have said yes to that. He could have said he could have just figured it all out and go you know, well, we'll take Saul out, but it's not my problem cuz I didn't do it. I can just tell God one, you know, it's Abishai, man, you you I didn't check the fingerprints and they're not on the spear. I'm just going to go over here and play my harp and just wait for it, you know.

But that's not what happened. And so here's my counsel to you, and I believe what the word of the Lord is for us. We need to be careful with advice that we solicit and receive. We need to be careful. It's on us to make the right decision. Sometimes we face dangers from those that are against us, but also sometimes we face danger from those that are closest to us, like overzealous friends like Abishai, who just thinks they can take care of it. That was a horrible idea. David stood in confidence knowing his place in the Lord, confident in his calling, confident that God would take care of it.

You know, jot it down in Proverbs chapter 11 verse 14. It says, where there is no counsel, the people fail, but in the multitude of counselors, there's safety. And I say amen. In Proverbs chapter 15 verse 22, where without counsel, plans go awry, but in the multitude of counselors, they are established. And I would say it's so encouraging to be surrounded by wisdom and good counsel, but we must still be aware of bad counsel from close friends. And you can have a multitude of counselors that are all repeating the same bad counsel. You need to have eyes of the Lord and hear from the Lord and be able to stand in confidence.

David wisely refuses and gives wise biblical wisdom for his answer when he says, I'm not striking him verse 10 because I trust the Lord. That's what verse 10 basically he's saying. I trust God. As the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him or his day shall come to die or he'll go out to battle and perish, but it's not going to be by my hands. David Saul will get his, but it won't be from me. That's what he's saying. I trust God. And it is wise, isn't it, just to commit your ways to the Lord.

Just commit your situation to the Lord. David has he has great wisdom. And And then he says even on top of that, the Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the one that God has chosen, Lord's anointed. Just let's take the spear and the jug and take off. We'll take a proof that we were here and show Saul once again that we spared his life, that God spared his life. Now, here we see David with a complete turnaround for the good, so different than Nabal. Nabal, he was ready to wipe out every male.

He was so upset. He was so in the flesh. I mean, what this tells me is that man, if you are a man or a woman that's known in the flesh, you can get in the spirit like that. That was a snap of the finger. It wasn't very loud, but they're not very loud, but you get the point. You snap and you can hear your own that quick. You can be in the spirit that quick. You can in one breath want to take out Nabal and all the men. And in the very next episode of your life, be such a man or woman of the spirit.

You're not bound as we saying in our song, you're not bound by the shackles of the flesh that's come to destroy you and to take you out. You go, well, you know, I'm just a fleshly person. Only because you want to be because God has delivered you. And this is a great episode. Nabal, he's going to avenge himself. He was going to have his way. And now David's willing to commit his life to the Lord. And this is man, there's hope for us. There's hope for us. Here Saul is out to kill David, chasing him all over the countryside, the wilderness.

And David says, I'm not going to touch him. I I'm I don't need to touch him. The Lord will take care of him. His time will come. It will happen. I trust the Lord. I am going to leave him in the Lord's hands and let the Lord handle this. And what was the result? The result was David still had to live on the run. Because there is a price. I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone yesterday as we were just talking about life. And a young man, very young in the Lord, and he's he's young in years, but he's not young in the Lord.

And I said this to him. I said, look, and I've shared this with you many times, but I said, look, I'd rather have the consequences of obedience any day over the consequences of disobedience. And And they that pain is often very similar. You go, David did the right thing. David did the right thing. Yay. If it was a movie, everybody's clapping. David, that's it. You're the man. No more foolishness like Nabal. And then you know the next scene is David there in the throne having grapes and eating and man, because that's what God always does when he rewards obedience, right?

He always rewards obedience with success and happily ever after. Not maybe not on this side of eternity. You may still be completely obedient and then your very next breath is what? On the run. Running for your life. That's our David here. That's always wise, by the way, in verse 10 to commit your life to the Lord. It's always wise to trust an unknown future to a God who is well known and knows the future, thus knows how to handle your situation. It's always wise to not take things into your own hands. It's always wise, and I'll just read it to you in Psalm 37.

It's always wise in your life, in mine to trust in the Lord verse 3 and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

Cease from anger, forsake wrath. Do not fret. It only causes harm. Evil doers will be cut off, but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. That's a wise thing to do. And if you want some homework, go through that section in Psalm 37 and count how many commands God gives you. Count how many commands just in that little section. I I see in mine, I'm not going to give you the number, but I noticed in mine I wrote little circle next to every command. Dwell, do good, don't fret, trust. That's a little I gave you a little cheat sheet right there on how to do it.

All the verbs, those are all commands from the Lord. You don't have to take things into your own hands. Whenever I began to take things into my own hands is when I really messed things up and I can make a royal mess of things. How important it is just to learn just leave it with the Lord. The Lord is my defense. If the Lord wants to take care of Saul, he'll take care of Saul. But I'm keeping my eyes on the Lord. I am serving him with my life. I'm giving myself completely over to him.

He owns my life. He's responsible for my life so that when you come to a problem and you come to something that even when you're lacking faith, you can just ride on it. This is a problem, but I belong to the Lord, so this is the Lord 's problem. And you can trust him. And so some of you listening in are going, man, it's easy for you to say preacher boy. And I'd have to agree with you. I would have to agree with you. It's easy to say. It's easy to read in David's life. But we haven't read your journal lately.

I I I know. I know, but I do know this. God's word is true. When I trust him, he brings his word to pass in my life. I do know that. I'm just not going to do it. Not I'm just going to let the Lord take care of it. Now back in verse 13 of chapter 26. Then David went over to the other side and stood on the top of a hill far off, a great distance being between them. And David called out to the people to Abner, the son of Ner, saying, do you answer, Abner?

And Abner answered and said, who are you calling out to the king? And David said to Abner, are you not a man? He's calling him out. Like, are you not a man who's like you in Israel? Why haven't you guarded the Lord your king, the one for the people in order to destroy for one of the people came in to destroy the Lord your king. This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you are worthy to die because you have not guarded your master, the Lord's anointed. Now see where the king's spear is and where the jug of water was that was by his head.

And so after getting a safe distance away, David calls out Abner, challenging Abner for allowing Saul to be in such jeopardy and danger. And David, I mean, he's just standing in boldness and courage. He's in standing in authority. And this is the promise of God, friends. This is the promise of God. The Bible says this, jot it down. Listen. Proverbs chapter 28 verse 1. The wicked The wicked run away when no one is chasing them, but the godly are as bold as lions. Godliness develops courage and boldness. I mean, David is being pretty bold here.

Abner, you deserve to die. You aren't protecting the king. Verse 17. And Saul knew David's voice and said, is that your voice, my son David? And David said, it is my voice, my lord, oh king. And he said, why does my lord thus pursue his servant? What have I done? What evil is in my hand? Now, therefore, please let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If the lord has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. I mean, if you if this is really from the Lord, then let's leave it before the Lord.

That's what he's saying. He's calling for a coming together at the cross. If it's if you are really fulfilling then I think the Lord would accept the sacrifice for whatever it is. But if it 's the children of men verse 19, may they be cursed before the Lord for they've driven driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord saying, go serve other gods. Now, therefore, do not let my blood fall to the earth before the face of the Lord, for the king of Israel's come out to seek a flee as one hunts for a partridge in the mountains.

And once again, David tries to reason with King Saul and show how wrong his actions really were. If David was really guilty, then he'd be willing to bring a sacrifice so his sin would be forgiven by God and King Saul wouldn't chase him anymore. But if King Saul was chasing David because of the lies and he was listening to the lies and he was acting on lies and he himself was caught up, then he's guilty. And he's going to have to face God. And once again, Saul, for whatever reason, sounds so sincere and godly, but his heart's far from God.

And I believe there are those times in life in difficult situations when especially with other people, when we're really hoping that reason and logic and sound answers will change a person's heart toward the situation that that just as you just if you could just explain it, if you could just just explain everything. Well, let me tell you, friend, you could talk it out, you can explain it out, you can reason it out, you can do a pie chart, you can do a PowerPoint presentation, you can list every single situation that makes sense to everyone listening, but only God can change their hearts.

Only God changes hearts. David shows us David shows us here that that man can hear the most sound wisdom over and over and yet still harden their hearts toward the truth. But you know what happens when we try to reason and we try to talk it out and try to explain it. We're suddenly entering into the realm of taking things in our own hands. We may not be there completely, but it's like, man, if I could just if I can just Remember in the New Testament, Jesus gave Jesus has that interaction with the rich man in Hades.

And the rich man is very concerned because his eternity is sealed. He is he has made his choice. He is going to spend eternity apart from God. But he has a concern. You remember who it was for? His family, his brothers. And he was reasoning in hell. He was still reasoning, you know, if you will just send someone to my brothers, just send someone that they won't have to have And I'm paraphrasing the kind of end of my life life like me. Just send someone. And remember the counsel given was, hey, they already have the prophets.

They already know what they need to know. Even if we were to send someone that would rise up from the dead, they wouldn't believe. Friends, it's wise to commit your ways to the Lord. If there's an opportunity to share, take the opportunity. David did. But understand that he did that in the context of trusting the Lord. That 's where he's at. Verse 21. Saul said, I have send returned my son David, for I will harm you no more because my life was precious in your eyes this day. Do you guys like have a pen out?

Do you have a highlighter out? Are you ready? You've got to mark this phrase. For indeed I have played the fool and erred exceedingly. You want to mark that circle it, underline it because this is the final banner over Saul's life. This is how he ended his life. I've played the fool. This is it. I hope that that's not my final words in life. I've played the fool. I have disobeyed God my entire life. I have played games with God. I have whatever it might be in Saul's life. I've played the fool. Saul may or may not really understand how close to death he really is, but how sad for a person to look back on their life and see the foolishness of a life of bad decisions.

It's been said that and I quote, every man knows the truth about himself, though it may be buried deep down inside, end quote. And it's true. We know the folly of our past. We know that we've done foolish things. Deep inside, we know the truth and we made a lot of mistakes. Saul here caught by surprise utters the truth. I've played the fool. And if you look back at the life of King Saul, this is exactly what happened. This is true in his life. It's accurate. It's an accurate assessment of his life. This doesn't come from a weight of condemnation.

This doesn't come as you know, in those seasons of life, we might look back and there's a season of life where we just are embarrassed by it, shameful. That this is Saul looks back at the entirety of his life and had so much potential. This isn't this episode, you know, I could have done better. Yeah, you know, I think if we all look backwards, we're all going to come to that conclusion. Amen. Anybody disagree? Is everybody Hey, we all could do better episodically in our lives. We all could have You know, Marie and I were just talking about this recently, you know, what would we do differently and how would we do things, you know?

There's a piece of that question, isn't there, where you're like, well, there's a lot I wouldn't do because I wouldn't have the life I have right now. However, if I could still have the life I have right now, you know, I would have been saved a lot earlier in life. I would have cared and loved for people so much earlier with the influence that God gave me even in elementary school into people's lives and how I just wasted it and then how I wasted it in junior high and how I wasted it when I started drugs and alcohol and how I wasted it all throughout my high school years, how I wasted it with a girl that loved me and how I wasted it with my son in high school, how I wasted it and how I lost I mean I mean if that if that's what Saul was saying, then I totally get it.

But that's not what he's saying. This is his life because in my life and in yours, where we had a season or maybe a long life of like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Man, if I could do it over, I would do different things a little differently. Saul looks back and he's like, I've just been foolish. And And he is going to die not too long from now. What is an accompanied with this? Cuz maybe you're here today and you go, Ed, I didn't live your life. I am living that past life. And I could say if I was to die tonight that the last phrase in my mouth would be I played the fool.

But what Saul didn't do, you can do those of you that are listening to right now that you can come to the conclusion and I go, you know, Ed, I look at my life and I have played the fool. And now the next thing to do is to ask for forgiveness from God, to turn away from your foolish past, to set aside the sinful human anti-God life and submit yourself to a God that loves you. You can have a change of direction today. You can be in a place where as you submit yourself to God, he will change you from the inside out.

The Bible speaks of you being born again. That means you have new life in him. Saul, when you look back on his life, he had every opportunity in the world of being a great man. He was big in stature, remember, good looking. He came from a good home. He started out so humble. God called him to be king. God anointed him, forgave him of his spirit. God surrounded him with godly men. Every opportunity was given to Saul to go down in history as one of the greatest men of Israel, but he chose to play the fool with all that was given to him.

He played a fool because he tried to hide from the call of God. He played the fool because remember he entered into the area of the priesthood where he had no right being offering a sacrifice and not being patient waiting for Samuel. He played the fool because his heart became lifted up with pride. He played the fool because he failed to submit his life totally to God and he rebelled against the order of God. And when caught by the prophet, he sought to excuse himself. Remember, I I I brought the sheep and the oxen back to sacrifice to God.

It was the people's fault. Over and over again, the testimony of his life is foolishness. And only one life for us will soon be passed and only what's done for Jesus Christ will last. You don't have to play the fool. And as the chapter closes, we have Saul going back to Gibeah, notice. David answers him in verse 22. Here's the king's spear. Let one of the young men come over and get it. I don't want your spear. I'm not a man of the spear. May the Lord repay every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness.

For the Lord delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed. And indeed as your life is valued much this day in my eyes, so let my life be valued much in the eyes of the Lord and let him deliver me out of all of my tribulation. And Saul said to David, may you be blessed, my son. You shall both do great things and shall also still prevail. Man, words are so cheap. That's all these are, cheap words. David went on his way and Saul returned to his place.

You know, Saul's going to go back to Gibeah, but David's going to head to the area of Gath. Gath is not a good place for David, church. His faith lapses there again. It's another backward step in his life, chapter 27. One step back often leads to other failures. He goes into the camp of the enemy which is failure exists in the camp of the enemy as we'll see. David's mistake of seeking refuge in the camp of the enemy will lead to sending and committing some pretty bad things. Read ahead for our next study. Read ahead of the deceit and the lies and all kinds of junk.

Larry: Well, that's coming up next time on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We hope you can be with us for that very important study. Now, Pastor Ed, in today's message, you noticed that Saul had a tragic ending to his life and you underscored his words, I played the fool. And maybe someone listening right now feels as though that's been their life story thus far. What words of encouragement would you share with them? Is it too late for a turnaround?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Yeah, that's a phrase that I wanted to emphasize, Larry. It does strike you, doesn't it? I played the fool. And for anyone listening that can say that same thing about their past and they're listening to me right now, today's the day of change. You can repent. You can make substantive change. You can leave your past. You can make it right. You can get right with the Lord. I mean, none of us I I could look at a large swath of my life where I played the fool. I can't undo it. I can't undo the past, but I can chart the future.

I can It can be different. And it has been different for me and it can be different for you. So stop playing the fool. Do what's right. Make the right choices. Honor the Lord. Obey him and watch him work in your life. He promised. He has said in his word that he can restore the years that the locust has eaten. Let him do that work. Turn to him today.

Larry: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Ed. And listening friend, if you'd like to hear today's message again, just drop by aboundinggraceradio.com. We're also on oneplace.com. What happens when God's spirit invades the heart of his people? Author Jim Symmula sets out to answer that very question in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. With over a million copies sold, this book will show you what the Holy Spirit can do when believers get serious about prayer and the gospel. When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

Give us a call at 877-30 Grace. That's 877-30 Grace. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store. You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com. And thank you in advance for helping us reach people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ here on the radio and online. Glad you've taken time out for our study in 1 Samuel. Join Pastor Ed each day on this station as we continue to learn how to live by God's Abounding Grace.

Guest (Female): That you would take my place. Then you would bear my cross. You laid down your life that I would be set free. Oh Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me.

Larry: Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado, here in Aurora.