Abounding Grace

Guest (Larry): Coming up on Abounding Grace. Accusations will come. And some of the most deepest, burning accusations come to an area of your life where you are absolutely a man or a woman of integrity in that area. Doesn't that make sense? Where the wildest accusations, the ones that no one should ever believe are right, it’s just like a shot to the arrow to the heart of your integrity, of your character, your name, how you're known, your reputation.

And of course, that's going to provoke, like, "What do you mean? How could you say such a thing?" It's going to provoke these things, and how careful we need to be because they will come. The Bible says that the devil is the accuser of the brethren. He accuses us before the throne of God day and night.

From great potential to great disaster. That in a nutshell is the story of King Saul. And very sadly, it's a story that's been repeated through the ages. We hope and pray today's message from Pastor Ed Taylor will encourage you in a much different direction, and that is a life that is lived for the glory of God rather than the flesh. We're watching the downfall of a man and king as we open 1 Samuel chapter 14 here on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: How careful we need to be. See, we know what's going on in Saul. Why? Because right away we see that not only does he make a foolish vow, making people keep this foolish oath, but he says instead of the Lord saving Israel that day, he's going to take vengeance on his enemies. As a result, back in verse 24 of Samuel 14, none of the people tasted food.

What a dumb thing. These guys are military monsters. They are the elite. They've been fighting and fighting and fighting. Saul, because of his pride and arrogance, calls down a foolish pride. "Nobody eat." You'll see the results of it. According to verse 24, it says all the men of Israel were distressed that day. It leads to a distressing.

In verse 25, the people of the land came to the forest. There was honey on the ground. When the people had come into the woods, there was honey dripping, but no one put his hand to the mouth for the people feared the oath. Not only are they distressed, but they're fearful. These are military warriors put into a place of distressing fear.

Now Jonathan hadn't heard the charge, heard his father's charge in verse 27, the people with an oath. Therefore, he stretched out the end of his rod that was in his hand, dipped it in a honeycomb, put it in his hand to his mouth, and his countenance brightened. A lot of times with people—like my mom had this—when she had low blood sugar, if she would just take something sweet, boy, it would just pick her up. It would pep her up.

That's exactly what's happening here. He was losing energy. He has been fighting with his armor-bearer. He takes a little honey, which would have been good for anybody to take it. His countenance immediately is better. He's immediately recharged. Then one of the people said, "Your father strictly charged the people with an oath saying, 'Cursed is the man who eats food this day.'"

The people, here's another consequence of a foolish vow. The people were very faint. They were distressed, faint, very faint, and fearful. How much better if the people had eaten freely in verse 29. Jonathan said, "My father has troubled the land. Look now how my countenance was brightened because I tasted a little of this honey."

How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies which they found. For now, would there not have been a much greater slaughter among the Philistines? What a foolish thing to do. If you're looking for a phrase to describe King Saul here, the best phrase that I could come up with is this is a fleshly, carnal man.

For reference, you can jot it down in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 beginning right in verse 1. Paul just straight up tells the church, "You guys are being carnal." He describes what it looks like and what was going on in their lives. This is Saul taking things into his own hands. Jonathan didn't hear anything. He ate because he was hungry and his action put him in a very difficult position.

God used him to bring victory, but his dad and king put him under false defeat. There was victory from the Lord, but the oppression of man and the bad decisions of man put them under false defeat. His conclusion was very wise, wasn't it, verse 29. "My father has troubled the land."

Verse 31. Now they had driven back the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon, so the people were very faint. The people rushed on the spoil and took sheep, oxen, calves, and slaughtered them on the ground. The people ate them with the blood. Then they told Saul saying, "Look, the people are sinning against the Lord by eating with the blood."

He said, "You have dealt treacherously. Roll a large stone to me this day." Saul said, "Disperse yourselves among the people and say to them, 'Bring me here every man's ox and every man's sheep. Slaughter them here and eat and do not sin against the Lord by eating with the blood.'"

So every one of the people brought his ox with him that night and slaughtered it there. Then Saul built an altar to the Lord. This was the first altar that he built to the Lord. Saul's foolish vow not only weakened the troops, but created in them an unusual craving for food to replenish themselves.

They wildly ate the food of the enemy like wild beasts. They ate it unclean and unprepared. With the spoils, the soldiers acted wildly, even eating it with the blood, not even taking note of knowing that they shouldn't be doing that. Yet in verse 33, as Saul jumps in, what does he do? He blames the people.

Then they told Saul, "Look, the people are sinning against the Lord." Then he says, "You've dealt treacherously." He created this. It's not taking responsibility away from the people, but as the leader, you and I can really help people or hurt people. Saul's led them to this. It was his sinful actions.

Then once again, Saul takes the role of a priest. He's not a priest to try to correct this in his flesh. How careful we need to be to not try to perfect in the flesh what God has begun in the spirit. That's what the Bible says. How careful we need to be to not perfect in the flesh what God has begun in the spirit.

When you step out in the flesh, then you recognize when God busts you on it, you recognize there's only one good response to our fleshly actions. You know what it is? Repentance. That's the only acceptable response. When God busts us on it and he reveals something in our lives, maybe God uses someone to share a word with us or the obvious situation is, "Man, I was just fleshly on that."

The only one response that will bring you back into right relationship with the Lord and with others is repentance. Like David said in Psalm 51, verse 2, he says, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin." Listen, trying to fix something in the flesh that has already been broken because of the flesh will only lead to disaster.

Let me repeat that. Trying to fix something in the flesh, our own human ideas, our own human energy, trying to fix something in the flesh that was already broken because of the flesh will only lead to disaster. You know why? You know what the Bible says, Romans chapter 8 verse 8. The Bible says this: "So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God."

How many of us in the flesh can please God? None. How often can we please God in the flesh? Never. Ever. Of course, the example that comes to mind so quickly in my mind is Abram and Sarah being told to wait for the promise of God and deciding, "No, it's impossible. God can't do this. Here's Hagar. It's culturally customary. Just go into Hagar and we'll make our own kid and we'll fulfill the promise of God."

A fleshly response that led to Ishmael, and from Ishmael, we still suffer the consequences of that fleshly decision to this very day. To this very day. Don't let verse 35 fool you here. Saul built an altar to the Lord. He built an altar to the Lord in the flesh. He built an altar to the Lord in the flesh.

A lot of times I've noticed that there is a temptation to try to cover up fleshly works in our lives with an attitude of worship. It's such a dangerous thing where you come into an environment like this and you know your life isn't right. You know you're not walking with the Lord. You know that things aren't going the way that God desires.

You know that you're in sin. You know that there's a fleshliness about you and you raise your hands. "Oh, I love you, Lord." No, you don't. Not in the way that he prescribes. Because if you're in the company of believers and God has revealed to you the area of your life, you only have one response: repentance. Get things right.

Get things right, first of all, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, then you love your neighbor as yourself. You don't just build, "Oh, I'm going to build an altar, that'll cover it up." We'll continue on reading with King Saul's life. Building an altar and not dealing with your flesh covers nothing up.

This guy made a foolish vow that's going to lead him to want to kill his own son, to abandon his own son. That's not from the Lord. Pick up with me in verse 36. Saul said, "Let us go down after the Philistines by night and plunder them until the morning light and let us not leave a man of them." They said, "Do whatever seems good to you."

Then the priest said, "Let us draw near to God here." So Saul asked counsel of God. "Shall I go down to the Philistines?" Now that's a good phrase: "Saul asked counsel of God." Let's see how God responds. "Shall I go down to the Philistines? Will you deliver them into the hand of Israel?" But he didn't answer him that day. Wow.

You see the rashness of King Saul ready to put his own son to death, as we'll see in a moment. He cries out as he's looking for wisdom and in his prayer, God does not answer his prayer. You know when our prayers aren't answered, church? It's one of God's ways—it's not the only, but it's one of God's ways—of saying to us, "Something isn't right, son. Something's not right, daughter."

Heavens are going to be silent because something's not right. According to Psalm 66 in verse 18, it says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. God didn't answer because Saul wasn't ready to receive the answer.

It seems that Saul was blaming his son. It was an irrational, unspiritual action that leads to really a dumb response. Notice it says in verse 38. Saul said, "Come over here, all you chiefs of the people and know and see what this sin was today. For as the Lord lives who saves Israel"—now he says it—"though it be Jonathan my son, he shall surely die." Really? Really?

But not a man among all the people answered him. In this he said to all Israel, "You will be on the one side, my son Jonathan and I will be on the other side." The people said to Saul, "Do what seems good to you." Therefore, Saul said to the Lord God of Israel, "Give a perfect lot." So Saul and Jonathan were taken but the people escaped.

Saul said, "Cast lots between my son Jonathan and me," so Jonathan was taken. Then Saul said to Jonathan, "Tell me what you have done." Jonathan told him and said, "I only tasted a little honey with the end of the rod that was in my hand. So now I must die?"

Saul answered, "God do so and more also, for you shall surely die, Jonathan." But the people said to Saul, "Shall Jonathan die who's accomplished this great salvation of Israel? Certainly not. As the Lord lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day." So the people rescued Jonathan and he did not die.

Praise God for those people. Praise God for people who will stand up for what is right when someone needs to stand up for what is right. They saved Jonathan's life. This is the King of Israel ready to kill his own son because of a foolish vow that he made that had no bearing in relation to God.

The people go, "You're not going to do that. You're the king but we're not going to do that. You're not going to kill Jonathan." Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines and the Philistines went to their own place. The Lord sorts it all out. Saul's more determined to kill his own son for taking honey when he was hungry rather than defending himself or fighting back.

Notice what Jonathan said. He said it matter-of-factly, but he says in verse 43, "So now I must die?" Is that the way it is? "I need to die because I broke your foolish vow?" Now we're often faced, are we not, church, with situations where someone is pushing us for a defense, maybe even prodding us to defend ourselves.

Isn't it in those times when you really feel like defending yourself? Anybody ever feel like they just really want to defend themselves? Okay, three people. Five people. I see a hand back there. Amen. Do I have an amen? Can I get one over here? So some of us, there are times we just feel that overwhelming human response to defend ourselves.

It's natural. Confronted with a situation where someone's pushing for a defense, we want to defend ourselves. We desire to stand up for ourselves. Too many times not only do we want, but we often take things into our own hands, even wanting to inflict revenge on others or just simply defend ourselves.

After all, you've been hurt so badly that you think it's your right now to make them hurt just as badly. You might even feel it right now as we're going through this study. You may see this unfold and you go, "How unfair and how unrighteous, how wrong, how foolish." You're even trying to defend Jonathan.

Yet as we have that desire to jump in and defend ourselves, I'm reminded of what my pastor taught me so many years ago repetitively, still teaching me, and I have the privilege of handing it down to you and just planting that seed in your heart. Our pastor, Pastor Chuck, and my pastor, Pastor Jeff, always encourages us to be spiritually careful and biblically grounded when accusations come.

Spiritually careful and biblically grounded when accusations come. You want to know why? Accusations will come. And some of the most deepest, burning accusations come to an area of your life where you are absolutely a man or a woman of integrity in that area.

Doesn't that make sense? Where the wildest accusations, the ones that no one should ever believe are right, it’s just like a shot to the arrow to the heart of your integrity, of your character, your name, how you're known, your reputation. And of course, that's going to provoke, like, "What do you mean? How could you say such a thing?"

It's going to provoke these things and how careful we need to be because they will come. The Bible says that the devil is the accuser of the brethren. He accuses us before the throne of God day and night. Accusations come from the devil, accusations come from this world system as it turns upon righteousness and blames everything on the believers, blames everything on Christians.

Every problem in the world is because of Christians in them. It just doesn't even make any sense whatsoever. It's upside down. We're living in a day, aren't we, where the Bible says that people are calling good evil and evil good. Don't be surprised by it. Even from the lips of those that may claim to be believers, where some of the most vicious accusations may come from people that you love and are close to.

The enemy is relentless and wants to destroy your life. Isn't that good news? Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Amen. And the devil hates you and has a wicked, horrible plan to destroy your life. So isn't it good to know that nothing can separate us from the love of God?

That he's holding tight in our lives, loving and caring for you and for me, so protective. So when we're confronted with accusations, remember this. Option number one: jump in and defend ourselves. If that's what you want to do, then God will let you. If you want to be a defender of yourself and you want to jump in and defend yourself, then take option number one.

See, the problem though is that you'll never be able to defend yourself against false accusations. You want to know why? They're false. They're not true. They're spoken by someone that is deceived or purposely deceitful. So when you go to defend yourself—have you ever done this—where you might have gotten an email and then you responded with an email and then they turned that email against you?

Before you know it, you're like, "Oh my God." I know. But that's what happens. Here's the problem. The real problem is that when we jump into the mud, all that really happens is we get muddy. Dirty up, and the situation gets muddier and gets dirtier and it doesn't really solve anything.

But option number two is to step back and watch God be our defender. If we truly are men and women of integrity, if we truly do have a life that reflects the character and nature of God, then just sit and wait and watch. God will be your defender. If you want God to be your defender, God will watch your back.

You can trust him. Not only will God watch your back, I would suggest to you today that God is watching your back. He will bring about equity and justice in his timing. How do we know this? Because Jesus' own precious son died to forgive you of your sins. He gave his all for you.

He died so that you and I might live. In his resurrection, you and I might find strength and sufficiency for our everyday life, including accusations that are thrown our way. We're not to respond in our own flesh, in our own strength, in our own wisdom. As Jonathan stands there and says, "I die," notice how many people jumped in and said, "No, you don't. You will not kill Jonathan."

It's almost as if they're like, "You kill us before you kill Jonathan. You're missing something. Saul, king, that's your son. You're missing something and you're not going to kill him." Then Jonathan's life, I'm just so thankful, so, so thankful for the people. Verse 45. Did you see that? "The people."

We don't know their names. All we know is the people stood up and the people rescued, it says at the end of verse 45, rescued Jonathan and he did not die. He died to himself only to live. Then the rest in verse 47 to 52 just has a lot more of Saul turning his attention back to fighting the enemy.

Notice Saul established his sovereignty over Israel. He fought against his enemies on every side in verse 48. He gathered an army, attacked the Amalekites to deliver Israel from the hand of those who plundered them. The sons of Saul were Jonathan, Ishvi—somebody name your kid that, and I'll dedicate them—Malchi-Shua.

In the names of his two daughters were these, Merab and the name of his younger Michal. She'll come up later, you Bible students. The name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam, the daughter of Ahimaaz, and the name of the commander of the army was Abner, son of Ner. These are all important people that are going to come up through our study through 2 Samuel, so take note of them.

Kish, the father of Saul; Ner, the father of Abner, was the son of Abiel. Now there was a fierce war with the Philistines all the days of Saul. When Saul saw any strong man or any valiant man, he took him for himself.

Guest (Larry): Well, today on Abounding Grace, we brought you a portion of our study in 1 and 2 Samuel. Pastor Ed Taylor is our Bible teacher. Would you like to hear this again? If so, just visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or oneplace.com. You can also download the Calvary Church app as well. Pastor Ed, our pick of the month is a book called The End Times in Chronological Order. How might this help our listeners better understand what the Bible predicts will happen in the last days?

Pastor Ed Taylor: A lot of questions we get, Larry, through the ministry here at the church, on our live radio broadcast as well, is about the end times. Trying to piece all the scriptures and events together so that they're understandable, and this book really helps. It is a view that I hold to biblically.

We are a fellowship family that believes in the rapture of the church that will come and can come at any time, premillennial, pretribulational rapture of the church. Through this book, it will help you put a lot of the pieces together watching things happen one by one. And we really do want you to get this resource to support us in the ministry.

We so appreciate you. I recognize that things are hard and challenging, and if all you can do is pray for us, thank you, thank you, thank you. But if you can support us financially, it just helps to continue Bible teaching around the country on the radio. So pick a copy up.

If you have anything over and above the donation price, that's fantastic, but I know the Lord will use it and we want to know more and more of what the Bible has to say about the end times, and this is a great resource.

Guest (Larry): Ask for a copy of The End Times in Chronological Order when you support the ministry today with a gift of $25 or more. Call 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE or order it online at calvaryco.store. Please remember this ministry is made possible through the support of our listeners, and we are grateful for whatever the Lord leads you to do.

It would be great to hear from you. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. Donations can also be made online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Glad you've taken time out for our study in 1 Samuel. This has been Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. We'll look for you next time as we open the word together in search of God's abounding grace.