Sound Doctrine

Guest (Male): We all want a life filled with smooth sailing, but sometimes when things are going well, it's for a not-so-good reason. Here's Pastor Jeff to explain.

Jeff Johnson: Sometimes the enemy will deceive us this way and not have anything happening with you at all. Oh, things are going all right with you and you think everything's fine. At work it's all right, at home it's okay. All of a sudden you're sitting there going, "Hey, I don't have any problems."

You don't have any problems, huh? What are you doing for the Lord is my question. If you were trying to do something for the Lord, I grant you problems. You'll have warfare. How come you don't have warfare? "Well, I'm just kicking back." Ah, yes, you're just kicking back. Come on, step out. Try to do something. Try to witness to the guy you're working with at work or try to do this, and you'll find that the warfare will begin.

Guest (Male): Are you ready for a wonderful time in the word? We've got a helpful study in store for you today from 1 Samuel here on Sound Doctrine. Samuel had been a faithful judge over Israel and God had been nothing but good to His people, but the people of Israel lost sight of that and cried out for a king. They rejected Samuel and the Lord without a legitimate reason and in doing so they paid a heavy price. This is about to unfold before our eyes in 1 Samuel 11 and it would be good of us to see how they derailed so we don't do the same. Here is Pastor Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: This morning we're going to talk about the inward and outward warfare that we are up against as Christians and we're going to talk about how to have victory both in the inward and the outward warfare that we find ourselves in. 1 Samuel Chapter 11. Now Israel wanted a king and so God, be careful again what you ask for, God gave them a fleshly finite king that they could see and handle and touch so they could become like other nations is the theme as we've been going through here. They wanted to be like everybody else.

The name of the king was Saul. Samuel has just now finished his public presentation of this king to the people. Remember when finally the curtain was drawn and the chair was there but there was nobody there? Everybody said, "Well, it's Saul, but where is Saul?" Saul? Saul, you're there backstage? He wasn't backstage. He wasn't anywhere. They had to go looking through the luggage and they found him hiding underneath all the luggage. He was sitting there going, "I don't want to do this." He was totally petrified. He didn't want this job and yet the Lord had called him to be king. And so they presented him as king and remember now as Saul is about to go home that God surrounds Saul with men. It says whose hearts have been touched by God. The awesome potential of that. Men and women who are gathered together whose hearts had been touched by God can do anything. As God does that work in us to do a work through us.

Now we left Saul as he is going home now and opposition had risen up. As he went home he heard the accusations that the small group was saying about him and about his kingdom. Here he is put up as king and already he's got murmurers and gripers. They're called the sons of Belial or the sons of Satan, troublemakers and they're talking about him. They're talking about, "Who is this man that could rule over us?" It's interesting how Saul handles his first situation. He handles it as a leader would, with a cool and calm heart. He holds his peace.

Now at this point, the people hadn't really ratified his choice, God's choice for them. They didn't really accept him totally at this point. So Saul goes home to his farm and we start out in Chapter 11. Here in Chapter 11 we are revealed the inner and outward warfare that was going on. First we look at the inner because the conflict that was happening within Saul happens within all of us and that is the warfare we find ourselves in in this flesh. Listen, we have three enemies. One of them is the world. It's out there, outward, right? We have all kinds of things we contend with out there.

And yet the Bible says we also have another enemy that we're living in. You wake up with him every day called your flesh. I mean he's really close, isn't he? This is our enemy. This body, this tent that we live in can deceive us. We've got to be careful to understand it and to be careful about its lusts and understand that it's seeking to pull us down and come up against it with the spirit of the Lord. And then, of course, our third enemy is Satan that is lying constantly to us.

So we have these inward conflicts. The flesh lusts against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh. There's outward warfare and the devil uses the world and my flesh and he tempts me and he gets me out there in the world and says, "You need this" and "You got to have this." He just gets us, he tries to trip us up with the world or our flesh. Now I believe that both of these, the outward and the inward conflicts, have to go on together. And the reason I believe this, that they have to go on together, is because to have only outward conflict and no inward, I think one would become very arrogant and just saying, "Well, I'm different than everybody else. I don't have any problems." Oh, yes, there's the problem out here, but I am totally at peace.

How somebody can get off and just be a real attitude problem that there's nothing wrong with me. I'll tell you something about that. Sometimes the enemy will deceive us this way and not have anything happening with you at all. Oh, things are going all right with you and you think everything's fine and at work it's all right and home it's okay. All of a sudden you're sitting there going, "Hey, I don't have any problems." You don't have any problems, huh? What are you doing for the Lord is my question.

Many if you were trying to do something for the Lord, I grant you problems. You'll have warfare. How come you don't have warfare? "Well, I'm just kicking back." Ah, yes, you're just kicking back. Come on, step out. Try to do something. Try to witness to the guy you're working with at work or try to do this and you'll find that the warfare will begin. But that's what it's about. There's going to be conflicts. But the key is to have victory with the conflicts within and without and that's what we're going to be looking at with Saul's life here this morning.

So to conquer one is to have victory in both. Now Saul's inward battle at this point was not to become a proud authoritative type of dictator. He was very reserved. He was able to hold himself under control. The temptation, of course, was to wipe out the opposition, those talking about bad about you. I mean if you're king, usually the king says, "I don't want problems in my kingdom. Off with their heads. Just annihilate them. Wipe them out." And sometimes a king will get angry and do harsh things. And he held on. He didn't do that.

And so that temptation to wipe them out, he backed off. He had victory in the area of his anger and really what he was doing was pretending not to hear their accusations, which was very wise. Very wise. You see, we also need to follow Jesus' example when He was on the cross. Remember when they threatened Him and reviled Him? It says that He didn't threaten back neither did He revile them back. He didn't curse them as they cursed Him. Our reaction to people. What do you do when people come against you? What do you do when they're talking about you? What do you do with your inward man? How do you react?

Jesus committed himself to God who judges righteously as they were railing on him. What is the key for us to be able to hang say on a cross that people nailed us to? We didn't do anything wrong. Here we are nailed on a cross and then Jesus looks at those that nailed him and says, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing." Wow.

What a heart. What a victory. There's the key. Commit yourself to God and God will give you then the proper attitude and the proper way to handle the situation. You'll be able to then speak in the spirit instead of the flesh because so many times we get right in the flesh. We need victory. Jesus gives us that example how to have victory.

So it was a wise move him turning his deaf ear to their accusations. Self-restraint. I mean this guy Saul, we're seeing is meek. He's holding back. Now in Chapter 11 we see the next inner conflict that Saul will have, this temptation that he has as being king. He is king of Israel so in being king you have a lot of privileges. The temptation, of course, is letting it go to your head and start taking advantage of these privileges. But Saul is an interesting character. He just goes home and starts the farm. That's all he knows how to do. He doesn't know how to be a king. He just goes home and starts getting a plow and he starts farming.

He was open to wait on God's timing to bring him to the kingship. He wasn't going to try to force his way in and say, "Hey, you guys, I've just been presented as king. I'm king now. Listen, I'm king" and try to wave around "I'm king, I'm king." No, he was going to let God raise him up to be this king and in His timing. So far Saul has been able to experience victory with that inner conflict. He has overcome fear. He is now the king. He has overcome the power thing of being a king and then getting power happy and start coming down on people. The prestige of it all. He has overcome vengeance. People say something about you, you're going to get back at them. He's overcome that. These are inner conflicts that we have.

Now so far, this guy looks great. And we know outwardly already he looks great, right? We've been told that as we've been studying. Saul looked great outwardly. But he's also learning now that kingship is more than just looks. You need to be filled with God's Holy Spirit to have character and maturity. And he's learning this. Now let's look at the outward conflict and how Saul overcomes now the outward conflict that comes up against him. Look at Verse 1 of Chapter 11. Then Nahash the Amorite came up and encamped against Jabesh-Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said unto Nahash, "Make a covenant with us and we will serve thee."

The Amorites were old enemies of Israel. They were on the east side of Jordan, approximately and everything on the east side of Jordan, remember the Jordan is the cutoff line to the promised land. So everything on this side was kind of like the enemy. The Amorites lived over there towards Amman, Jordan of today and that was the location where they were living during then. Jabesh-Gilead is also on the east side of the Jordan River. And these Amorites being old enemies, they were remembered defeated in the Book of Judges by Israel. A very harsh defeat that Israel had against them.

They are now regrouping. They are now, you know how the enemy can be. They go down in a fall and are defeated but they remember that and they're angry. And so they get their forces back together, they get their weapons together, they start getting all of their manpower together. And this is what was happening as Nahash now is leading them, the captain of the guard of the Amorites to come against now this little village called Jabesh-Gilead to start their revenge against Israel.

Actually, Nahash and the Amorites were doing what all of those in around Israel today would love to do to Israel. In fact, in 1973, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East was the war of annihilation. If you talk to any Arabs around in that area, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, their plan was to strategically enter in by the volume of masses of tanks, 3,000 from one end, 4,000 from the other end. They were going to annihilate Israel, all the Jews, drive them into the Mediterranean and be done with them once and for all. That was what that war was all about.

There was great hatred and is today. There's great hatred towards the Jew around in their neighboring countries because of the past. And so we have it here. There is great hatred. Now this group of individuals at Jabesh-Gilead sees these Amorites coming with all of their forces and they go, "Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. You guys, let's make a deal. We see that you outnumber us. You're going to wipe us out. Hey, let's just have a treaty here and we'll surrender, we'll serve you." It's better to be red than dead. That old saying. And so we'll just give up. We're yours.

Here's the response, Verse 2: Nahash the Amorite answered them, "On this condition will I make a covenant with you, that I may thrust out all your right eyes and lay it for a reproach upon all Israel." Nahash, his name means serpent. He's a snake and he's revealing this right here. He wanted to do that annihilation. He wanted just to humiliate and annihilate these people. He wanted to get back at them because of this hatred that he had for them.

He couldn't forget Israel's victory over them years past. And he said, "Here's the deal." And he gives them the Godfather proposition. This is it. Bottom line: everyone of your right eyes will be plucked out. That's going to be compensation for all the misery that you've given to us. Now you say, "Right eye? Why would he want to pluck the right eye out?" Well, first of all, it would humiliate them, right? Have everybody's right eye plucked out. It wouldn't feel too good either.

But then if you think about it how they fought back then, they fought with their left hand in their shield and they fought with their sword in their right hand. So if they have their shield up and they have their right eye plucked out, they can't see through the shield with their left eye. They wouldn't be able to fight. So it was to disable them as a people. And so Verse 3, this is their response: The elders of Jabesh said unto them, "Well, can you give us seven days?" I mean this is a pretty heavy thing. "That we may send messengers unto all the coasts of Israel and then if there be no man to save us, we will come out to you. Just give us seven days."

Now Nahash allowed them to have the seven days and I believe it was because he was very confident that number one, they would never find anybody to save them. They would not be able to find any kind of leadership because he was confident that there's no leadership and this city was going down and he was going to take it down. Or he wouldn't have let them have seven days. You say, "Well, how and why was he confident that they were going to get wiped out?" Well, because if you look back in Judges, and you can read it later on, Chapters 19, 20, and 21, you find out that there's a little story there about a man who is a stranger who came into the area of Gibeah.

And as he went into the area of Gibeah, this is where the Benjamites lived, he went into this one man's house and this man invited him in as a stranger, as a guest in his home. The inhabitants of Gibeah surrounded this guy's house. Now this is scary. And all of the men that were surrounding his house demanded that they bring that man out, that stranger, to them that they might know him and have homosexual acts with him. I mean right now you're going, "Whoa, this sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah." Exactly.

The man who was owner of that house said, "There's no way. I'm not sending this guy out. This guy's a guest in my house." They said, "You better bring him out or we're going to wipe your house out." He said, "Listen, take my wife, my concubine." And so he sent his concubine out to them. They took his concubine and raped her over and over again until she died.

After it was all over, he went out and he saw what they had done to her. He was just overwhelmed. He took her body and cut it up into pieces and he sent it out to every one of the tribes of Israel. Now listen to me. This is a very graphic telegram, isn't it? Can you imagine? They get a and really what he was saying, he get the message out: "Look what they have done to my wife. This has never been done in all of Israel. Listen what has happened and look what they have done" to try to get their attention that there is something really wrong with the Benjamites in Gibeah.

I can't tell you that everyone was very moved and all of the tribes came from Dan to Beersheba. They rallied together to do what? To wipe out the Benjamites. "That's it, we've had it with this tribe. They're out of control and we're going to deal with them." They went into that area of the Benjamites and they began to wipe them out, literally off the face of the earth. These are their own people, their own tribe. They're wiping them out. They burned the city to the ground. It's interesting that Albright, who is a famous archaeologist, dug in the area of Gibeah and actually found the ashes in that strata of the city of Gibeah. And that it was proven as they dug it up, this was the city that was burned down by all the tribes.

They burned down the city, they slaughtered everyone except 600 men ran into the wilderness into the bush. After they got done doing their deed, they looked at what they had done and they wept and they were crushed inside. They were hurt. "We can't believe that there is a tribe in Israel that had to, it had to come to this." Now this tribe is just about annihilated. There's 600 men left. They don't have any women. They can't even continue to have children. I mean who of the tribes are going to give them some women? And everybody said, "Not me. We're not giving our women."

So finally they said, "Who hasn't really been with us every time that we gather together as we worship the Lord? Who has not? What city has not come to be with us?" It just so happens that Jabesh-Gilead was a city that wasn't participating in the sacrifices. And they said, "What? Let's go down to that city and let's deal with them." So they went down to the city and slaughtered the city and they took the women, 400 virgins they found in that city, and they sent them over to Gibeah.

It is now here that we see Saul coming in. You see, he was from Gibeah. He was a Benjamite. His mother was from Jabesh-Gilead. So we can see the connection here and you need to see that as we move along here. Crazy story, right? Judges 19, 20, and 21. Read it. It's incredible. But Nahash thought nobody cares about Jabesh-Gilead because he knew the story. He knew these guys that would come back, that have come back now. No one would care about them.

Verse 4: "Then came the messengers of Gibeah of Saul and told the tidings of the ears of the people and all the people lifted up their voices and wept." That's the reaction to hearing that we've got to give up our right eye. This is terrible that this is going on. And they figured, "No one cares about us. We've had it." I mean notice Saul is here and yet no mention of Saul. He's supposed to be their king. They're not even mentioning. That's what it meant to have Saul as king. I mean why should we call on that guy? He's farming over there.

But I want you to see this: that because of past failures, past failures don't need to block future successes. They shouldn't block future successes. Yes, there was a failure in Jabesh-Gilead, but that shouldn't block out what God wants to do as far as a victory. The same in your own life. Yes, you've had failures, but that shouldn't negate the victories that God wants to do in your life and through your life. Then notice Verse 5: "And behold, Saul came after the herd out of the field." See, he was farming there.

And Saul said, "What ails the people that everybody's weeping? They're all crying. What's going on? Why is everybody crying?" And they told him the tidings of the men of Jabesh. Saul was anointed king and what amazes me is he's still out in the field. This guy's low key. He's low key. He's out there farming. He hears the news and remember God's in every circumstance, every situation. He's moving behind the scenes. So in God's timing, he gets Saul and this situation together.

Verse 6: "And the spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard those tidings and his anger was kindled greatly." God now fills Saul with this spirit. There is a time to work. There is a time to go do the farming, to wait on the Lord for your call, for whatever God's going to do with you. But then when the call comes, you've got to go for it. And Saul knew it was here. And Saul then took the responsibility and the position and God notice his spirit came upon him to enable him to do the work.

Verse 7, and he took, and this is Saul, he took the yoke of oxen that he was working with in the field and he cut them in pieces. And he sent them throughout all of the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers saying, "Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and Samuel," notice he uses both their names because see Saul's name is not really holds very little clout right now, but he knows Samuel's name holds clout. So he uses both of them right here. "You better come because we're both calling for you so it be done unto his, if you don't come, it's going to be done to your oxen." And the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent. So again, another graphic telegram is delivered and they say, "Okay, this guy means business. We're coming."

Guest (Male): That's all the time we have for today's message from Pastor Jeff Johnson here on Sound Doctrine. Isn't it amazing or maybe the word is sad that the people we are reading about here in 1 Samuel made the same mistakes we make today thousands of years later? We have the same choice they had back then. Who is going to be in charge? Us or God? If you'd like to hear the study again, you have a few options.

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