Sermon Cloud

“Fixing Society, Step Six: The Danger of Handling Failure”

1Samuel 13:16—14:46

Introduction

How do you handle failures?  When failures happen, how do you respond?  How are you doing with the failures from your past?  Some people are driven by their failures.  Some people embody their failures, becoming the failures they fear they have.  Some people get defensive, others hide their failures, some get angry and lash out at others.  What do you do?

In our text, we see how king Saul handles his failure and how God works in the midst of his failure.  We’ll see three points today: 

I. Confronting the Reality of Failure, II. Faith Has Power to Reverse Failure, III. Destroying Faith and Its Power

1. Confronting the Reality of Failure (13:16-23)
   1. Chapter 13—Review
      1. Saul was rejected as king.  He is spiraling out of control and dragging the nation down with him.  The leader is indeed an influence on the culture.
      2. Samuel left.  There is no more word from God.  Saul has cut himself off from God’s wisdom, God’s direction, God’s assurance.
      3. The Philistines were coming to destroy Israel.  30,000 chariots, 6000 horsemen and troops. 
      4. The army is depleted.  They had only 600 men left.  The men were hiding in caves and thickets, among the rocks and in pits and cisterns.
      5. Israel had no weapons of warfare (v19-22).  Only Saul and Jonathan had swords and spears.
   2. 14:3—Saul replaced Samuel with Ahijah—a priest from the family of Eli, Phinehas, and Ichabod.  This family was evil, judged and rejected in ch 2 and 4.  Saul’s spiritual leadership doesn’t know God.  There is no hope for Israel to intervene. 
   3. This is the failure that Saul has brought Israel into.  Things are bad, they are going to get worse, and the leader is cut off from God, who is the only one who can save them.
      1. Does this sound like your life? How many of you feel like you are in a similar boat to Israel?  Are you struggling with insurmountable obstacles?  Is there something coming that feels like an army, coming with 36,000 strong?  Do you feel like you are simply without the resources you need to take on what’s coming?

2. Faith Has Power to Reverse Failure (14:1-23)
   1. There is still hope—not in the king, but in Jonathan, his son.  He goes out to attack without his father’s knowledge (v1).  This shows that Jonathan is not “in the line of” his father.  He’s not in cahoots with Saul. 
   2. Jonathan acts in great faith (14:6).  Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf…” 
      1. He sees the situation with the eyes of faith:  God’s power and God’s promises.  “God can save by many or by few.”  In Jonathan’s situation, he’s saying, “God can save by many or by two.”
      2. This is faith, not arrogance.  He doesn’t demand that God do this.  He says, “Perhaps.”  He’s not tempting God.
      3. He knows he has to act, to step out to see if God will act for him.  “He certainly can, he may be glad to, but how will we know, armor bearer, unless we put ourselves out there, at his disposal?”

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  Jonathan looks for God’s support (v9-12) and gets it.  The two of them strike down 20 people—dead. 

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   3. This sets off a chain of events that leads to a radical change.
      1. V15—Panic in the Philistine camp, in the field, among all the people… the earth quaked.  It was a panic sent by God. 
      2. In battle, when panic hits, that’s the sign of a great route. 
         1. V16—Philistine army is running away
         2. V20—Philistine army is fighting against each other
         3. V21—Hebrew defectors are returning to Israel
         4. V22—Hiding Israelites return to the fight
      3. V23—God saved Israel—the whole nation—through the faith of Jonathan.
   4. Just as through one man Saul, failure abounded and Israel was doomed, so also through the one man Jonathan, faith and power from God abounded, bringing victory and rescue and salvation to all.
      1. For some of you, God is calling you to be like Jonathan, looking with the eyes of faith at a difficult situation, but trusting in God’s power and God’s promises.  God wants you to lead others to see what’s possible, to see how faith can overcome. 
      2. For others of you, God is calling you to look to a Jonathan in your life, to see someone with great faith and to follow them in their faith.

But how will Saul respond?  What will the ruler do when real salvation is offered through someone else?  Not just someone else, but through his own son?  What will Saul do?

3. Destroying Faith and Its Power (v24-45)

As Saul’s failures are put against the backdrop of Jonathan’s faith and victory, Saul actually works to destroy the work the God is doing through Jonathan.  Instead of joining in and rejoicing in the success that God brought through Jonathan, Saul seeks to cover up his own failure, and in so doing, he destroys Faith and its Power. Jonathan rightly points this out.  “How much better it would have been if the men had eaten today some of the plunder they took from their enemies. Would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been even greater?"  Saul’s actions have limited Israel’s success.  How?

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   1. Bad Religion
      1. 14:18—Bring the ark of God.  Bad news!  The last time this happened meant judgment against the nation and God’s presence was leaving. 
      2. 14:33-35—Tells the people, stop!  Don’t eat the blood.  Bring it here and let me sacrifice it to God!  Sounds good, seems religious, but he’s not supposed to make the sacrifices!  This is what got him rejected by God in the first place!  Ch 13, it was him not waiting for Samuel to sacrifice that got him in trouble.
      3. 14:36-37—Saul wants to go attack.  The priest there says, “Don’t you think we should ask God first?”  Saul does and God is silent.  God has left Saul.  This shows that all of Saul’s “religiosity” is empty and for show.

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  We need to be careful of this, because our hypocrisy can do just as much damage.  Every single non-Christian you know—ask them what is wrong with the church, and every single one will tell you either the number one or number two problem with the church:  hypocrisy.  Bad religion.  It’s possible for the hypocrisy to damage the kingdom of God and his work in the world.  Romans 2:24.

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   2. Saul also Hates the Success of Others—even his son
      1. 14:17—Who’s responsible for this?  Finds out it’s Jonathan.  No celebration, no excitement.
      2. 14:38-45—Casting lots is another tragedy.  Saul is trying to blame Jonathan for God not speaking to him.  But Jonathan didn’t sin when he ate the honey.  He probably rigged the casting of lots.  He wanted to go through this “religious” ritual so that he could claim divine sanction for his desire to execute his son.

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   3. Why is Saul this way?  What led Saul to this?
      1. How much fury and jealousy must have existed within him to act this way?  This is his son!  Do you feel this in your life?  You’re not ready to kill your first born son, but how does jealousy affect you? 
         1. What happens at work when you feel jealous of someone else’s success?
         2. At home/with your family, what do you do with the rage that springs up within you and make you want to lash out—to yell? To hit? To belittle?  To say things that feel good at the moment, but that you regret and realize later you can’t take back?
         3. It’s amazing that Saul lives with Jonathan for many more years after this.  It’s as though the feeling passes in Saul.  It’s not that odd when we look at our own lives, is it?  We can think and act on crazy thoughts at one moment, and then wonder later, “Why why why did I let THAT control me?”  Anger, jealousy, lust—all these put us under the control of emotions that bring us to do things we’re ashamed of later.
      2. But there’s also another side of Saul:  How much loneliness, despair, and grief at being discarded as king must have filled Saul to do this even to his own son!
         1. Saul had such great hopes to be a king that would honor God and lead Israel into real blessing and prosperity.  But he rejected God, he refused to submit to God’s authority, and his kingdom was taken from him. 
         2. So he has no security, and he compensates his own lack of security by squeezing his authority and trying to control everyone around him.  Even his own son cannot be out from under his thumb, or Saul flies into a vicious rage.  God might save the nation he is leading, but if Saul isn’t the one who controls it, he doesn’t want the victory.  Is that in you anywhere?

This happens to all of us.  When tragedy strikes, when the unexpected happens… when we are reminded that we really don’t have control over our lives, and when we see that other people don’t have the struggles we have, we all compensate.

Jan Fokkelman, p77 “Saul tries to save himself by shifting his own pain and intense frustration outside himself: hunger and exhaustion for the army, death to Jonathan.  He was raked over the coals by Samuel and put into dreadful isolation, his response is to create a situation in which he gradually but ruthlessly can take his own son and rake him over the coals and isolate him.” 

How many of you take out your frustrations on your own children?  How many of you are condemning your children to fight the unending battles that you have fought your whole life?  How many of you have parents that have done or are doing this to you?

It is Saul’s inner weakness, his struggles with fear, lack of control, lack of assurance and security that drive him to this irrationality.  If you are doing this to someone in your family, or someone at work, or a friend, or yourself!—you need slam on the brakes and take a good look at your life.  You don’t have to live this way any longer.  You don’t have to live this way any longer.  You don’t have to live this way any longer.

These are control idols, and you can be set free from them.

THE GOOD NEWS

The biggest part of Saul’s tragedy is that he’s forgotten that there’s another way to live.  He doesn’t have to grasp for control, for vengeance, or for himself.  God has made it clear time and time again in Saul’s life that he simply needs to return to God, and he can experience restoration. 

That solution for Saul is the same solution for us.  Whether we are Christians or not, this story invites us to come back to God for the first time or for the hundredth time if we have been living as Saul. 

That road back is pictured in Jonathan.  Jonathan, the man of faith, brings help and rescue and salvation to the nation.  Personal faith in action can overcome great obstacles and change life and society.

And Jonathan points to someone even greater than himself.  Jonathan is a picture of Jesus, who also comes to people who are experiencing the frustration and pain of rejection and disappointment, people who are experiencing oppression and heartache.  Jesus, just like Jonathan, was opposed by the rulers of his day who also cried out for his death.

But in Jesus’ case, the people didn’t cry out for his freedom.  In Jesus’ case, the people demanded that he be put to death.  And Jesus went to the cross to pay the price to bring us back to God.  We can return to God because Jesus brings forgiveness and acceptance, security and hope. 

But it’s more than that…  Jesus also brings you power.  When I pray, I see this every time.  When I talk to God, I remember what he says about me.  He says the Saul characteristics in me are part of my old self.  He says that this old self is dead if I’ll let it die.  He says that I’m now a new person in Christ.  He has put his Spirit within me, his power in me.

*** If you know this experience, God is calling you to help others know this experience.  This is how friendships take on a spiritual component.  This is how you can learn to spiritually help others.  If they are in that Saul moment, you can help them by inviting them to open up.  As they open up to you, together you can seek God and restoration with him, so that you can help them stop the downward cycle. 

It starts with asking, “How are you really doing?”  It continues with asking, “How are you handling this tragedy?  How are you handling the pain in your life?  How are you handling the disappointment, the temptation?”  You learn to be a blessing to others when you learn to ask them how they are doing and to care about the answers.  

***If you don’t know this experience, then you’ve got to come to God.  Are you stuck with Saul?  If you are, then let me help you right now.  I’m inviting you to step out of the downward spiral.  It doesn’t have to continue.  Will you follow Saul?  Will you run from God with him?  Will you confront others, blame shift?  What will you do? 

Jesus invites you to live the life of Jonathan.  Living by faith, knowing his power.  That power is how God brings about healing.