Consequences of lack of identity
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Read 1 Samuel 13:14 “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.””
Introduction
If you’ve ever run into a police officer, they may ask for your ID!
And when they see your ID, they can see your entire background, which can lessen their suspicions about you, or add to it.
In some states, it is a crime, to provide identification to police when they have solid reason that a person is about to or has committed a crime.
You can get fined, even go to jail for failing to identify yourself!
But the reality, is that people fail to identify themselves everyday.
They put their identity in so many things: their careers, their talents, what other people say about them, how much money they make.
And just like the consequences of going to jail for failing to identify yourself to a police officer, there are consequences for your soul, when you fail to identify yourself.
The first is:
Fear
Fear
Where is the fear in 1 Samuel 13?
Let’s look at who is feeling fear here:
(read v.1-2)
Note King Saul.
Who is king Saul?
Who is king Saul?
Saul was the first king of Israel.
Israel wanted a king like the other nations instead of God who was already their king.
So God gave them Saul.
Saul was noted for being physically impressive.
He was known to be somewhere around 6’5, very strong, and also the most handsome man in Israel:
And he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsome person than he among the children of Israel. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people.
He had a son named Jonathan.
Now Saul was raising an army in order to fight the Philistines.
The Philistines were neighbors of Israel and constantly at war with them, and did not believe in the God of Israel.
So Jonathan went on to attack the Philistines (read v.3-4)
Here, we see that after Jonathan’s first victory over the Philistines that the moral was high.
Saul made sure that everyone in Israel knew.
They were have emotional highs, and were having a rally in Gilgal, a place that was further away from the battlefield.
It was basically like a pep rally that they do in high school for the school or the sports team.
But then the Philistines responded to Israel’s attack. (read v.5)
Now I want to put in perspective how much a chariot and horses cost.
Now a chariot that was imported from Egypt cost six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse one hundred and fifty; and thus, through their agents, they exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Syria.
In Bible times, a working person would earn around 90 shekels a year.
So according to the bible, a chariot and horse cost 750 shekels.
But wait, a chariot needs at least 2 horses.
Some chariots go up to 4 horses.
So really, if we just take the chariot and two horses we are looking at 900 shekels.
So in order for a person to make 900 shekels, they need 10 years of pure income.
Today, the median income of a person per year in the US is around $71,000.
So a chariot and two horses in today’s money is around $710,000.
Now, we haven’t even added the cost of hiring trained professional charioteers.
It is already hard and dangerous to ride a horse without training.
Let alone having a coordinated team of two highly trained professionals of years of training, and then a team of horses that also get along together!
If you have one horse that doesn’t get along with the other horses, or is slower than the other horses, you have an extremely dangerous chariot.
So having a chariot, two horses, and a team of charioteers and owning a functional chariot and team can easily bring the cost to $1,000,000 plus.
And I haven’t even added upkeep.
It says here 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen.
I will let you do the math in your head, of how expensive that is, which shows how rich the Philistines were.
Now, if you didn’t know in Saul’s time, chariots alone decided the outcome of a battle.
Having a chariot was like having a tank back then.
Now you can see why the psalmist said,
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
It was a real temptation to trust in things, rather than God.
So now you see, that the Philistines had an army with thousands of tanks, whereas Israel had little to zero tanks.
And note that only the chariots and horses were numbered.
It is very common for the infantry or foot soldiers, to be 10x-100x more in number than their chariots or horses.
And that’s why it says ‘troops like the sand on the seashore.’
Now do you see the fear? Look at v.6
The fear brought the Israelites to hide in every kind of rock and hole in the ground imaginable
Hiding is an extremely common expression of fear.
Some hid, but others fled. Look at v.7
Now Gad and Gilead were very far away.
To put it in perspective, let’s put it in modern geography.
In terms of the battlefield location, think in terms of DC.
The Philistines coming from Virginia.
Where do you think the Israelites fled?
Baltimore, that’s really far from Virginia.
No, they fled to the next state.
The Israelites fled to a place so far away, it’s like going to another state, in the opposite direction.
They fled to Pennsylvania!
That’s how afraid they were!
And you can see Paul was frozen! ‘Saul was still at Gilgal’
Saul was very afraid!
Saul’s was in a place called Gilgal so far, that it’s like being Baltimore while the battle is in DC!
Yes the people ‘were trembling’!
In fact they were trembling so much that Saul, who had 2,000 shrunk to 600 - read v.15.
So we see fear in the form of: hiding, fleeing, being frozen.
And now we see fear in the form of rebellion (read v.8-9)
Saul was told to wait seven days by Samuel the prophet, much earlier back in chapter 10.
But he didn’t show up exactly in 7 days.
Students, be vary wary of the promises of man.
Man may make promises, but people are imperfect, and so never put your hope on what someone says, but only hope in God.
If someone says they are going to do something, accept it, but don’t put your entire hope into it.
Because God often uses the imperfect promises of people to test you.
And this was the case of Saul, God was testing him.
Ironically, in God’s perfect timing, Samuel shows up right when, Saul failed the test. (read v.10)
And so Saul makes excuses (read v.11)
Saul explains his fear:
Seeing the people abandon him - ‘I saw the people were scattered from me’
Seeing the Philistine’s massive and superior army - ‘the Philistines gathered at Michmich’
And so because of these reasons this was Saul’s response (read v.12)
He:
He panicked ‘the Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal’
He did not pray - ‘I have not made supplication to Yahweh’
He closed himself off from escape - ‘Therefore I felt compelled (he saw no other option and was forced)
He rebelled against God - ‘Offered a burnt offering’
Why did Saul do this?
What was the source of Saul’s fear?
What was the source of Saul’s fear?
Saul’s fear came from a lack of identity.
Saul put his identity in his physical appearance: tall, strong, and handsome.
And Saul put his identity in others: looking at other people for approval, looking at how people respond to fear: if people are running away, I should too.
Students, this is nothing new.
People do this today.
In high school, people put all their identity on social media, their physical appearance: looking for likes on their picture, trying to fit in and be cool by doing what everyone else is doing.
And when you do this, this is what you get:
Fear, worry, anxiety.
Depression and suicide.
Which Saul did at the end of his life.
But that’s not all you get when you have no identity.
Saul received one more consequence.
2. Reprimanding from God
2. Reprimanding from God
Look at v.13
For disobeying God, God will end Saul’s kingdom.
If only he would have obeyed, God would have blessed Saul’s kingdom forever.
This is what Saul should have done: read v.14
See what Saul should have done was seek after God.
Instead of putting his identity in these foolish things, he should have said, ‘My value is not in my image, my physical attributes, or what others think of me, or what others tell me I should be doing, but my value is in Christ, and what He thinks of me, and what He tells me I should be doing!’
When God choose Saul’s replacement he said:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Be a man after God’s own heart.
In other words students, put your identity in Christ.
Put your worth in Christ.
If your identity is in Christ, then that means you will seek after God’s heart.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
So students, put your identity in Christ, so that you don’t experience fear and terror and that you don’t receive God’s reprimand.
If your a child of God, yes, God will discipline you if you disobey.
He won’t condemn you, because Christ died for you on the cross.
But He will discipline you out of love, if you disobey Him, so that you will be on the right track.
But if you are not a child of God, like Saul.
He will judge you.
Gospel presentation.
There are some places and things that require an ID to purchase or enter.
I hope that when you meet the bouncer of heaven, that your ID says Jesus Christ on it.
Students, does your ID have Christ on it?
Let’s pray.