1 Samuel 26; Fool Me Once

Introduction

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I have been told by numerous professors that pastors should leave the jokes to professionals. When you try to be funny, you are never as good as you think you are. So, with that in mind, I want to retell a joke while not trying to be funny.

We all know the saying, “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Comedian James McCann did a bit on this saying. He said “fool me three times, twice as much shame on me. I can’t believe you fooled me again. Fool me four times, shame back on you. You are picking on a vulnerable man. Fool me five times, shame on me again. You have to take personal responsibility at some point.”

Need

As Christians, we should be people that walk in wisdom, learning from our own past sins and sins of others. Let us not continually make the same mistakes.

Topic

As we look at our text this morning, I want us to be people that learn form the foolish mistakes.

Referent

1 Samuel 26

Organization

Foolish Attacks

The Ziphites

Saul

Fearless Actions

David Went to Saul

David Spoke to Saul

Read 1 Samuel 26:1-4

Sermon in a sentence:

I will learn from foolish mistakes.

Foolish Attacks

v. 1 - The Ziphites

The Ziphites once again betray David to King Saul.

1 Samuel 23:19–21 ESV

19 Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah, saying, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah, which is south of Jeshimon? 20 Now come down, O king, according to all your heart’s desire to come down, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king’s hand.” 21 And Saul said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have had compassion on me.

Saul was so delusional that he actually thought the Ziphites were showing him compassion. He blesses God because of this.

As I was meditating on the Ziphites, my mind immediately went to gossip. The Ziphites willfully spread information about David to Saul, his enemy. This area was in the tribe of Judah. If they were suppose to be loyal to anyone it should have been the anointed king from Judah, not Benjamin.

Brothers and sisters, how many times are we willing to spread information, true or false? The Ziphites were lying, spreading false information, or rumors. But they were spreading information about David as a form of betrayal. It feels good to be the one who knows all the tea, right? But there are so many problems with this.

First, it doesn’t please God.

Second, it makes the problem worse. How many times have you been gossiping with someone and next thing you know, your imagination is running wild. You may have been upset but now since you have been talking about it for an hour now you are more mad than you were before.

Saul really thought they were doing the right thing. He fooled even himself into believing his lies.

Third, it doesn’t make us holy. Anytime we are building sinful habits, we are building a lifestyle of sinfulness.

vs. 2, 5, 7b - Saul

Saul once again, goes out with his standing army to murder David, not the Philistines or Canaanites.

Saul is sleeping in the middle of this encampment with his spear beside him.

His in an encampment, not a diplomatic journey or some foreign policy meeting.

His spear is beside him, like it always is. (its found 6 times in our passage)

Its funny that both attempts to kill David have put Saul in deadly situations. Saul’s unwillingness to sin continues to put himself in the path of destruction. David, doesn’t act upon it. But saints, do you think that our enemy will be as merciful as David? Do you think that Satan sees our weaknesses and says, “Hey guys, Zach and Zoe have had a rough week. Why don’t we take it easy on them?” Do you think our own sinful desires are like, “I’ve been working every single day of Hunter’s life. I’ll think I’ll take the day off.”? Sin leads to destruction. Our inability to learn from our foolish mistakes puts us in more danger each time we fall into foolishness.

Fearless Actions

vs. 6-12; David went to Saul

In Chapter 23, Saul is chasing after David. Remember, David is hiding in a cave. By divine providence, Saul goes into the very cave David is hiding in to relieve himself.

Here, David doesn’t wait for Saul to come to him. Instead, David sent out the spies to learn about Saul’s whereabouts. (v. 4)

David decided to go into the camp, instead of waiting for Saul to get to him.

David also took men with him. Ahimelech and Abishai (v. 6) are both willing to go with David.

They all have learned by now, God is with us! Saul was still God’s anointed. He would not be the king forever, but God still had Saul on the throne for a purpose. Clearly, one of his purposes was to train David to become the next king. Saul has come against David for the second time. God has put Saul’s life into David’s hands. How will he respond? Will he react the same way he reacted to Nabal. Would David become a fool and try to take matters into his own hands? Or did he learn his lesson from the Nabal and his first encounter with Saul?

They also went on the offensive this time not the defensive. Not arrogance, but assurance. If God is with us, who can be against us, church?

Saints, do we live with a fearless faith? I know for a fact, that God has put every single one of us in situations that we thought were the end of the world. Metaphorically or literally, the situation was a life or death situation. Those moments are not to be wasted! We get through the storm and forget how God kept us from drowning. We remember the pain but we loose sight of the lesson in the pain.

Those moments should shape us and mold us to rely on the Lord with a faith that makes us take fearless actions. We should be able to look back at our previous hurts and dark knights of the soul and look at how our faith has grown. We should be able to see the ways we actually changed. That’s when we started family worship. That’s when I became more careful with the words that I use. Thats when we started…

vs. 17-25 David spoke to Saul

Not only is David willing to go into Saul’s camp, he’s willing to get their attention.

Its funny that David goes after Abner first in vs 14-16.

(v. 21) David’s willingness to confront Saul once again makes Saul recognize his own sin.

Saul recognizes his own sin and confesses it.

Saints, if there is sin among us, we do not have the option to stay quiet. It will only fester. It will only become more of a problem. The person will continue to sin.

I have seen it too many times to count. Saints will not be willing to call out sin. If someone has sinned, tell them. They may not agree with you. But how much do we hate our brothers and sisters to not tell them that they are in sin and putting themselves and others in danger?

David and Saul aren’t friends anymore. The relationship is still broken. David refers to Saul as the King or lord but Saul calls David his son (vs. 17, 21, 25). Saul used to refer to David as the son of Jesse.

Unrepentant sin can’t be swept under the rug. Things have to change. David and Saul have to go their separate ways. David had learned from his own foolish mistakes and Saul’s.

Conclusion

I took a dual enrollment course on American Government. One of the quizzes that she gave us was a 50 question True or False quiz.

This quiz was special for a couple of reasons. No other quiz was 50 questions. They were like 20-30.

Also, this assignment had not limit on the number of attempts. Every other quiz we had in that class had a 2 attempt limit.

5 tries later, I change my approach.

I wanted to give up. I wanted to take the 47 percent on the grade. But I learned from both my own foolishness and the foolishness of the teacher.

Application

Are you willing to learn from past mistakes? Are you willing to learn from foolish mistakes of our own and others.

This week, self examination. Ask yourself and a brother/sister in Christ about a time they could see a change in your life. If you can’t think of one, confess any ongoing sins or struggles to yourself and this other person. Make a plan to address this sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.