When All Cover Is Gone

Psalm 146

We come to the end of 1 Samuel, and one of the questions that I want to ask us to think about is when all the cover is gone, when it is all stripped away, when we come before God and no one else is watching who are we?

C. S. Lewis has reminded us that we are all in the same boat and that any of us could end like Saul:

When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him. He is back where he always was, where every man always is. Eadem sunt omnia semper.[“Everything is always the same”] Do not let us deceive ourselves. No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God: there is no copse, no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover.… It may happen to any of us at any moment. In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and great commandment.

when we look to the gospel, Correctly formulated and communicated, the gospel offers hope and peace in this life. By rightly relating to God in the here and now, we prepare for loving him eternally in the hereafter.

Saul’s story ends without commentary, No repentance speech, No prayer, No prophetic word, Just defeat, fear, and self-inflicted death

The man who once stood “head and shoulders above the rest” (1 Sam 9:2) ends: Wounded Abandoned Silent

This is exactly what Lewis describes: “All those things which seemed to make him so different … have fallen off him.”

Saul no longer stands as: King Commander Symbol of Israel He stands as a man before God which has failed in His duty before God.

HBI - The tragic end of Saul shows the cost of rejecting the Lord as King, and prepares the way for God’s true king.

When God’s anointed king falls through disobedience, Israel is left leaderless and defeated—but God’s purposes are not defeated.So when we stand before God one day as we all will, where will we stand?

1 Samuel 31 is a short chapter, but we can still learn alot from it. I want to start by reminding us where Saul came from. Saul was the people’s choice to be king, David was God’s man to be king.

This is how the life of Israel's first king, the man after the Israelites' own heart, ended. He was full of promise at his anointing, having many natural qualities that could have contributed to a successful reign. He also possessed the Holy Spirit's enablement after his anointing. Unfortunately he did not become a source of blessing to Israel and the world, nor did God bless him personally. Instead he became a curse to Israel, the world, and himself. He did so because he failed to acknowledge Yahweh as the true king of Israel and because he failed to view himself as Yahweh's servant. His life teaches us that the key to blessing or cursing is one's trust in, and obedience to, God. This book opened with Samuel's birth, hope, and an answer to prayer. It closes with Saul's death, despair, and an act of divine judgment. It is a book of transition, contrasting rule by God with rule by man. If we want to run things, they will turn out as they did for Saul. If we let God rule, they will turn out as they did for Samuel and David. 

Recap

In the end of the book of first Samuel I want to go back to the beginning. This chapter holds the end of Saul, and the question I have been thinking of is when all is stroipper away, when we go to meet God how will we stand before Him. Will it be like Saul, in disobedience, in punishement for living a life away from God, or will it be in rejoicing? For one thing is for certain, we will all go to be with God, all uncovered awaiting the judgement of God for what we have done. Either for rewrad or punishment.

Saul was the peoples choice, given to them by God based on what they asked for in a king.

1 Samuel 10:24 CSB

Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one the Lord has chosen? There is no one like him among the entire population.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

The people asked, the Lord Chose and likely Saul could have been the one, the chosen line buit alas he didnt do so well.

The thing is the role of the king was always meant to be what you would call a viceroy, that is a ruler exercising authority on behalf of a sovereign.Which as we know the ruler was Saul, the sovereign he was representing was God and the only authority he had was what he was given from God to do the will of God. their success will depend entirely on their acceptance of Yahweh’s authority as true king.

As you know the story continues, and Saul was not doing so well he continually started to follow His own will instead of God. There are a few more verses I want to share before we get into chapter 31 today.

1 Samuel 13:13–14 CSB

Samuel said to Saul, “You have been foolish. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. It was at this time that the Lord would have permanently established your reign over Israel, but now your reign will not endure. The Lord has found a man after his own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over his people, because you have not done what the Lord commanded.”

He failed in not waiting for the priest as God ordained but took matters into His own hands. It was then, shortly after he started to reign that the Lord took His reign from Him. He did it in His iown timing, it took till into 2 samuel for this to come to pass. so maybe Saul thought he escaped God’s judgement.

1 Samuel 15:24–26 CSB

Saul answered Samuel, “I have sinned. I have transgressed the Lord’s command and your words. Because I was afraid of the people, I obeyed them. Now therefore, please forgive my sin and return with me so I can worship the Lord.” Samuel replied to Saul, “I will not return with you. Because you rejected the word of the Lord, the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”

Saul again sinned and was reminded that because of His sin and refusal to turn back to God His kingship was beiung taken from Him. The peoples king had failed. God knew Saul’s heart, that much we know and God disqualified Him.

1 Samuel 16:14 CSB

Now the Spirit of the Lord had left Saul, and an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him,

A spirit of the Lord was sent to torment Saul because the spirit of the Lord had now left Him. The possibility was always there to turn back to God with His life, but alas He never really did.

1 Samuel 28:19 CSB

The Lord will also hand Israel over to the Philistines along with you. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me, and the Lord will hand Israel’s army over to the Philistines.”

This was after talking to Samuel via the medium. Saul placed his trust again in the wrong person, though God spoke to him through that person. This did not mean that Saul would go to heaven, we do not know his heart from this but that he would be dead like Samuel was. With this recap done, we move on to Chapter 31. we did this because then the death of Saul makes a bit more sense knowing that it was prophesied that He was going to die.

Saul’s death

1 Samuel 31:1–3 CSB

The Philistines fought against Israel, and Israel’s men fled from them and were killed on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pursued Saul and his sons and killed his sons, Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua. When the battle intensified against Saul, the archers found him and severely wounded him.

The time had come, Saul was dying or at least would if no one attended to Him. But his sons where dead, he was bleading out and he knew if the Philistines caught Him, they would do horrible things to him. He asked his armour bearerto kill Him instead, but the armour bearer refused. So Saul fell on his own sword. The armour bearer would have been held guilty for what had happened to saul, so the armour bearer also fell on His own sword.

the Israelites fled, the pohilistines cut off the head of Saul and hung the bodies on a city wall. But the people that where still loyal to Saul went and rescued the bodies and gave them a proper burial.

Why does this matter?

When all is stripped away before God, what will He see?

we will all one day kneel before God and all the things that we think we could hide behind will be stripped away. I read a quote from CS Lewis at the beginning that I want to read again. Not that I trust all of His theology, but it makes sens.

When any man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off him. He is back where he always was, where every man always is. Eadem sunt omnia semper.[“Everything is always the same”] Do not let us deceive ourselves. No possible complexity which we can give to our picture of the universe can hide us from God: there is no copse, no forest, no jungle thick enough to provide cover.… It may happen to any of us at any moment. In the twinkling of an eye, in a time too small to be measured, and in any place, all that seems to divide us from God can flee away, vanish leaving us naked before Him, like the first man, like the only man, as if nothing but He and I existed. And since that contact cannot be avoided for long, and since it means either bliss or horror, the business of life is to learn to like it. That is the first and great commandment.

After all Saul had done, he had to come before God and account for all that He had done while on earth, God judged his heart and His actions. The same thging will happen to us as well. Ultimately this is a story of divine judgment. King Saul reaps in death what he sowed in life.

so while we are here on earth, are we being entireley dependent on God as King over our lives. What are we doing with the very short time we have before God.

The reality is that we will all one day come before God. Phil 2:10-11

Philippians 2:10–11 CSB

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I read a quote from a book that said “we have no greater urgent task in this lif than to learn how to die well”

This si true because to learn to die well means we must prepare, and that means that we need to learn now how to live well, to the glory of God our father. We muist liove well so we are prepared to met the Lord. To live well means we need to now give our lives to the Lord God, to repent of our sin and turn to Jesus with all that we are.

You see we can look to the end with joy because our sins are erased if we confess our sins, repent of them and give our hearts to Jesus. which leads to our second point for today

Christ’s Death brings victory

So the book of 1 Samuel ends in a cemetery near Jabesh, with a group of faithful and loyal subjects paying homage to the fallen king. But the book also ends in expectation. We are not left on this theme of judgment, having no hope. There is a quiet waiting, an anticipation, which finds fulfillment in 2 Samuel. The narrator has carefully prepared us for the second anointed one, who is ready to fulfill his role in history and in God’s plan

1 Samuel 31 ultimately points beyond itself:

Saul: disobedient, self-preserving, dies in shame

Jesus: obedient, self-giving, dies in shame for others

Where Saul’s death brings defeat, 👉 Christ’s death brings victory.

Death is not the end of our story. Contemporary believers should read 1 Samuel 31 in a way that leads to hope for the future. Just as ancient Israelite readers would have read this text in anticipation of the coronation of David and the rule of the ideal anointed one, so we know there is more to the story. The coming of David’s greater Son has given us reason to hope that a new day will dawn in which death will no more claim its wretched price.

1 Corinthians 15:54–57 CSB

When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

If death is not the end of the story then as followers of Jesus we can look forward with hope. We grieve now even but we do not even grieve as ones who have no hope. Think of kneeling before the Lord at the end of your life? When all the cover you put up is gone and you are stripped bare before the Lord, what will He see? will your sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus? If they have will you have been found living your life for the Lord God.