A Predicatble End
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Claim - The fears and paranoia of those who reject God will be fulfilled (or worse!) and so we all need God’s true annointed one
Focus - Your worst nightmares will come true with out Jesus
Function - Forget fear and paranoia, commit yourseles to God’s annointed
Pray
Humanity has, for all time, set out to set themselves above, or without the need for God.
In today’s age and our culture we hardly need state it, it’s so prevalent. Seemingly no-one believes in a a God, let alone the God of the Bible.
And for most who say they believe in a God, God has actually become whatever each individual so believes him to be.
Oh - God would never do that becasue I don’t like it
or
For me, God is like…(dot dot dot)
And we don’t need to look to far outside of our own church to see it.
If you find yourself more committed to enjoying your Sunday’s than to making the effort to get to church and love others,
or you aren’t making the effort to serve again on our rotas as Covid subsides,
then presumably that is based on the idea that either you think God wont mind,
or you don’t care what God thinks about the way you use your time.
Either way, you have created a God in your own image,
not bowed humbly before the God of the Bible who has bought you lovingly at a price
- to bear fruit of good works and selfless love that mirrors the love and sacrifice of Jesus.
If you’re still of school age and you never tell anyone of your faith in Jesus becasue you’re too embarrased,
or you’re at work and no-one sees your decisons and work to be for Jesus not selfish gain,
well then presumeabley you have created a God in your head that has no claim over your life and that’s ok?
If you don’t see the need to hear God speak by reading your bibles, or joining a HG, or reading a bible passage with your chidlren,
then presuambly you have created a God who you can either manipulate to be what you imagine,
or you’re not interested in listeneing to Him becasue you already think you know him,
or He’s simpy not part of your life plan!
All those things ought to have been ringing like alarm bells in our heads as we’ve observed the life of Saul in 1 Samuel!
He believed in God,
He was even chosen by God,
He started ok for God,
But he soon began to create his own version of God.
A God who would give him his own glory,
He didn’t like what God had said so,
He stopped listening to God and killed all the preists who.
He started finding other worldviews and phylosophies to follow,
such as the witch of endor.
He claimes to believe in and know God,
but he most concerned about his own glory, comfort and sucess.
Listen to his rants and raves as he sat under that Tamarisk tree in chapter 22
1 Samuel 22:6–8 (NIV)
Now Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. And Saul was seated, spear in hand, under the tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, with all his officials standing at his side. He said to them, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds? Is that why you have all conspired against me? No one tells me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie in wait for me, as he does today.”
A Man like that,
so fearful and paraniod about his ulitmate end,
does in fact have
an inevitable end!
Every fear and pranoia he has in his head,
what if I’m worng,
What if God isn’t going to bend over backwards to my every whim and way,
What if I do die,
what is Daivd defeats me,
The end is ineviatble… and it’s in this last chapter of 1 Sam today.
Eveything he fears - while attempting to reject God and live his own way,
is going to turn out to be true - or worse than true!
And so the big question for us too is,
is the end for us also ineviatble?
if we live for ourselves,
if we don’t bear the fruit that prooves our salavtion,
if we creat God to be our own,
rather than accept we are the created order and owned by Him,
The end is ineviatble - our fear and paranoia - the what if I’m not saved,
what if I never really take God seriusly, other than a fleeting belief in Jesus,
what if that all goes to proove I’m lost,
and I’ll die and be judged?
Our fears and paranioa,
if we’re living with no fruit,
living day in day out for ourselevs,
then our fear will come true - or worse!
Perhaps we’re not saved?
Well, as we’ve listened to the sorry life of Saul, this year,
have we repented for the ways we’re like him?
Have we seen the joy of knowing God’s true annointed one Jesus - Son of David and borne the fruit in keeping with repentance?
Well perhaps today, as we see Saul’s inevitable end,
perhaps we will truely accept the annointed one Jesus, and bear fruit of obediecene in response.
I’ve given a long introduction,
becasue the passage is so simple and straight forward.
We’ve been waiting for it since the end of chapter 27 when the Philistines first prepared to attack the Israelites.
We’ve known that God’s people the Israelietes are going to loose since chapter 28, and that Saul and his sons are going to die.
Those who set themselevs against the Lord, will face an inevitabel end!
It’s so ineviatble that the battle gets barely a sentance..
Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa.
Even Saul’s son who was faithful and true to Daivd and God’s word barely gets a mention.
The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua.
but we slow right down around the ineviatble judgement and death of Saul.
The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
mulitple arrows, wounds, peircing the armour and body of Saul.
he’s in a bad way,
and as he’d feared under that Tamarisk tree - he’s almost alone - he’s been deserted,
Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.”
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
At the very end, Saul is abandonded,
loanly, holds no authroity even over his armour bearer,
who shows more fear of God than Saul ever has by refusing,
as David has done twice before in this book,
to kill the Lord’s annointed.
The irony of Saul being the one to bring about of his own dimise and literally his own death is striking!
Who’s he got to blame? Although he’s blammed many in his reign!
No-one will even run the sword through him!
He’s litearally got to take his own life,
end his own earthly missery.
pause
It’s equally ironic when we’re tempeted to say that it’s God’s fault for not saving some in this day and age.
If God is the one who saves, why should we be judged for rejecting him?
Well There is no innocense in Sauls life, he deserves what he gets,
he’s lived by the spear and he’ll die by the sword!
He’s lives for himself and he’ll die by himself.
He’s been offered and shown God’s annointing,
And yet rejected his word,
and his end is ineviatbale and deserved.
So is ours if we refuse to accept jesus.
pause
The reality is, we all need God’s annointed to save us.
We all deserve death, the inevitable judgeent of God and there is no hope without him.
However hard we try we always fall short of Gods perfcet standards.
OUr worst fears and paranoia will come true.
Not becasue our fears have power,
but becasue our fears tend to confirm what is absolutely true
becasue God has promised justice and judgement upon all who reject his annointed one Jesus.
As was promised in chapter 28, all of Israel now fall into the enemies hands in v6-7.
It’s turely an ineviatable sign that without the true annointed one of God,
no-one has a chance of victory or even survival!
pause
The Israeliets flee their homes and towns,
it’s an utter tradgedy.
Again the irony couldnt be more striking!
What was the whole point of them asking God for a king? Do you remeber?
But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
Their greatest fears and paranoia was that they would be defeated by terrible enemies!
And what happens - the ineviatable!
In rejecting God their fears come true.
They are defeated and lost.
The very thing they hope to gain by rejecting God - becomes their judgement!
The sad tradgedy of those of us who lives our lives in ignornace of God,
fearful it might mean we give up our comfort and rights,
only to find those fears are forever realised in judgement and hell,
rather than knowing the joy of sacrificial alleigence to God now, and joyful glory for all eternity.
pause
The irony continues,
From the Philiatines perspective - they see this is a great victory for their own gods.
They find Saul, periced and injured from arrows,
fallen and run through with his own sword,
they strip him of his armour,
cut of his head,
send news to the whole land of his defeat and
hang his armour in the temples of their own Gods.
The Lord of Israel has failed,
the idols and forign Gods have won.
Come and gaup at this has been God and King.
Like the ancient cathedrals today perhpas - adorned with symbolism to the Almighty God, and yet used as an almighty museum of human interest and a by gone era.
God is hanging on display for the world to gaup at.
Such did the death of Jesus look to those who mocked and scorend him.
Come and Gaup at the failed God and King.
Humanity has won.
In our fearfulness of facing God, we’ve managed to kill him!
The Christian life look so often like the same kind of failure,
as one alwasy turns the other cheak,
as one loves other before themselevs.
who takes up their cross daily to follow an obey Jesus above their own comforts.
It may all look like God Almight has lost,
His king sauls armour haning to a foreign God,
Empty churches and cathedrals,
our God and King crucfied on a cross,
persecuted Christians across the world,
a culture that refuses an unlitamte truth,
believers who look weak to the world,
The irony
that actaully this
is the very plan and way of God.
So often faith is not what it seems and looks like on the outside.
but is treuly marked by heart.
Saul's heart was fearful and paranoid,
a life of loanliness, or striving for self worth, never acheiving,
never fully satisfied,
and inevitably ending in death.
David - a life that looked so distressed and fearful,
and yet his heart never needed to chosoe fear.
He spared his enemies,
he lived in hope not fear.
He trusted not mistrusted,
he was never loanly for he knew the pormises of God,
He never stopped listening to God and God never stopped speaking.
Inevitabley - as the book of 2 Samuel charts, he will be victorious as King.
A king who will lead to the ulimate and only perfect annointed one of God - the Risen from dead, Lord Jesus.
Christians, we are not a people who should live in fear or paranoia - unless of corse we are choosing our own ways not his.
We do not need comfort or rights,
we do not need to look strong,
We live in hope,
We live in trust,
We live knowing the annointed one will bring us home again when we loose our homes,
who will heal us when we have even died,
who will reward us for evey sacrifice we have made,
who will never stop speaking if only we listen,
We are a people who seek Jesus and His word,
a King in the line of David.
The world is trying to fix it’s great fears of failure, judgement, comfort, health, wealth, happiness, contentment by rejecting God.
Christians even we’re tempted to fix our fears by lazily ignoring his call to obedience and a sacrificial life!
Ironically all those fears will be realised by those very actions of rejecting Jesus!
But, by accepting Jesus,
he will take the fear of death and judgement upon himself,
he will hang on the cross for all to gaup at,
so that you and I may be free with him forever.
pause
Some Israelites from Jabesh Gilead - ironically the only city that Saul really saved during his reign came and rescued the peirced, stabed, beheaded bodies of Saul and his sons.
They respectfully burnt their bodies buried them where?
Perhpas you’e guessed it -
Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.
The spear weilding fearful parnoia of a powerful man seeking greatness in this world under a tamarisk tree,
retruned inevitably to the dust and darkness, again under a tamarisk tree.
That opening prayer of Hannah in 1 Sam 2 has so much power now we’ve seen the events of this book,
make it your daily prayer this week,
Then Hannah prayed and said:
“My heart rejoices in the Lord;
in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.
“There is no one holy like the Lord;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
“Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
“The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.
“The Lord brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
on them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.
“It is not by strength that one prevails;
those who oppose the Lord will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.
“He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed.”
Amen