Proper Spiritual Warfare

Welcome to week four of our Bible study on 1 Samuel, which we call the coming king. Today we get to cover chapters eight through ten of 1 Samuel. I always think about a title for this, and I think the best title for this week would be getting ahead of God. But that's like a negative, that's something you don't want to do, so it doesn't seem like it makes a good title. So I think a better title is waiting on God's timing. It also occurred to me, I don't know why, but there was a song, you know, the year that we got married, Paul was in secular radio. There was a song, Lucky Stars by Dean Friedman. I don't know what it did here. It did go number one at the UK, but it was all relate songs that that generation were relationship songs. And there was the hook to it said this, and you can thank your lucky stars that you're not as smart as you'd like to think you are. And it repeated that a few times until at the end of the song it was, and we can thank our lucky stars that we're not as smart as we'd like to think we are. And this is a problem in our life because we think we're pretty smart. We see a problem, we strategize a fix, and we tell God how to solve it. And this is what I call getting ahead of God. Getting ahead of God often creates problems in our life. Like, for example, Abraham and Sarah, they got ahead of God. They saw the problem, they strategized to fix, and they got ahead of God. That poor couple, for all these thousands of years, we've used them as an example of getting ahead of God. But it creates problems. Not waiting for God is a temptation for us. It was obviously a temptation for Israel, too. By the end of this lesson, they will have their first king. The question we should ask is, was this God's choice for a king, or was this Israel's choice for a king? It wasn't necessarily unlawful for them to have a king. In the study guide, we sent us through some of those passages. It's just that their request in this moment was birthed out of an insecurity for their future, a fear for their future, a vulnerability. Now, in the last chapter where we left off, chapter 7, we had this fantastic revival. The whole nation, under the leadership of Samuel, had this great revival. And it seems like just a few words have happened, but 50 years have gone by. 60 years have gone by since the last great revival. And we know what it's like to live in a culture 50 years after the last great revival in our nation. And people get a little bit nervous about things. Now, for 500 years in the Promised Land, God had been faithful to them. He had given them a leader whenever they needed a leader. If they obeyed God, if they honored God, we had these passages that, and Israel lived for 80 years in peace. But if they got entrapped into the ways of the Canaanites around them, and they began to serve other gods, God would bring discipline on them, and he would send other nations to pester them. And the people would repent, and they would cry out to God. And what did the scriptures always say? God would raise up a judge. He would give them a leader when they needed a leader. God had always been faithful to them. At this moment, Samuel was actually their leader. So what we're going to read today is really a story of a nation getting ahead of God. And when we get ahead of God and ask him for things, he'll often give us just what we have asked for. So let's get started. We're 1 Samuel, chapter 8, verse 1. And I want to remind you, I'm going to do a little bit of skimming because we don't have enough time to read every single word. So hang with me.

Okay, so first we had Eli, who disappointed us. We wanted to like Eli, but he disappointed us in how he let his sons be priests when they weren't honoring God. Well, then comes Hannah, her prayer, her son, Samuel. We're like, awesome, Samuel is going to be perfect. And then he disappoints us because he's doing the same thing that Eli did. Preferring his sons, giving them a place of judgeship when they're not deserving of that. Plus, there was no precedent for someone. And you know, Samuel, prophet, priest, and judge. There's no precedent for him to create a dynasty and pass it on to his sons. So he has disappointed us. Verse 4.

So their fear at the moment, their uncertainty, is causing them to make the same mistake we talked about last week with battle A. When the leaders said, why are the Philistines raging? I know, we need to get the ark and put it in front of us. They're creating a solution, just like we saw before. They assessed the problem, created a strategy. Now, back in battle A, that problem was real. The Philistines were a real problem. And right now, this is a real problem. Samuel is old, and his sons don't walk in his ways. They have a real problem. It's just that their method is flawed here. They're not waiting for direction of the Lord. And this is what I call, again, getting ahead of God. They're not as smart as they'd like to think they are. Verse 6,

And so, like Samuel, isn't it easy for us to take things personally and feel like people are rejecting us? I love it that God is telling... Samuel was feeling rejected. And I love that God is telling him here, Don't take this personally. This isn't about you. This is about me. And so Samuel had to go about his business, saying to himself, under his breath, It's not about me. It's not about me. And someone in this room probably needs to be saying that under your breath. Because you've got somebody that's fussing with you, and really what's going on is their relationship with the Lord. It's not about you. So we'll talk more about that in a little bit. What the people were really... What Israel was really rejecting in this moment was having to live by faith. They were rejecting the idea of having to trust God for a leader when they needed a leader. And did you know that living by faith can be fatiguing? It can be exhilarating. But it can be fatiguing to wait on God. I mean, what would you rather? Would you rather every Monday morning to have to wait on the Lord? Lord, I need the funds for this week for groceries, for my household budget. And wait on the Lord for the things that you need. Or would you rather $10,000 in every Monday morning? You just take what you need and do it. I mean, it's clear, right? It can be fatiguing, exhilarating, but fatiguing to wait on God for the things that we need. And so we don't really blame them. That what they wanted to do was form a perpetual government. They wanted a king like all the other nations. And so God decided that he would give them what they asked for. He would begin the monarchy now on their timetable and give them a king. But a king who was like the other nations. He would become Israel's king. And in the study guide, I call Saul Israel's king. The coming king, David, will be God's king. But this is Israel's king. So God told Samuel here, warn them what this is going to be like. So I'm going to bullet point verses 11 to 18. And Samuel said, okay, here's what the king is going to be like. He'll take your sons and he'll appoint them to be his horsemen. And to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war. He'll take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He'll take the best of your fields and vineyards and orchards. He'll take the tenth of your grain and your vineyards and your flocks. And you will be his slaves. This is what it's going to be like. Verse 18,

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, no, but there shall be a king over us that we may also, excuse me, that we also may be like all the nations and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. Even they clearly understood their motivation. Their motivation was, we, Israel, we live by faith. We wait for God to raise up a judge. Look at all these other nations. They have a king. When their king disappears, they know exactly what they're going to have. The son becomes a king. They all have dynasties. They don't have to live by faith. We're the only ones in the situation that have to live by faith. We would like a king over us like all the other nations, because it's fatiguing to live by faith. So God was going to give him a king just like all the other nations. Verse 22,

Chapter nine,

And so as the story goes, Kish was a man of wealth. He had some donkeys. The donkeys had become lost. So the son Saul, along with the servant, go to search for the donkeys and find them. They're struggling to find them. And they think to themselves, you know, hey, maybe we should go find the man of God in the city. Maybe he can help us. Perhaps he can show us the way that we should go. But then there was this problem. We don't have anything to give him. The bread in our sacks is empty. And so the servant happened to have a half a shekel of silver. He saved the day. I am the one in our marriage that saves the day because I carry cash. In every marriage, right, somebody's plastic, somebody is paper. And it goes both ways. But sometimes the person with the paper saves the day because there are just some things that you need some cash for. So good on you, servant there. Verse 11, they went into the city and they meet these young women coming out to draw water. And so they ask him, is the seer here? And they answered, oh, he is. Behold, he's just ahead of you. Hurry. He's come just now to the city because the people have a sacrifice on the high place. And then the girls explained what that looked like a little bit. And so they went up to the city and they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way to the high place. So they're meeting for the first time. Now, Saul did not know who Samuel was. Samuel knew who Saul was because of verse 15. God had prepared him.

That verbiage there sounds very much like every time that God raised up a judge in the past, doesn't it? And this word prince here isn't the word king. It is, uh, in fact, some translations have a commander or leader. I shall raise him up to be a leader. Verse 17,

And then Saul approached Samuel in the gate and said, tell me where's the house of the seer. And Samuel said, I am the seer go up before me to the high place for today. You shall eat with me. And in the morning, I'll let you go and tell you all that is in your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, do not set your mind on them for they have been found. And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all of your father's house? This is crazy because Saul is just trying to find lost donkeys and he finds himself face to face with the seer. That's telling him that all Israel is setting their heart on you. Now I want to read that from a translation that helps us handle it a little bit better in the NLT. It says you and your family are the focus of all of Israel's hopes. What? And so Saul looks at him in the next verse. He goes, am I not a Benjaminite from the least of the tribes of Israel and is not my clan the humblest of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why have you spoken to me in this way? All of Israel's hopes, no one from Benjamin would be the focus of all of Israel's hopes. First of all, second of all, I think Saul feels it keenly right now. He doesn't even know who Samuel is. He's talking to the spiritual leader of Israel and he didn't even know him. This is kind of like growing up in the 1950s in North Carolina and not recognizing Billy Graham. Okay, like he's known the world over. You grew up in his neighborhood and you don't know who he is. That's kind of like living under a rock spiritually and that's Saul. And so in this confrontation he's like, I can't even imagine what you're saying that all of Israel's hopes are on me and our family. So verse 22,

And they ate with Samuel that day. They spent the night and the chapter ends by in the morning. Samuel says to the servant, just you go on ahead. I want to talk to him. I want to make known to Saul the word of God. And that's how chapters 10 starts.

So this has escalated into a really important thing. This is a private anointing at Ramah. This is Samuel's turf, private anointings. This is just Saul and just Samuel, so that Saul knows the directive of the Lord. And then Samuel went on to express some things prophetically that would happen to help Saul know this. I mean business here. Like I'm telling you, there's going to be some signs that will follow this. And so he tells them here about first, you're going to get to Rachel's tomb. There you're going to find two men who are going to say to you, the donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father ceased to care about the donkeys, and is anxious about you. Then you're going to get to the oak of Tabor, and there's going to be three men, and they're going to greet you, and they're going to give you two loaves of bread, which you shall take from them. And then you're going to get to Gibeoth Elohim, and a group of prophets will meet you. And then we'll pick it up in verse six.

Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. And I just love that phrase. It reminds us of the poem that Elizabeth Elliot made famous to us, Do the Next Thing. I love, just do what your hands find to do, God is with you. Sometimes we could take that to heart when we don't know what to do. It's like, well God is with you, just do what your hands find to do. We're going to save verse eight for next week, so I'm just going to slide that out and go to verse nine.

And when he came to Gibeoth, behold, a group of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them. Now we should talk just a little bit about some of these phrases. We read God gave him another heart, the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he turned into another man. What do those things mean? Because they have some similarities to New Testament ideas of being born again or filled with the Spirit, but it cannot be that, because we know that the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, has not come to fill people until after Jesus ascended into heaven and the Spirit was sent down. So this is not the Spirit of God to come into him and to fill him. We find in the Old Testament sometimes that the Spirit of God would come upon someone, and that's the language we have here. God did this as he chose to do it, and this is one of those examples. And in verse 11,

And that became a saying. And so now Saul faces a challenge that some of us have faced as well. He has received a change in his life. God has uniquely done this, and so his challenge is to live a new life in front of his old crowd. Some of us have had to do that. Some of us have done that very well, very gracefully. Some of us have done that very awkwardly, or maybe a certain percentage of each of those. But it's not easy to be a different person, to be a new person. Of course, for us New Testament Christians, it is now we have the spirit of God. And we can be very different in front of people. One of the hardest things is being very different in front of family. And that's why I love that the writer put this little dialogue between Saul and his uncle in here. I think it's actually quite hilarious. So Saul's uncle says to Saul and his servant, well, where did you go? And Saul says, oh, we went to find the donkeys, and we talked to Samuel. You talked to Samuel? What did Samuel have to say to you? The donkeys had been found. That's how it went. And the text says, but about the matter of the kingdom, he did not tell him anything. OK, now we come to the climax of all these chapters, starting in verse 17.

Samuel is saying, all right, let's get down to the business of king making. You want a king? We're going to make a king. Verse 20,

And so this anointing, even though they don't talk about a flask of oil or something, this anointing at Mizpah is for the people's sake, for the people to confirm, long live the king. We accept him. This is going to be fantastic. Verse 25,

See, God is for him. He's giving him some things he needs here. But some worthless fellows said, well, how can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no present, which indicates that people were already bringing tribute to Saul. Some people were obviously bringing presents, because these people were bringing no presents. What was Saul's response to these worthless fellows? The chapter ends by saying, he held his peace. OK. Now, we know some of the history of Saul, probably. But if we didn't, if we didn't know anything past today, we'd be pretty excited. And Saul has done some good already right here. What I want to do is wrap up our lesson today with three lessons for leading. I told you that we're starting now having some lessons for leading. And one, lesson for living. And actually, the first one that I'm going to put on the screen for you is both a lesson for leading and a lesson for living. But number one point is to rely on God's equipping. All of us, but particularly leaders, need to realize that they are equipped by the Lord and need to learn to rely on God's equipping. It wasn't easy for Saul to go from 0 to 60. And sometimes, in whatever path God puts us in, it's also not easy for us to go from 0 to 60. But where God guides, God provides. And God provided an equipping for Saul, generally and specifically. So I want to remind us, in general, what God had done for Saul to equip him. Remember those phrases we talked about? Gave him another heart. Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him. Turned him into another man. That was the equipping of the Lord. Do you know that God does the same thing for us? One verse I thought of that I wanted to show you was from 2 Peter 1, 3. Again, from the New Living Translation. By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. So generally, this is how God equips us. Now, specifically, how did God equip Saul? Well, God told him, via Samuel, that you will save them from the hand of the surrounding enemies. God spoke a word to him and said, this is my task. This is your lane that you're going to be in. And God can do that for us, too. I'm reading through the Book of Acts in my New Testament reading right now. And so this caught my attention because we're on this. I didn't make a slide. But Paul is in Corinth, the apostle Paul, in the Book of Acts. He's in the city of Corinth. And he's frustrated with the Jews. And he's like, I'm just going to go to the Gentiles now. And God was good to specifically equip him and told him in a dream this. Do not be afraid, but go on speaking. You're frustrated right now? I want to tell you, go on speaking. Do not be silent, for I am with you. And no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city who are my people. And Paul stayed there for a year and a half. There's a good example of specific equipping. And maybe God has specifically given you direction. Maybe you've received it from the word. Maybe you've just received it like, I know I'm supposed to be doing this. So God equips us generally by his spirit. And he equips us specifically. Point number two, lessons for leading is anticipate opposition. It's part of the job. Leaders will face opposition. Before Saul had even done a thing, the word tells us that some people despised him. Why did they despise him? Just because he was leading them. There will always be problems. There will always be people who will have a problem with authority. Maybe you have too. And I've often said that when people are fearful or rebellious or they're struggling with God, they're often struggling with their parents and their pastors. This is just the way it is. Remember I said, it's not about me. People struggle with leaders when they're struggling with God. And maybe some of your children once had a problem with this. Maybe some of your children currently have a problem with this. And someday, some of your children will have a problem with this. But when they're struggling with God, they're struggling with his leaders. And so I remember one time, the first retreat that we ever had. And I wasn't teaching, but I was leading it, organizing and leading. And even like we do today, we have a one-hour quiet time Bible study and a few scriptures to help point you on the way. And I remember that first retreat. We were handing out this quiet time Bible study so everybody could have their time. And one of the young girls said to me, she looked at that, and she goes, I'll read what God tells me to read. And I thought, oh, honey, it's OK. And God gave me the grace at the moment. Don't take it personally. And I'm sure she grew up to be a fine young woman. But the point is, sometimes people, when they're struggling with the Lord, they struggle with leaders. But that situation brings us, segues us to my third point. We need to learn to hold our peace. Saul was wise at the end of this chapter to hold his peace and to not struggle with these people who were despising him. We don't need to confront everyone who opposes us. We need to have discernment in this. But very often, it's wise to give grace and give space. That's what we need to do when people are struggling against leaders. Give them grace. Give them space. But don't get frustrated. So James 1 verses 19 and 20 reminds us of this. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Because if Saul had gotten angry at this moment and fussed with them, this would not bring about anything good. And the word teller. us, for man's anger does not produce the righteousness of God. So a couple lessons for leading, and one lesson for living, and this is wait on God's timing and God's direction. I want to use this to tie up the reminder not to get ahead of God, because this is a chronic problem in our lives, in my life anyway, it's worth our consideration. We think that we're smart enough to see the problem, strategize the fix, and then we'll often tell God what the solution is. But we can thank our lucky stars that we're not as smart as we'd like to think we are. So when we fear something in the future, or we fatigue of a life of faith, or we want to take control, we can remember this lesson, don't get ahead of God. So my question is, what are you praying about right now? What's on your prayer list, and how are you praying? Are you praying your solution into that, or are you praying about this problem with open hands and just dialoguing with God and saying, we see the same problem here, right? So taking it into this story, Israel could have said, God, we're seeing the same problem, right? Samuel's old, his sons don't walk in his way, we're going to be needing a solution, I'll wait on your solution. But very often we come to God with our solution, don't we? Oh boy, I fear those times that there's been times that God has let me have my solution. Maybe you too. I want to end with a story from a book, I read it years ago, Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Diebler-Rose, there's only one of these in the bookstore, so one of you lucky ladies can go pick it up. She was a missionary in the Netherlands, East Indies, as World War II was moving forward, of course, the Pacific invasions, Japan, it was imminent that they would invade this island that they were on, and she was with a group of missionaries. On a Wednesday, knowing this, Dutch policemen came to them and said, there's a ship that's moored in the harbor, and we'll come back on Friday, we're instructed to evacuate all the Dutch people, we'll come back on Friday, or any foreigners, honestly, we'll come back on Friday with a truck, and anyone who wants to go to this ship, now is your time. If you don't leave now, I don't think you will leave. And so the man in charge of this mission group, Dr. Jaffrey, was his name. He listened to this, this was a problem they had, right? He listened to this, and he told all of the missionaries, I don't know how many, maybe there was eight or ten of them, he said, listen, I want every one of you, don't talk to each other about this, I want you to go and you take the next 24 hours and you pray, and you seek the Lord, and you find out what God is telling you to do in this situation. And when we come back on Friday, those who feel like God has told them to get on the truck, go out to the ship, you do that, and if you feel like God has not told you to do that, then you stay, which I thought was extremely wise and rare. He was in charge, and it would be, as a leader, it would be such a temptation to say, we're all going now, pack your stuff, we're going, because I'm in charge of you, but no, he said, you go, you take time, you listen to the Lord, and you wait. The truck arrived on Friday, and not one of them felt as though they were to leave. They knew that it was, obviously, they were going to be captured. They would be prisoners of war if they didn't get on that truck, and yet they had taken the time to pray, and God told them, no, just stay where you are, and so I want to read an excerpt out of the book of how this resolves. Some three days later, it was reported that the ship had been torpedoed and sunk. There were no known survivors. Then I knew why God had said, don't go. It's imperative that we know the voice of the shepherd and learn to follow him when he speaks. We must be obedient, no matter what he says to us. It may mean our life. Isn't that awesome? That puts a punctuation on wait for God's timing, God's direction. Father God, thank you for this lesson and the inspiration, Lord, to not get ahead of you and to wait on you. Lord, I pray that this would transform my prayer life, that I would merely talk to you about the problems that I see and not always offer up the solutions to you that I see, but that I would approach my life with open hands, Lord, and wait for your solution because, Lord, you are faithful. Lord, you were faithful to Israel for 500 years before this time. You gave them what they needed, and Lord, I know that you will be faithful in my life, in my friend's life, to give us what we need when we need it. So help us, Lord, to allow you that work in our lives, to not get ahead of you, and to trust in your faithfulness. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.