1 Samuel 31

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are going to wrap up 1 Samuel. So we have 1 Samuel chapter 31. We've been looking a lot at David lately. Now the question is, is God really going to keep his word with Saul? I mean, he told him by what seemed like the spirit of Samuel that he was going to die in this battle with the Philistines. What's going to happen?
Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the blessing it is to get to read your word. You, indeed, are an amazing and wonderful God, full of mercy, grace, and truth. You are the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and we thank you for giving us your word. And we pray that we might read it and understand it. that you would please by your spirit apply it to our lives in Jesus' name, amen. Here we go, 1 Samuel chapter 31.
Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons, and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Melchishua, Saul's sons.
The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was severely wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and thrust me through and abuse me. But his armor-bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul, his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all the men died together that same day.
And when the men of Israel, who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were on the other side of the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled. And the Philistines came and dwelt in them. So it happened the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armor, and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim it in the temple of their idols and among the people.
Then they put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths, and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshean. Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and traveled all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shean. And they came to Jabesh and burned them there. Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. We need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words?
Saul dies in battle. We found this man who was hell-bent on keeping his own dynasty, even trying to murder his own son, Jonathan, when he knew that God had anointed David to be king. He was the Lord's anointed. He was the next one to take the throne. And Saul has felt that power leaving from the grips of his hands. So much so that... The Lord won't even answer him anymore. He's going to the witch at Endor. He's talking, bringing up Samuel from the grave. What we think might be Samuel. Could be a demon. I was talking to Debra about that. Was this really the spirit of Samuel? You'll have people argue about that, but the point being is that here we find Saul and his three sons die. All of his sons who are able to fight, able for battle, are dead. as the end of the first king of Israel. The people wanted a king so they could be just like all the other nations. They wanted to be great and mighty and powerful and strong. And instead they find a power-hungry despot hell-bent on murder, anything to keep his own authority dead.
The cities deserted, Philistines in the land, So I gotta told Samuel, don't be grieved about it. They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. Go ahead and give him a king. It's not gonna be the great success they wanted. But here's... Saul, now deceased. They capture his body. They defile it. They come as they're getting the loot and stripping the dead. They find, wow, Saul and his boys. They take him to their idol. Take him to the temple and nail him to the wall. Humiliation. This is what our God does to their gods, to their king. And the men of Jabesh Gilead are torn up about this.
They make a long trek all through the night. They get there. These guys must be like ninjas or something, right? Secret spies. They get in there. They get the bodies. They take them out. And there's a cremation service. They burn them. And they bury their bones underneath a tamarisk tree. Saul dies without a state funeral. still people loyal to him. He was still the king.
But this is the end of the first king of Israel. hasn't exactly turned out as well as what they were hoping. We've come a long way since Eli and his two sons. That's how 1 Samuel started, and then we had Samuel, but then we found out that Samuel, right, he was a pretty good guy, but we find out too that his sons are wicked, and so we maybe have hope that maybe it's Saul, and maybe he's going to be the righteous one, and no, and then we find David, and David, surely he's the one after God's own heart. This one's going to be good, and as we've seen, David's a complicated dude too, and so do we think about this? Don't place your trust in earthly princes. There's a reason why God sent his own son Jesus Christ and Jesus is our perfect King. He's better than Eli. He's better than Samuel. He's better than Saul. He's better than David. He is perfectly righteous and good and just and wonderful in all of his ways.
And so, thank the Lord. We get to worship Him with all the myriads of angels. He is worthy of all the praise. These guys were just the precursor to it. God knew the end of the story. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for the blessing it is that we have gotten to Read 1 Samuel.
What a neat story, Lord, of how you brought this David and made him this warrior and anointed him for king, but then seeing the people ebb and flow in faithfulness and loyalty and disloyalty and sin and wanting righteousness and treating you like an idol. Lord, you are just holy. You are amazing. You are good.
We pray, God, that you would please help us to live our lives in joyful reverence, that we would stand in the peace of Jesus and serve you with our hearts that have been cleansed by your blood, by the blood of your Son. Lord, we thank you for your care for us and help us, Lord, to always look to Jesus. hope, our help, our King. In Jesus's name, Amen. May God bless you. May you rest in Jesus. May He be your ultimate source of hope and joy and security, both in this life and the life to come. I'll see you next time. Bye.