Are You Causing Stumbling?

J. A. Hunter

1 Samuel • Sermon • Submitted 7 months ago • Presented 7 months ago

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Notes

Transcript

1 Samuel 14:24-35, 43-46

Introduction

Today we live in a world of offensiveness. It seems you cannot do or say anything today without offending someone. You are not using the right pronouns, not giving everyone a trophy, not encouraging creativity, not being politically correct, and the list goes on almost forever. It has become such a problem that you often hear the term snowflake dance around, that people are so fragile they are like a flake of snow. To be honest with you all, the Christian message is an offensive message by today’s standards. It is offensive because it says there is only one source of truth, that you are not the most important person in the world, and that we do not get to make the rules.

Yet sometimes we have people get offended even within Christianity. Now, I do not mean offended for a just cause. If someone tells me we do not believe or practice the Bible here, I think we could rightly be offended. However, Christians will often get offended at something and use Paul’s admonition to not cause others to stumble as a way to get their way. This happens all the time in music. Well, I do not like this newer or this older music, so I am going to say it offends me, and because it offends me and Paul says we are not to cause others to stumble, then we have to go with my music or others are not showing Scriptural love and deference to me. Yet this is not what that principle entails. One writer says

“the stumbling-block principle,” which does not have to do with “offending” someone but with causing others to fall by urging them to participate in an action they can do only against their own conscience.

Gordon Fee

Christianity can be offensive, especially if a brother or a sister is sinning openly and unrepentant. Paul’s admonition is not to avoid offending others, but to avoid causing others to sin. Unfortunately, that is something we may do without ever really noticing it. We tend to become prideful and self-centered, concerned only with ourselves, and not think about how our actions may be impacting the spiritual walk of our brothers and our sisters. This is something we see in this passage. Old King Saul is back at his shenanigans again, and because of his foolish pride and selfishness he causes his entire army to sin and nearly loses the life of his son.

Passage

When we turn to the passage we see Saul again doing hasty things for his own benefit than seeking God’s wisdom. Just as he got scared of the Philistines and scared of his own men abandoning him so he offered a sacrifice, here he makes a foolish and hasty vow. If you remember from last week, or from earlier in the chapter, Jonathan snuck off to take out a Philistine garrison while Saul was sitting out under a pomegranate tree. When Saul saw that the Philistines were being pushed back, he finally decides to get in on the action and calls Israel to himself.

Yet, here in v. 24, we see that the children of Israel become distressed because of an oath Saul placed on them. It seems that Saul saw how good the fighting was going, how much they were pushing the Philistines back, that he decided it should keep going. Rather than trust God to give them the strength to win the war, Saul again decides to do what he wants to do. He sees the Israelites are fighting, but sees they are getting tired, so fearing they will lose their advantage if they take a break Saul decides to curse the people, placing an oath on them that anyone who stops to rest or for lunch until, and see this, not God’s enemies as Jonathan framed it, but MY enemies are vanquished, will be cursed. As we see later in this passage, Saul’s mind here is not just to say they are cursed, but to actually put them to death.

Imagine you are at work, just put in a 10 hour shift where you not only met your quota but went above and beyond. Yet rather than get praised by your boss, he tells you that you are not allowed to go home, and cannot even stop to grab a bite to eat, until there is nothing left to do at the company. That is essentially what Saul is telling his people. They are probably excited that the tides of battle have shifted in their favor. They are out winning against the Philistines! They abandoned Saul in the previous chapter but now have rallied back to him. The end of chapter 13 tells us they did not even have weapons, and yet here they have rallied back to Saul with their sticks and their bricks and are actually pushing the Philistines back. This would have been a cause for celebration, a cause for a feast, a cause for diet cokes in ye olden tavern. Yet their commanding officer calls them over, and when they expect a pat on the back, he tells them an order came down from above. Expecting a thank you card, a basket of fruit, some time off, something from the king to celebrate or show his appreciation, instead they are told they cannot eat nor sleep until the Philistines are utterly defeated.

To make matters worse, v. 25 tells us that they chased the Philistines through a forest, and what do they see but honey on the ground. Now you may say this is kind of odd since honey appears in hives on trees, but bees will often make a nest anywhere, and in Israel at this time it was pretty common to see hives in the hollows of trees or in clefts of rocks on the ground. So they likely passed through a part of the forest with lots of old trees and big craggy rocks that bees had filled with hives, and the hives were so full that the honey was literally dripping, running out onto the ground. Yet despite this delicious source of food right in front of them, none of them touched it.

Now here comes Jonathan who, if you recall, was out with his armor bearer fighting the Philistines away from everyone else, so he was not there when Saul made this foolish vow. So in v. 27 we see him walking along, he sees this honey, and he sticks out his mace to get some. That by the way is likely what this rod or staff he had was. As the heir to the throne, Jonathan would have carried a mace, or what we would likely call a sceptre, along with his weapon of choice the bow, so he just dunks it in the hive and gets him some honey, and he immediately feels better. But then Jonathan looks over, and I am reading between the lines some, but he probably smacks his lips and goes wow that is good, y’all want a taste? And the men look back at him drooling a little and go, well, we were commanded by the king not to, but they were very faint.

Jonathan responds in v. 29 my father has troubled the land. I got all this energy because of just a little bit of this honey, and v. 30, how much better would it have been if all the people could have had some, for we could have had an even greater victory, but Saul ruined it with his pride and greediness. Saul did not trust God to give him the victory, so he got greedy for one and in his pride thought he could force a victory, and it ended up costing him that victory.

Yet, not only that, look here in vv. 31-33. The people got so exhausted and hungry when they finally stopped to eat they did not even cook the meat, they did not drain the blood, but ate the meat along with the blood. This violated not only the Mosaic law, as mentioned in Lev. 19:26 and Deut. 12:23, but goes all the way back to Noah when, after getting off the ark, God commanded him in Genesis 9:4 not to eat any meat with the blood because that was their life.

Yet when Saul hears of this, rather than repent of his foolish vow, he orders everyone’s animals brought to him and prepares it properly, then builds an altar to the Lord. Now there are some things going on here that require some unpacking. It may seem like Saul is doing the right thing, but as with anything Saul tries to do, it is more complicated than that. First off, Saul never admits what he did was dumb. Here he has inadvertently caused the entire army of Israel to sin, and his response was woopsie, let’s make sure we do this the right way. Saul held his people to his own foolish command so much so that they ended up disobeying the Lord. They did not sin against their fleshly king, but they sinned against their heavenly one. Here you see just how contrasted Saul is from the king God had intended. Rather than leading the people closer to God, Saul is actually causing them to sin. One commentator said that it is interesting that the people who so strictly adhered to Saul’s command when seeing the honey thought nothing of God’s command when seeing the cattle. Now when confronted with this Saul does do right by the people and make sure their food is prepared correctly so they do not continue in their sin, yet he turns around and builds an alter!

Now, building an altar is not a sin in and of itself, the patriarchs did it quite often as did other heroes of the faith. You have to ask though, why now? Notice in v. 33 Saul says you have dealt treacherously, or ye have transgressed. Y’all are the ones that sinned, and here I am keeping the law of Moses. He does not see his own error in this, but turns it around on the people. He then builds an altar, likely an altar of thanks to God because I do not think Saul would have made an altar of sacrifice again, and the wording seems to indicate it was built with the large butcher stone they just used. But this is the first altar he ever built. The first time he seems to thank and acknowledge God, and yet he does so after accusing his people of sinning against God. I do not know about you all, and maybe I am reading too much into this, but something about this whole encounter just reads holier than thou to me. Again, it may just be me, but it seems Saul is acting like he is far godlier than the rest of his people. Oh, you all sinned against God, you broke His law, but here I am, your good king, providing a way for you to have your food and not continue your sin against God (the sin he inadvertently caused mind you), and I will even build this altar of thanks to God.

If you remember, Saul’s army ditched him in the last chapter. He had no idea what to do and was just sitting under a tree at the start of chapter 14, and only at the start of this battle did Saul’s army finally return to him, so it seems Saul is trying to do some marketing here, to get some good PR. Yet I cannot help but read it like Saul is being manipulative here, perhaps unintentionally. He is getting a good reputation by helping the people get out of a sin they would not have fallen into had he not given the command. Likewise, we already saw that the people listened to Saul more so than God, yet here Saul is saying “oh no guys, do not sin against God.” It is almost a repeat of him and the sacrifice when he tries to blame it on God. Saul is using God’s name here to manipulate the people into thinking he is the hottest thing since sliced bread when he does not want the people to follow God, he wants the people to follow him!

In all the while, he cares nothing about his people. He does not get them food when they are fighting, he does not release them from the oath, and it is only after his oath becomes a problem does he flip it around for his won advantage. We see this reinforced in v. 36 when it seems the priest has to slow Saul down and be like hey, maybe we should ask God about your plan here? Saul only cares for what makes him look good, him look godlier, him look righteous, and gets him more territory. As one commentator states, Saul loves the form, the image, of God but denies the power thereof. He wants God’s blessing, but not His rulership.

This even extends to his own son. In v. 44, we see Saul condemns his own son to death. This is a situation very similar to one in judges in which Jephthah makes a rash vow and ends up sacrificing his own daughter, so it seems Saul was unfamiliar with his people’s history. So Saul makes his second rash oath, that Jonathan will surely die. The pulpit commentary states that, since Jonathan had broken the oath unwillingly, without knowing there even was an oath, all that the law required of him was a trespass offering, that it was Saul who had come up with the death sentence. Likewise, the commentary notes the silence of the Urim and Thummim, showing God found no fault in Jonathan either, yet it states “Saul was by nature a despot, and could endure nothing that seemed even for the moment to stand in his way.”

You may ask then, if God did not find fault in Jonathan, why did the lot call Jonathan out? Well, I definitely believe it is true God found no fault in Jonathan, as I think v. 45 shows, but Jonathan was used to try and show Saul his own fault. The Benson commentary, quoting an anonymous author, offers what I found to be a really helpful insight:

“It may, at first sight, appear strange that the Divine Providence should so order things, by giving no answer to the high-priest, and causing the lots so to fall, that Jonathan, who appears entirely guiltless, should be brought into imminent danger of his life. If we consider this only in respect to Jonathan, it does indeed appear unaccountable; but if we take in his father Saul, it will appear to have been an act of divine wisdom. It is manifest, as well from the unnecessary and unprofitable oath that Saul here exacted from the people, as from many other passages of his life, that Saul was of a hasty, precipitate temper. What better lesson then could God give to him, and to all of such hasty, precipitate tempers, than to bring him into the grievous strait of either breaking a solemn oath or putting his own son to death? That this was the main intention of all that happened on this occasion appears evident, in that God inspired the people with such a courage and love for Jonathan, that they would not, upon any terms, permit even a hair of his head to fall to the ground. For we cannot suppose, if God had intended to punish Jonathan, as guilty of any crime, that the disposition of the people could have prevented his purposes, though they did those of Saul, which had no foundation in justice.”

Essentially, Saul is so self-centered he placed an oath on the people that caused them to sin against God, so now God has turned it around and said fine, you forced the people to choose between breaking an oath or sinning against me, I will now force you to choose between breaking an oath and sinning against your own son. Which will you choose, O Saul, your pride and uphold your hasty and foolish oaths, or your own son? We see Saul chose himself, which is no wonder Jonathan sides with David against his own father.

Application

Now you may ask, what in the world does any of this have to do with us today? We are not out making oaths to put people to death or not eat any honey. This is true, at least I hope so, but ask yourself this, how often does your pride and selfishness cause others to sin? How often does you having to have your own way or standing by your decision no matter what force others around you into an impossible decision? I think we see this clearly in the New Testament. There are a group of Christians eating meat sacrificed to idols and, though they did not believe it was wrong, another group did, and it was causing people to sin and to stumble because this one group of people said I like my way and so I am going to go my way, forget these others.

Christianity is not an individualistic religion. It is not about you, and your actions do not affect just you. Your actions can cause those around you to grow closer to or farther away from God. You may not be making rash oaths out here, but maybe it is how you gossip. You talk about other people, talking about all the things they do wrong and bad, and in so doing you are pulling others into that sin of gossiping. Maybe you are perfectly fine sitting at the bar at Applebee’s, or eating in that restaurant inside the casino, but if you push an alcoholic or a compulsive gambler to go with you, then your selfishness is causing their sin.

Part of being a Christian is that we serve as each others’ gatekeepers, we are accountability partners for each other. That is the point of James’ statement to confess your sins to one another, not that we air all our dirty laundry, but that we entrust our weaknesses to one another. We all have strengths and weaknesses, sins that do not tempt us and sins that easily beset us, that crouch out our door and pounce on us so easily, and we should be mindful of how we are strengthening and encouraging each other, or how we are tearing down and weakening each other. Just because you do not fall victim to a certain sin and another does does not mean you are more spiritual than they are, it just means you fight on a different battleground, but it is sin if you cause your brother or sister to stumble on their battleground because of your own selfishness and pride.

Christ Connection

We can act as godly and righteous as we want to, saying certain sins do not ensnare us or catch us in their grasp, saying we are holier than others, but we see from this passage that this makes us the greater sinner than the one we inadvertently caused to stumble. Yet we also see a parallel to Christ here. Like Saul, we were the ones rightly to blame. We were the ones who had sinned, and it was our sins that were laid upon Christ. He became sin who knew no sin, He took on all of ours, and He was condemned to death with no voice crying out to save Him.

Yet He arose three days later, conquering sin, death, and the grave, so now whenever blame falls at our feet for the sins we have done, Christ, like the children of Israel for Jonathan, comes to our life. When God points to us for the sins we have done, Christ steps in and says surely not, not one hair shall fall to the ground, because this child has been saved by me. Now there remains no more guilt, no more burden, no more blame nor shame, for Christ has taken it all upon Himself.

Conclusion

So, if you are lost here today, will you accept Christ's rescue? Will you allow Him to step in and save you from your sins? All you must do is confess with your mouth, and believe in your heart. Or will you continue in your sins, accepting the death penalty issued against you. If you are saved here this morning, do you live your life your way, or do you live with your brothers and sisters in mind? Do you live like Saul, selfishly and pridefully causing others to stumble, inadvertently pushing them to sin, and making yourself look good all the while? Do you see yourself as holier and of greater faith because you can handle a certain temptation without sin when another cannot? Are you causing your brothers and sisters to sin? More dangerously, does your life serve as a Gospel message to the lost, or a skunk? If someone never read the Bible and only ever saw the movie of your life, would they become a Christian, or would they fall into sin?

Reflection

1 Corinthians 8 NASB 2020

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes one conceited, but love edifies people. If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him. Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. However, not all people have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Now food will not bring us close to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this freedom of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will his conscience, if he is weak, not be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge the one who is weak is ruined, the brother or sister for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brothers and sisters and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to sin.

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Benediction

James 5:13–16 NASB 2020

Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much.

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