Sermon Tone Analysis

Hurricane Harvey (Slide)

Tragedy-We wonder-Where is God in all this?

I can tell you God, is alive and well.

He is guiding the people helping.

He is there when the lives are being saved.

He is comforting the hurting.

He is with the churches and people that are taking in the homeless.

He is there when people hear the gospel in the middle of the loss, and he is there providing a way for eternal life.

While we see God in the aftermath, and clean-up and stories of survival

Seeing God working through his people in the aftermath, and hearing stories of God working in miraculous ways does still leaves other questions unanswered.

We are still left with the question of why?

Why does God allow this?

Or, why does God bring on a disaster?

The Bible clearly gives us a picture of God that shows that he is in control of the weather.

Psalm 89:1

So when Christians are faced with God being in control, and when that is laid alongside stories of the Old Testament, people put those together and conclude that God is judging people for their sinfulness.

We hear statements like all the time.

911 was judgement to our nation, the Tsunami in Indonesia was God’s judgement as was the earthquake in Japan.

But is that what is happening?

Were the people in Texas the recipient of God’s judgement because our nation has turned from God? Were they somehow more wicked than people living in Minnesota that escaped God’s wrath?

How do we relate to the Old Testament stories of God’s justice being delivered, and being Christians today?

Text

Let’s open , and wrestle with those questions.

Today, we will look at , and wrestle with those questions.

Prayer

Did you hear that?

Last week we studied , the anointing of Saul as the military leader slash King of Israel.

It really depends on your perspective.

During that message, I asked to search God for your directive.

If you were not here last week, or you did not do that, let me go over that quickly.

I encouraged everyone, to think about how you came to the Lord, and through prayer, and spending time with God to figure out the mission he has for you, then I encouraged you to put that mission into action first to the people around you.

Saul was appointed as military leader of Israel to be the boots on the ground to fight the battles for Israel.

As we continue through Saul’s reign in subsequent chapters we see some fairly successful military campaigns.

However, the problem is that Saul’s character flaws keep getting in the way.

Instead of these missions drawing him closer to the Lord, Saul seems to continue to make choices that lead him farther from the Lord, and off the path.

As a result, Saul starts losing the kingdom piece by piece.

In 1 Samuel chapter 13, Saul went out to the fight the Philistines.

Samuel told Saul that before going to battle he needed to wait seven days for Samuel return.

At the end of seven days Samuel would return, offer the necessary sacrifice to Yahweh, and Saul could proceed to battle.

This is a common theme in Scripture-waiting on God.

Often in scripture people receive consequences because they fail to wait when God tells them to wait.

Waiting is ultimately a demonstration of your trust in God for the outcome.

Not waiting, is taking matters into our own hands.

Up to this point Saul has not demonstrated instances where he has been solid in trusting God.

So, it really isn’t that surprising that when he is told to wait 7 days for Samuel return, he doesn’t do it.

Saul see things from the point of view of a military commander, he sees the tangible concrete things of the world, not the things of God.

Saul is faced with the Philistines pressing in, his men are deserting him because of inaction, and it has been 7 days and Samuel has not showed up to offer the sacrifice.

Out of desperation, Saul offers the sacrifice, and just as he offers it, Samuel arrives.

As a consequence of this sin God tells Saul that his offspring will not inherit the throne, and the first piece of the kingdom is torn away.

The next piece that is torn away occurs in Chapter 14.

In chapter 14, Saul places an unreasonable demand on the troops.

Saul has the men fast.

He tells them not to eat anything until Saul executes his revenge on his enemies.

Saul’s son Johnathon comes across some honey.

Bet he has not heard of the oath, he is hungry and eats.

The men then battle the Philistines, afterword released from the oath they begin to eat some of the plunder.

But because of their great hunger they ravish the meat, and do not follow the dietary laws of the nation, and are sinning against the Lord.

Saul comes up with a solution to that problem, but there still is the matter of Johnathon breaking the oath, and eating honey.

Saul decides that whoever broke his oath must die, even if it is his own son.

This by the way is the sign of a troubled and dangerous leader.

He has placed a manmade requirement on the people.

That requirement actually caused sin against the Lord.

Then he placed violation of his law above the violation of Lord’s law.

This is how cult’s operate.

Anyway because of that behavior the second piece of the kingdom is taken away from Saul.

Saul loses authority and popularity over the troops.

The men love and respect Johnathon, so they do not follow Saul’s orders to kill him, and they rescue him.

That event from is strikingly similar to today’s story, when Saul has the final piece of the kingdom torn from him.

Samuel comes to Saul with a word from the Lord.

The original Hebrew emphasizes listening more than the NIV translation does.

If we were to read it in the original language it would say, Hear the voice of the words of the Lord.

Saul is supposed to listen to this very important message, so that he gets it exactly right right.

This is a very serious message indeed.

It comes to Saul from the Lord of Hosts.

We heard that term before, earlier the book.

It refers to God being the commander of the heavenly armies.

Now the Lord of Hosts is giving his earthly commander an order.

Saul is to perform a Holy War on the Amalekites.

Not just any Holy war but in Hebrew it is called Herem.

It means complete and total destruction.

Absolutely nothing is to be spared.

According to , when Isreal left Egypt and was travelling to Sinai, the Amalekites attacked from the rear.

They took the weak, and the weary of the Lord’s people.

Because that was so horrible in the eyes of the Lord, he vowed that he would destroy them

That was then, in the Old Testament, when God called for a holy war to deliver his justice.

That was a very specific time, and a very specific incident.

We now live under the New Covenant.

We are not entitled to go on a Holy War to deliver God’s justice.

This is especially relevant today as the dialogue turns toward terrorism.

Non-christians claim that passages like these show that christians are no different than terrorists.

Some well meaning Christians read these passages and view it as permission to go to war against non-christians.

deut 25:17-19

The delivering of God’s justice belongs to God alone.

Jesus said,

That is what is so radical about the gospel.

The Gospel has caused a shift.

A shift from the God’s judgement being forcefully carried out in the physical kingdom of Israel through an earthly king.

To a Spiritual battle taking place for a heavenly Kingdom.

Jesus the king be sure will judge all people from His heavenly throne, but now we are not placed in the position of judge.

So Saul and the soldiers embark on this Holy War, the herem.