The House of Saul

Transcript

And so I was kind of thinking about, OK, what am I going to do next? Beep-bop, beep-bop. And I'm like, you know what? I want to do something on David and the establishment of the kingdom and how that happened and some of the political issues that were going on at that time. So that's where we're headed, anyways. Not this week, but the following week. But I just wanted to kind of set the stage with Saul. We may know this story, I think probably inside and out. But I think it's a fascinating time in Israel's history. And it has some really strong lessons for us on how to deal with maybe trials and tribulations, how to deal with each other, how to deal with difficult situations. And Paul talks about this, right? They were written for our learning. All of these stories that were written down, they were written for us to guide us into the path of salvation. And so we look at Saul as somebody that had great potential. He had great potential. But in the end, it never materializes. There were spots of brightness and spots of greatness, really. But in the end, something that he could have established the kingdom of Israel in his own house, in his own name, but it didn't happen. It was taken from him, as Samuel said. It was taken and given to his neighbor, someone that was better than himself. So we'll take a look at it. So our first class is going to be on the house of Saul, a very quick overview of Saul, how he got into a position of power, and what happened. I'm sure we all remember this story. But I just kind of want to set the stage a little bit for that. So let's get into it very quickly. Boom. All right. We always like to place ourselves in an area. Oh, yes. Get to that. Sick. Look at this. But gee, this is next level. This is next level. All right. So this is the area that we're talking about here, OK? You know, this is not a massive area. If we took the modern state of Israel today, it's about the size of New Jersey, all right? But Saul didn't control all of that area, OK? For the most part. Look at this. He controlled this area in the purple, OK? So from down south where the Mount of Olives is, OK, right outside of Jerusalem, all the way up to Mount Gilboa. So that's an interesting area. You know, you're talking about maybe an area of, I don't know, 30, 40 square miles, something like that. And we may say, hey, that's not really a great kingdom. No, it's not. It's the beginning of a kingdom. It's the beginning of a nation. But if you remember from our series on the judges, you know, the Israelites didn't really have a whole lot of options when it came to, hey, where are we going to live? They couldn't live on the coast, right? Who was on the coastline? Who remembers? The Philistines, right? Along the coastline. They controlled that whole area. So Israel was really forced up into the hills, right? Up into the mountains of Israel. We know that. And so, you know, mountains, we know that there's massive mountain ranges in the world. Obviously, Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains in this country. Even you go up to New Hampshire, the White Mountains, like, whoa, that's Mount Washington. That's a sizable mountain. These mountains are not that size, but they're pretty good size. Like Mount Tabor, I think. Mount Tabor is pretty good size, 6,000, 7,000 feet. But they're not huge mountains. A lot of them are hills. But this is where the children of Israel had to go. This is where they lived, in the hills of Samaria, in the hills of Judah, because they had enemies all around them. If you look right here, the Philistines are on the coastline, right? Amnon is here. Moab is down south as well. So they had enemies, people that didn't want to see them successful here. This little round circle right here is Samuel's area of activity. Remember, he had a circle that he did, kind of the circle. He would go from this area. And that's where he would stay primarily. So we're not talking about a big area. The area down south here is Judah, as we know. And that's really, as we're going to see, this is David's area of operations as well. So in a lot of ways, brothers and sisters, you had two kind of competing areas of strength. Saul was anointed by Samuel. David was anointed by Samuel. And we're going to see that, obviously, there's going to be a clash here, right? Saul wants to hold on to his power. And David's like, well, I'm anointed too. And there's going to be that friction that we're going to take a look at. So we're setting the stage. This is the area that we're talking about. It's not a big area. But it's an important area. And it's going to expand, all right? Any questions, comments on this right here? All right, going over, boom, ooh, ooh, ooh. A few more towns and cities right here, OK? Again, this is the area that we're talking about. There's Bethel. There's Gilgal. Mount Gilboa is up on the top there. That's another question I've always asked myself. And I'm kind of doing some research into it. Why was Saul in the armies of Israel up in Mount Gilboa? The Philistines came all the way up, like cut right through Saul's territory and went right at them at Mount Gilboa. One of the things is Mount Gilboa may have been a fortress of some type that was controlling the trade routes there. And Saul was expanding his territory to include that area. And the Philistines are like, nah, nah, nah, you're not doing any of that. They went directly for kind of his seat of operations up in the north. So who knows? We're not really told. But I just find it interesting, like why Mount Gilboa? Why was the battle fought in that area? OK, I don't know if we'll ever get an answer. But hey, check this out right here, right by Mount Tabor. This is kind of not great, but I can see it not there. Where is it? Oh, I just saw it. Oh, yeah, Mount Tabor up in the north there. What's next to Mount Tabor? Endor. We know that that's going to play an important part, too. The Witch of Endor is up in that area, which makes sense because the last battle that Saul fought was up in the north at Mount Gilboa. So this makes sense according to the geography of Israel coincide with the written word about this historical time, which I find very interesting. Questions, comments on these two maps? All right, this is the area. All right. Boom. OK, so if you want to follow along, that's fine. It's in 1 Samuel chapter 10. But I'm going to just kind of paraphrase this. Remember from the account that the people, they demanded a king. They're like, listen, we need a strong man. We need a chieftain. We need a tough guy that we can follow. We got all these enemies around us. This hodgepodge of this chief talking to this chief and the tribes getting together, it's just not working out. And from a human political point of view, that makes sense on a certain level. You need one guy to make all the determinations. But the thing was they forgot about the one person that was making all the determinations, and that was God. They got so wrapped up into the politics of the day that they forgot like, oh, wait, God's brought us to this land. He's given it. He's protected us. There's been certainly some ups and downs, but we're still here. Kind of forgot about all that. And I think sometimes when we get established in our lives as well, after the grind and we're established, do we remember God in our good times? Do we remember God in our bad times as well? I think sometimes when we're going through trials and tribulations, that can affect our faith. I'm going through it again. What's going on? You can get frustrated, demoralized a little bit. But also in good times, we have foggy memories sometimes in our good times. We forget about the goodness of God. God's given us. Just take a look at our lives, the good and the bad. God has given us a life that I think when we look at it, it's a pretty good life for the most of us. And are we thankful for it? I don't think I'm thankful enough for the things. I'm living in this area of the world. I don't really want for anything. I've got enough food, got a great wife, great house. What am I worried about? But we always find things to complain and worry about. That's just the way we are. Saul was not an arrogant guy. He was not a prideful guy. He was very humble. In fact, he was so humble that he was hiding in the kind of the baggage area. All the people kind of came together at MSPA. And Saul was hiding. He didn't want any part of it. He was not a prideful guy at all. He was humble. And so there's going to be a core band of men that are going to stay with Saul. It says in 1 Samuel 10, whose heart God had touched. So God kind of in a way, David had his mighty men. We sometimes forget that Saul had his mighty men as well. He had his mighty men of value, people that were around him that could kind of guide him, help him in difficult situations, just like David did. I guess that's a question for us too. What type of people are we associating with? Are we around people whose heart God has touched in our lives? Are we around other people who are striving for the kingdom of God? Or are we around people that just kind of clutter our minds with nonsense? Right, you have friends or acquaintances, like they're always bringing something into your life that's maybe not the greatest. There's always some kind of negativity or problem. Try not to be like that. Try to be like the person that's kind of solving problems, not creating problems. There's kids at school. I call them bomb droppers. Come in, drop a bomb, and leave. That's what they do constantly. So there's people out there just like that. Anyways, let's see. In verse 25, let's look at this. Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house. So Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom. So that's interesting. That it wasn't, Samuel was part of establishing the kingdom. How are we going to run the kingdom? Who's going to do what? And so Samuel was part of that process with Saul. Imagine building a kingdom from nothing. That's really what they're doing. They're building a kingdom from nothing. It's kind of like building anything from nothing, something important, like a school. I was part of putting the charter school together, that whole process. It's a grind. And I think probably the same thing is true is establishing a kingdom that didn't exist. It's pretty stressful, I would imagine. And I'm glad that Saul had someone like Samuel to give him direction. Obviously, God was involved in it. The Holy Spirit obviously guided them. But that's interesting. Samuel was kind of the seer. He was called the seer. He guided people. That relationship with Samuel and Saul was very close. You know that Saul, Samuel loved Saul. And actually, when the kingdom was taken from, the crown was taken from, he cried all night to God. So there was a general love and affection by Samuel to Saul. So Saul is going to have a first big test. Nahash the Ammonite. And Saul does something interesting. He takes his oxen and he cuts them up. Oxen were very expensive back in the day. That was like one of the most expensive animals that you could have, oxen. Not only are they providing food and sustenance and stuff like that, but also if you wanted to plow a long distance, you needed oxen. Horses, you could do it for a little bit, but horses don't have the same type of strength and physiology that an ox does. And so oxen, before they got the big harnesses for those horses, it was very difficult for horses to plow. They shied away from horses. With oxen, you had that strength that you could go a long period of time to plow. And so that's why they had oxen. And Saul kills his oxen. It's almost like Saul saying, we're all in on this. We're going all in on it. Great little story about, I know I'm going down a historical rabbit hole here, but when Cortez, the Spanish conquistador, came over to Mexico and was fighting the Aztecs, one of the things that he did was he burned all his ships. Cortez burned all his ships. And he's telling his men, there's no way back, baby. We're going, and this is it. This is our path. And I think in a lot of ways, Saul was doing that as well. Killing my oxen. There's no turning back now. And the other message is, if you don't follow me, I'm killing your oxen too. I'm going to take away your livelihood if you're not in on this. You need to be in on this. One of the enemies of Israel is trying to kill, put out their eyes, and everything else. This needs to be taken care of. And so that's what Saul did. First, he led by example. He killed his own oxen. And he sent the word out. You either come or you're my enemy. And they ended up coming. Little background on Ammon, pretty interesting stuff. Long history of animosity with Israel. Moab and Amnon were the product of incest with Lot and his daughters. We know that from the 19th chapter of Genesis. So they were related. But there was a tinge of, not really a tinge, but there was a spot on their heritage. They had their own family issues. But the fact of the matter is, did Israel have their family issues? 100% they did. Let's think about Jacob and his sons and all the shenanigans that they were involved in. Judah. There's a whole couple chapters, or one chapter, on Judah and his sexual immorality, some of the decisions that he made. So let's not get all high and mighty, Israel. When you're looking down on Amnon, you get your own problem. But anyways, so they're related. They're related peoples. Kind of like the Scottish and the Irish and the English. They're kind of all related in that area as well, even though they don't have a great history. They were related genetically. It's like they were related genetically. But some of our worst battles in life can come from the family. Knockdown, drag out fights, family feuds. This was really a family feud. It was a bloody feud, but it was a family feud. They were, their area, their territory was east of the Jordan, east of the Jordan. And they're going to obviously come in contact with Israel, because Reuben and the half tribe of Gad, I believe, their territory was east of the Jordan, because it was flat land. They had a lot of cattle. So it was good grazing area for them. They're going to come in contact with the Ammonites. Israel prevented from taking their land. God told them not to take their land, to leave their land in Deuteronomy. They were to go around. When they came in, they were to go around that area. Rehoboam had Ammonite blood. So if you look that up in 1 Kings 14, the 21st chapter, Solomon had married an Ammonite woman. And his mother was an Ammonite, so Rehoboam was half Ammonite. Interesting. Was where Joab and the army was when David took Bathsheba. They were at Rameth Gilead. They were taking this capital city of the Ammonites. And this is when David and his shenanigans with Bathsheba took place. They prevented the Jews from returning to worship in Jerusalem in the temple. Tobiah was an Ammonite. So that's interesting, even though hundreds and hundreds of years of this feud, the Jews are taken captive. They go back to Babylon. They come back under Cyrus with the Persians. And who's waiting for them? Their old enemy, the Ammonites. No, no, no, no. We don't want any Jews here. Get them out of here. Nothing but trouble. Look it up. Look it up in the annals of the kings. Nothing but trouble in Jerusalem. That was the argument that they were making. And historical, they also fought the Maccabees. So think about that. From the time of Abraham to the time of the Maccabees, it's 2,500 years. It's 2,500 years of animosity, of hatred. That is a long time. You would think eventually they would just kind of make up and try to work together. No, didn't happen. And so it's really going to take Rome coming in here and kind of just laying waste to the whole area to kind of get rid of a lot of this blood feud. But I just found that interesting, right? There's a blood feud that was going on between Israel and Amnon 2,500 years. All right. That's a commitment, Butchi. Just a quick look up here at the map. Again, this is kind of the area you can see that Israel is hemmed in in the middle like we talked about, the hills of Israel. If we make a connection actually today, there's a lot of controversy in this area because a lot of the Jews are coming and they're settling in this area. And they're saying, well, this is our historical area. These are the hills of Samaria. These are the hills of Judah. But it's disputed area, right? The Palestinians kind of have that area in the West Bank. And Israel is buying land and actually building settlements. There's settlements, but they're actually like towns and cities along this area. So again, that still has not been resolved. So you could actually say that they're continuing on. These people are continuing on their blood feud from way back when. So anyways, the Arabs and the Jews are related as well. OK, here is an account of this kind of Saul's first big test, his battle. From the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Aseans actually kept a lot of this stuff. Nahash, King of the Ammonites, would put hard pressure on the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Reuben. We just talked about that. And would gouge everyone's right eye out. So imagine that's kind of, just think about all of your men lose their right eye. It's just humiliating. And obviously, a one-eyed guy is not going to be great in battle either. You're taking someone's eye. Just think about everything involved in that. The pain, you're lining up next, please. Just take out your right eye. Craziness. And so obviously, this is a concern. But no rescue would be provided for Israel. And there was not left anyone among the children of Israel and the Transjordan over the Jordan whose right eye, Nahash, the King of the Ammonites, did not gouge out. So this one right here is saying that there were some people that had already had their right eyes gouged out by Nahash. And they were coming to Kerjath-Giram to do the same thing. But behold, 7,000 men escaped the power of the Ammonites. And they arrived at Jabesh-Gilead. About a month later, Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-Gilead. So this is kind of a summary that was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls of this event. The Bible obviously talks about it. There's a summary right here as well. So this event took place. And this is Saul's first big test, goes up and saves the people of Jabesh-Gilead. All right. First Samuel 12. So Samuel actually says to Israel in the first couple of verses, And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice and all that ye said unto me and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you. And I am old and gray-headed. And behold, my sons are with you. And I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. So in a lot of ways, brothers and sisters, Saul's kind of taking Israel and handing it over to Saul. Okay. It's your problem now. Samuel is kind of withdrawing. He's older, right? He's getting old. And he's passing the baton off, the responsibility to Saul into his house. Saul's in charge now. But let's just take a look at verse 20. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not, you have done all this wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And turn ye not aside, for then should ye go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain. And so Samuel is going to pray for the people. And he says, I won't stop praying for you. But there's this friction, right? With God. God was their king. They should have been looking to God. And so Samuel's like, look, I've given you the king. He's in charge now. Good luck to you. But I'm going to be praying for you every day. I'm going to pray for you every day. And so I kind of thought about this. In our lives, people that we love, that we may care about, can make decisions that we don't think are right. Maybe we don't think that that's going to be great for that person, right? Whether it's our kids, whatever. Someone in our family, close relative, close friend or something like that. At the end of the day, that person has free will. They're going to make the decision that they're going to make. And I think a lot of times we can be in that situation like Samuel is. It's like, okay, you're going to do what you're going to do. I can't stop you from doing it, but I can do one thing. I can always pray for you. You know what I'm saying? No one can stop us from praying. You know, honestly, there's memes out there, I'm sure. But there's this one meme. And it was like a meme that was sent to an atheist, right? Because they were mad that people were praying for them. And so one guy sent the meme saying, after further consideration, I will be praying even harder for you. Right, so, you know, we have control. We have that control. We can pray for anybody at any time. No one can stop us, okay? And that's a wonderful source of comfort and it's a wonderful source of power as well. And Samuel understood that, the power of prayer. He says, I'm always going to pray for Saul, I'm always going to pray for Israel. And that should be part of our prayer life. Every single day we should be praying for obviously our families, our ecclesias, the peace in the world, all of that kind of stuff. And if there is a specific individual, a certain issue that we're dealing with, let God know. Let God know about it. You know, I think sometimes we keep things in our hearts, like, let God know. God knows what we need, but let him know. Have that conversation every single day with God. Whatever your routine or your habit of prayer is, let him know. All right. You know, I put in here, you know, Luke 12, verse 32, fear not little Flockford, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Samuel gave the kingdom, God gave the kingdom to Saul, right? He has a wonderful kingdom waiting for us that can't even put into words, okay? Our senses cannot make sense of the glory and the happiness that will be in the kingdom of God, okay? But it is our father's good pleasure. God wants to give us the kingdom. He wants it, he loves us. That's the ultimate goal of God, to give us the kingdom, to be with him all the time. All right. So Saul is gonna, he's gonna get into, you know, in 1 Samuel 13, it says Saul reigned one year. So already one year, he's got one battle. And then the next year, he's got another massive battle because the Philistines are gonna come up. You know, Saul, I think Israel and Saul were emboldened by their victory over Nahash, the Ammonite. They're like, oh, okay, I've got a little something here. And so that was in the east. But then they like, listen, we got, you know, we're still under kind of the control of the Philistines. And so I was like, nah, no, not anymore, we're revolting. And so they revolted against the Philistines. Now remember, there's accounts here, both in, well, in 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel as well. The children of Israel in this particular area, okay, the border towns between Judah and the Philistines, they didn't know how to make weapons. They didn't know how to forge iron, okay. And so this is where they had farm implements and stuff like that. You remember where they have to go to get their farm implements sharpened? Philistines, right? They had to actually go down to the Philistines to get their, you know, their farm implements sharpened. Think about that. It's like their whole livelihood now, right, is dependent upon the Philistines. Granted, they have to go and do the work, but if they don't get their implements sharpened, how are they gonna cut down the grain? How are they gonna cut down the barley, all that kind of stuff? How are they gonna do any work on the farm? So it was tough, it was a tough situation. You know, they needed somebody, and so Saul and his house, they're gonna rebel against the Philistines. But in their minds, it sounded really good. Like, yeah, we can take these guys, we can definitely take the Philistines, right? We just took the Ammonites, no problem. We got a good little army here. But it didn't work out, didn't work out quite that way. Let's take a look at this. Yeah, and so in verse five, and the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, okay? Yeah, so, yeah, in verse four, yeah, and Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it, and Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, let the Hebrews hear. And all Israel heard say that Saul had smitten a garrison of the Philistines, and that Israel also was had an abomination with the Philistines, and the people were called together after Saul to Gilgal. So, you know, the Philistines, I wish I had a map of this, but anyways, the Philistines are gonna kind of set up garrisons along the border of Israel, and the purpose of these garrisons, number one, is to protect the border, that's obvious. Number two, a safe place where the raiders, the Philistine raiders, or the bands of soldiers could go out and go and take possessions, take people as slaves, okay? So these garrisons really were the place where the Philistines would gather to go out and to harass Israel. Like, if there was a place that, like, that's ground zero for the oppression of the Philistines, these garrisons were ground zero. Every time, they were always up on a hill, so you're looking down. I'll give you an example, not a modern-day example, but like in the Middle Ages. What did they have in the Middle Ages? They had garrisons, but like in England and in Europe, what did they have? Castles, right? Castles are just massive garrisons. And so they would build these, and that's exactly what the English kings did, particularly like around the Welsh, in the Welsh borderlands. King Edward I, here we go again. He set up a whole line of castles along the border, and this is exactly what they did. Any problems? All right, send them out. And this was the Philistines mentality. We got garrisons right here. Any problems in Israel? Send out the garrison. Oh, we need more slaves, we need more stuff. Want to harass and terrorize Israel? Send the garrison out. And so Saul and Jonathan and the others, like this is the problem. This is the issue right here. So he wipes out one of the garrisons, and the Philistines are like, oh, but we got a problem when I am. So all Israel is gathered together, then the Philistines gather together. And it's one of these things, like Mike Tyson famously once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Okay? This is a perfect example, I think, of Israel and Saul having a great plan and then getting punched in the face. Here's the punch in the face. Ready? Verse 5. And when the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sandwiches on the seashore, and they came up and pitched in mick mash eastward toward Beth Haven. Sizable force, right? That Israel could not compete with. Chariots of iron, remember the chariots of iron? Philistines got them, a lot of them. Horsemen, Israel didn't have any horsemen. How are you gonna do anything with these guys on an open field of battle? That isn't how Israel used to fight during this time. This is hit and run tactics, right, at nighttime. They like hitting at night. Remember Gideon? Gideon totally wiped out a much larger force by hitting them at nighttime, particularly when there's all kinds of different ethnic groups, right, that usually are, you know, like Ben's over there. He's from Walpole. Walpole guys don't hear from him. I mean, we're fighting together, but, you know, I've had trouble in the past, and so, you know, that's what happens. I think Ben's turning on me and fighting me. Now I gotta fight Ben so the whole place is, you know, in an uproar. Anyways, so they bring the massive army. We're gonna crush these guys. Who's Saul? Who's the House of Saul? Who are these guys? Think they can take our garrison? You're nothing. You're a little tiny hill people. You don't even have chariots. You don't have horses. You got nothing. You can't even make your own weapons. Just getting little guide all the time, right? And so, when the men of Israel saw that, they were in a straight, for the people were distressed. Then the people did hide themselves in caves and thickets and rocks and high places, and some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilgal. They left. We're outta here. It's so, you know, oh yeah, and as for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him, trembling. You know, they were at a high, this big victory with Nahash. Man, what a great job. Well, now you're gonna go with the varsity team. The varsity fight with the Philistines, okay? They got all the technology, all the top-end technology. You guys have nothing. And when they saw the size of this force, all the bravery went bite, bite. They're hiding in caves and thickets. Just tell you, they were following Saul, trembling. You know, imagine being Saul. Okay, I had this great idea to go fight the Philistines. Look where I am now. They were about to slaughter me. I need Samuel. Samuel, and Samuel wasn't there. He says he waited for seven days. Eventually he did come, and Saul made the mistake of offering, right? And this is actually where he makes the offering. Out of all the people, there were only 600 men that were left with Saul. Only 600 were left with Saul. They were very afraid. They were hiding themselves. Philistines were gonna crush these Hebrews once and for all. We're tired of them. You know what? The Hebrews are an abomination to us. I can't even stand to look at them. He makes the sacrifice without Samuel, right? He takes upon himself the role of priest and king. And we know that that is reserved for one person, one person only, and that is Christ. And so this is why, you know, he takes upon himself the role of priest and king. And, you know, we may think that, you know, God's kind of response to this is harsh, but you could never have that in Israel. You couldn't have the king in control of both the politics and the religion. Couldn't have it. You know, one is separated for the Levites. The Levites, that was their job. Wasn't the king's job, okay? You do the kinging, we'll take care of the religious aspect, okay? All right. We talked about this. Very few weapons among the common people, right? It is interesting, brothers and sisters, that archeologists have said that, you know, up further north in that area, in the hills of Samaria, where Saul and his sons were, guess what they could make? Weapons. They had the ability in that area. They could make weapons, okay? So they were able to make weapons up here, but down in the south, on the border towns, the Philistines prevented the Israelites, or the Hebrews, from making any weapons. But they still got the technology. You know what I'm saying? But it was hidden, and it was on a very small scale as well, okay? The forging of iron weapons, right? Iron was also, this was a kind of transition as well, transition from bronze weapons to iron weapons. All right. Da da da, da da da, oh yeah. So, you know, Jonathan and his armabere are gonna save Israel this day, okay? Awesome story. Awesome story of Jonathan and his armabere. They're like, okay, what are we gonna do? Are we just gonna sit here and just let the Philistines kind of, you know, roll over us? We gotta do something. You know, Jonathan was a man of action. Sometimes just kind of sitting around is the worst. It's the worst. When you got a problem you gotta resolve, just kind of sitting around. I always like to do something, right? Okay, let's have a very kind of general plan, and let's go, right? Doesn't it have to be perfect? Let's have a general plan, and let's go and let's see what happens. We can make adjustments, okay? And I think that was, that was Jonathan's idea. Let's go up, if the Philistines act in a certain way, we know that God is with us. If we climb up, remember it says in the story, we're not gonna look at it, we're gonna climb it up. A hand or a foot, they're climbing up the cliff. Boom, and they pop up, you know? Do a couple of Hebrews. Heavily armed Hebrews, by the way, okay? These guys, you know, the band, you know, Saul and his sons, the nobility, you know, his best soldiers were heavily armed. They had spears, they had armor, they had shields, they had good swords. You know, they had all the stuff that, you know, the Philistines would have, but it wasn't widespread. So you had a small group of people with really good armor and really good weapons, and then the rest of them, you know, they've got, you know, one of the, a scythe or something like that with no armor. How long are you gonna last in a battle? Not long. All right, anyways, they come up heavily armed. The Philistines see them, you know, they look down upon the Hebrews. Hey, come on up, Hebrews, we've got something to show you. And so that's what happened. And so Jonathan and his armabere go up, and they start a little melee, and they do great. They started hacking down these Philistines. It's a small area, I think like an acre or something like that. Him and his armabere just go to town on these guys. They wipe out another garrison, just the two of them. And this kind of starts the whole thing, okay? Remember the rash, the oath that Saul took, remember? He said, you know, no one can eat any food until I'm avenging my enemies. Like Saul, just, you gotta relax, man. This was Saul's problem, right? He was a good, he was a really good leader a lot of times, and then he just went, he just went off, you know, off the reservation, man. And so Jonathan had a very interesting response. He said, no, my father has troubled the land. Like, soldiers need to eat. And what happened was that oath actually caused another problem, that people were so hungry. What did they do with the food when they killed the animals? Didn't even cook it, they cooked it a little bit and just almost ate it raw, okay? Which was another violation of the law, right? You couldn't eat it with the blood. They did it anyway, so starving army eats half cooked raw meat. And this is when it says in scripture, in that 14th chapter, the people rescued Jonathan, right? Saul was so concerned about his oath not being broken that he was gonna kill his only son, a great warrior. Jonathan was a great warrior. And he was gonna die because he ate, remember when he touched a little bit of the honey? Put his stick on it, he ate a little bit of the honey and his eyes were open, it says. They just needed, they needed some carbohydrates, stack. Right, they were running on fumes. And so the people were divided up, Saul and Jonathan on one side, the people on the other side. And they drew lots and boom, Saul and Jonathan, the lot is drawn and then Saul's like, yeah, you're gonna die, Jonathan. And the people are like, no, he's not. No chance he's gonna die, he has wrought a great victory in Israel, you crazy, Saul? Yeah, I kinda am crazy a little bit. And so the people saved Jonathan and rightfully so, right? Jonathan and his armabirah, through their faith and action, right, the combination of those two wrought salvation for Israel, okay, great story, great story. All right, very quickly, very quick, where am I on, seven? Okay, Saul had another job to do, right? God says go, take care of Amalek, I will forever be at war with Amalek because of what they did. Remember Amalek attacked the weakest of the people, the stragglers that couldn't keep up, the old, the infirm, the children, small families. Amalek attacked them, took them, killed them, okay? And that was abhorrent to God. And so again, Saul was committed to go and take care of the Amalekites. He did according to his own rules and regulations. Saul did what, which was right in his own eyes. God had given him a commandment. And once again, Saul doesn't do the whole thing. He makes a mistake. He keeps the best of all the booty for himself and for the people to sacrifice to God. That's a good one, they had to sacrifice to you. And so the kingdom is taken from him. And we know that it is gonna be given to David. And this is, you know, Agag is gonna die as well. And from this point on, brothers and sisters, Saul's mental state is not great. It's not, he has his ups and downs, doesn't he? He gets into these mindsets. It's taken from him, evil spirit from the Lord, manic behavior, certainly depression, that type of thing. Music is gonna have a positive impact on Saul. And this is where David kind of enters the scene. We'll look at this in a little more detail. Okay, the playing of the lute. Very nice, calm them down. You wonder what kind of songs David was singing to Saul. Did he sing any of the songs? Did he had his own? This is, hey, Saul, this is a new song he just composed. Oh, I like that one, right? I don't know. Very talented guy, David. Great warrior, great musician as well, right? All right, he's gonna become obsessed with killing David. He's gonna chase David down. He almost gets him a couple times. We'll get into that a little bit later. So Saul's reign is gonna end, unfortunately, with three of his sons, along with Jonathan. It's gonna end on Mount Gilboa. You know, that's the question, why on Mount Gilboa? Interesting, I think Saul was kind of expanding his territory, I think, and the Philistines looked at this as an opportunity to get him. He was a great warrior. He started the whole process of bringing together the nation of Israel into one coherent political entity. He was impulsive, rash, prone to extremes. Whomst among us, right? We're all like this. Impulsive, rash, prone to extremes, yes. Remember he killed the priests of God because they harbored David, imagine? Doag, yeah, Doag sent them, right? Suffered from bouts of paranoia, depression, mania, and he saved Israel. He did save Israel from the Philistines and from other people in a lot of ways. This is why when David, he writes the psalm about Saul and Jonathan, you know, weep ye for Saul, ye daughters of Israel, for you will clothe and scald it. You know, so that just, that line right there tells me that Saul brought the children of Israel from a kind of dysfunctional tribe, group of tribes, into one coherent nation, and you should be commended for that. That was quite the, you know, quite the accomplishment. He was loved by many, a lot of people loved Saul. He saved them, and I'll tell you why, people, you know, I'll give you an example. Remember when he died on Mount Gilboa? Was it Kurjath-Jerim? People of Kurjath-Jerim, actually, they were hanging Paul's, his body and everything on the walls. They snuck in there and they grabbed him, and they burned the bodies, but they fasted for seven days, so they gave him a proper burial as best as they could, which was really just kind of burning the body and then burying what was left. Now it's green, is that better? Rich, the points you make about Saul are point on, because, you know, a lot of times we want to criticize him, but I think a lot of times we can see ourselves in Saul, and there's one instance early on in his life after Samuel anoints him and says, you're gonna be king of God's people. He meets up with his uncle in chapter 10, and all he tells his uncle is, we found the asses. He doesn't mention anything to his uncle about being king of God's people, and I think that right there tells us a lot about him, either how totally overwhelmed he is, as you mentioned, unprepared he was, whatever, but it's something we all need to consider too in our lives when we come across family members, friends. You know, when they ask about us, you know, are we talking about the kingdom? Are we stepping out front? You know, I know myself, a lot of times I don't, so it's just little things, and it's only two verses in the chapter, and I've always wondered why would we need to know that, that he didn't tell his uncle he was king, and, you know, that talks about his overwhelmment or unpreparedness or he didn't believe it, you know, a lot of things. I think when they all gathered together, like the reality of the situation came on Saul, like this is actually happening, I'm gonna be king, and that's why he hid himself. You know, we try to hide ourselves all the time, you know, we don't wanna do something, kick the can down the road, oh, I'll deal with that parent later. Eventually gonna deal with it, Tammy, you know what I'm saying? All right, any other questions, comments?