There's one that I really like. I like the whole song, but there's one sad part in the poem. The whole poem is sad. In you know, anyway. Of all the sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these it might have been.
That's what you could say over that would have been his epitaph. It might he could have been a great king. But he opted out. And again, that's part of our message to lost souls. We are ordered by the Lord Jesus.
to love our enemies. You're listening to Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
Today on Cross Reference Radio, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through the 31st chapter of 1 Samuel on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. Verse 9. 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. The Amalekite probably said, Oh, I need is a crown and the rings, and I'm good. Maybe the robe, but the armor he had no use for that, so he leaves it.
This is payback. David did this to Goliath. And they're doing this to Saul. Saul's body, they're going to take it, they're going to hang it from a wall, they're going to stick his head in their temple. And uh This is similar to David.
First Chronicles 10, and we'll comment on this again. Then they put his armor in the temple of their gods and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon. It's the same Dagon that was toppled over when they had the ark and they found his head and hands on the floor, that same fake god. And so here when they strip Saul of his armor, They're going to put his head as a trophy. Their God has brought this battle, they think, but Samuel called it.
It's not their victory. Verse 10: Then they put his armor in the temple of the Ashtareths. And they fastened his body on the wall of Beth Shan. Again, payback for David. 1 Samuel 17, verse 54.
And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem and put his armor in his tent.
So David was busy. He hacks the head off, takes the armor. It's pretty heavy. He's got to lug that and the head. And then he's got to salt the head or else the flies would be overwhelming.
Maybe they had, you know, a glass case. No, they did not. Anyhow, the sword of David, where does that end up? It ends up in the temple because David goes to the temple. And so this was what they did back then.
And the Philistines are now doing it. It's their turn to gloat. Mount Gilboa is about seven miles from Beth Shan, where they, so that's how far they travel with it. And that kind of enters into the story because the men of Jabesh-Gilead are going to rise up and retrieve the body of Saul. And we'll come to that now.
They're about 10 miles from Beth Shan.
So not too far for these things to take place. Verse 11.
Now, when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard that the Philistines, Had done what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valent men arose and traveled all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan, and they came to Jabeth and burned them there. You're reading this, they say, all the valent men arose. What did the invalid? That's probably not a word, invalid. But what are the men that weren't so brave doing?
They probably all got up and said, let's go, boys. These men of Jabez Gilead They had been delivered. From the threats of an Ammonite king, King Naash, years ago. When Saul first became king, His first challenge was this threat. You know, we're going to take out the eyes of all the men of Jabash, Gilead.
If you surrender, and we'll conquer you. And they sent to Saul, we need help. And Saul. goes and he he fights and he wins. They never forgot that.
It was Saul's first military battle, it's probably his only. Decent thing he really did, and really his motive wasn't Yahweh, Saul, you know. Although Yahweh inspired him.
So they want to honor the memory of Saul for delivering them. And again, just 10 miles away, but it says they traveled all night.
So it's a night mission. They know that the Philistines to They've defeated any foe that there's no foe to really worry about, having vanquished the Jews earlier. And they're all going to be sleeping. And the men of Jabesh Gilead, they know that. And uh here It is good to point out, even though I don't agree with these, well, like you can't fault them.
For saying, hey, you know, Saul delivered us, and we owe him a little more. Honor in his death. I don't fault them for that. No other city in Israel raised a finger to save. The body of Saul from desecration, but these men remembered his kindness.
uh from years gone by, they n pr knew of his wickedness also. What in gratitude to the deed? They put their lives at risk. And uh they all went. To the stronghold of the Philistines, and they got the job done.
And that brings us to the topic of. loyal Volunteers. I mean there are Just loyal volunteers. There are volunteers that pretend to be loyal and they're really not. But then there are those that are genuine, and those I'd like to just talk about because.
The world will tell you Well, there's one. Military Person gets the credit for saying, don't be the first, don't be the last, and whatever you do, don't volunteer. I don't want to be a foxhole mate with him. I don't want to be a shipmate with that guy. Uh he's a minimalist.
You know, just don't over, you know, don't, you know, okay, don't get on their radar and be the last guy. But whatever you do, don't be the best either. And don't volunteer.
Well, that might be true. in the world with the world's commanders. I've m been under leaders that I wouldn't volunteer to do anything with. But then I've been under others that I would be a An honor to volunteer to do something they requested. Volunteers are needed to do the dirty work.
The job no one else wants to do. That needs to be done or should be done, and this is the case with the men of Jabesh-Gilead, the assignment that others avoid. They take on. This is pointed out in the Psalms when it comes to the righteous and now serving the king. Psalm 110, verse 3.
Which is a messianic psalm. It's a psalm that is set in the context of the coming Christ. Your people, speaking about the Christ, the Messiah, your people shall be volunteers. in the day of your power. and the beauties of holiness.
Well, the days of his power, in one sense, are they begin when we become born again. We are in the days of his power. Volunteers are an asset if they are capable. They are a liability if they're not. You know, somebody who can't drive volunteering to drive you somewhere, it doesn't worry.
You know what? I'll walk. But when they are capable. They most certainly are an asset.
So let's talk about some of the volunteers from Scripture. And there are quite a few, but let's do all of them. There's Hannah.
Okay, she volunteered somebody else for the mission. But she suffered too. She volunteered her son, her firstborn. The one she wanted so badly, she gave them away. To the Lord.
I mean, you just can't top that. David himself, who is this Philistine? I'll take him out. He volunteered, he went forward. Abishai.
David's comrade. We've read about Abishai. Like, David says, Who will go with me down to the camp? I'll go with you, David. I've got your back.
Itai the Gittite, we've talked about him. Wherever you are, my king, there I'll be too. Life or death? Even ruthless Joab Joab was a great guy as long as you did not give him a reason to kill you. And it didn't take much.
But he still, you know, who will climb up the well at Jabos, which would be Jerusalem? And open the gate for us. And Joab says, I'll do it. And he had to go up, you know, sort of vertical, feet on one side of the wall, of the well wall, and hands on the other side. And he was a tough guy.
They were the water boys of Bethlehem. When David said, I would love a drink from Bethlehem, I'm from Bethlehem. But the Philistines have a garrison there, And they didn't say anything. They just went and got the job done. They come back with the water.
Baby couldn't drink. I can't drink this. I cannot. Just in a good conscience, you men risked your blood so that I could have water. Isaiah the prophet.
God says, who will I send? I said, I'll go.
However, God was alive. Mm-hmm. God didn't tell him they're going to not like you for this message. If God didn't say, here's the message, who will deliver it? God says, I have a message, who will deliver it?
And Isaiah says, I'll do it. And God says, okay, say to them, woe unto them. How to win friends and influence people. Obadiah the servant. of Ahab the wicked king.
You know, Elijah pronounced a drought and he left, and God hid him. He says, Go by the book, Kiriath. And there the ravens brought him bread and brought him meat. Roadkill. I mean, ravens don't usually kill anything.
I mean, they kill small chicks or something like that, but that's roadkill. of some sort. I would have gone, ew! I'm not eating that bread from a bird's mouth. Those birds are dirty.
Just get a birdcage. You'll find out. Anyway. Uh God hides the prophet there. The well dries up.
So again, what you know, keeping him dependent. And he takes him to the widow, and then it gets worse. The kid dies of the widow. Oh, man of God, have you come here? And just what a story.
Anyhow. Oh, but so then God then says to Elijah, Okay, I'm gonna end the drought. I want you to show up to the king. And the king and Obadiah said, we're going to have to find food.
So we don't have to kill the horses and find you know, we just Find food.
So you go in this direction, I'll go to this one. And so they go.
Well, Obadiah, as he's looking, he comes across Elijah the prophet. And what does Elijah say? Elijah says, go tell the king, Elijah is here. Just like that, Elijah is here. Just tell him my name.
And in the Hebrew, it's just Elijah. And Obadiah says, no way. Because you're going to send me Elijah's here, and I go, and you go, God leads you who knows where? That's what He says: God will lead you who knows where. And then the king will kill me because we have searched everywhere for you.
Because you brought the drought.
So Elijah says, as the Lord lives, I'll be here. But before they get to that, I'll be here. Obadiah says, Haven't you heard what I've done for the servants of the Lord, risking my own neck? Hiding 50 to a cave, bringing them bread, and what? Do you know how hard it is to feed 50 men in a cave and not bring attention to yourself?
Why would you put me in a situation where Ahab's going to kill me? Elijah, you know, tough Elijah, dressed, you know, leather and stuff. Calling fire down on armies. And he says, you know, go, I'm not going to go anywhere. And he says, this is a tender moment, the only tender moment of Elijah.
No, it's not. But Obadiah the servant volunteered to keep the prophets alive, who Jezebel was having killed. Another volunteer in Scripture. Then we get to the New Testament, of course, Peter. Lord, I'll step out in that water.
I mean, he volunteered to do that. in front of everybody. And he was doing pretty good there for a while. I mean, it's like a cartoon, you know, when they walk off the cliff and they keep walking until they realize that they're not on the cliff anymore, and then they fall, and that's always puzzled me as a kid. Why didn't they just walk down to the ground anyhow?
Looney Tunes are real stories. Yeah.
So Peter, of course, always volunteering the first word. And again, if you the value of that Is take Peter's words out of your New Testament. You have to then take the answers of the Lord with them, and how cheated we would be. Thomas The the one that everybody r says is doubtful and I don't agree with that. That's I don't agree with that.
He had his doubts of who didn't. Anyway, Thomas says, he volunteers, he says, let us go to Jerusalem that we can die with him. I mean, who says that but a man of faith, at that moment, at least? Of course, Paul, volunteered to go everywhere. Everywhere he said, They're going to stone you and they're going to arrest you, Paul, but I got to go there anyway.
And Paul, of course, a consummate volunteer of the New Testament. Onesophorus, Paul said of Anissa before us, He sought me out. I was in jail in the big city. And there are many jails in the big city. And Onesophorus made sure he found me.
He must have gone to how many jails? Paul here? No, next one, until he found him. And Paul never forgot that and pronounced a blessing on his home. Epaphroditus is probably the pastor at Colossee.
And when the heresy started creeping in, people mixing Christianity with other junk that they still do. He goes off to Paul and he tells Paul what's happening, and Paul pens the letter to the Colossians. You're complete in him. Which evidently a lot of Christians don't get that. And he tells them about the philosophies of the world.
And today, Christians get very upset with you for daring to go against the philosophies of the world that have been put the Jesus ribbon on it.
So now it's no longer the world, it's ours. How's that work? Anyway. Okay. Then of course the Lord made us volunteer of them all, I'll get him out of that.
Now, there is one that was not a volunteer. And that was Moses. Moses told God, we've got time to. This is one of the favorite stories in Exodus. I just love it.
Now, therefore, God's speaking to Moses, Exodus 4. Go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say. I betcha Elijah was thinking that was going to be it was I mean Isaiah and it was But he said, Oh my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else you may send. Just send anybody but me. I mean, you got to love that guy because Moses was highly educated.
He had tried to deliver his people, he found out what people are all about, he was disillusioned. He thought they would rally with him. And he found they turned against him.
So he said, I don't want anymore, I'm done. Going out as far as I can get from Egypt, I'll stay with the sheep up on some mountain somewhere. I don't care if there's somebody else's sheep, as long as I'm not around people. And then God sets something on fire and Moses is nosy.
So he goes, not knows the, but he's like, you know, I will go and see this thing. And that's, and God traps him. And Yeah.
So it it's um You have to serve the Lord to see the humor in these things and the realities that go along, unless you want to be all pious. Yes, Lord, what can I do for you? Yeah, talk to me 20 years later after you have been doing for the Lord and tell me if you still have that moonstruck face on your look on your face. It's like, well, anyway. No, I serve with joy, I do, but also with reality.
Anyway, so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.
Now, I'd like to remind the Lord of that. It was kindled against Moses. Not Rick. Ha ha anyway. And he said, then he goes on to say, you know, okay, fine, take Aaron.
So I just love that story. Don't you? Uh well, so anyway. It's one thing to sign up. It's another thing to show up.
And the names that I just read, the exception of Moses. Moses, again, one of the greatest of them all. Just the beauty of the story: this reluctant servant became one of the greatest of them all. And no No um No shame in the life of Moses overall. Though he blundered again with his wouldn't circumcise the kid, just Moses, what are you doing?
He says, I was a rookie at serving. How did I know?
So, to sign up and show up to this day, we have volunteers. I know in this church. Uh they stationed themselves. where they said they were going to be and they get it done. These kind of things need to be preached.
And it says here at the bottom of verse 12: and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.
So they cremated the bodies. But they could not get the pyre hot enough. To burn the bones. To this day, even in cremation, there are parts of bones that make it through. He's like, all right, we had the gory stuff with the head hanging over the wall and all the other stuff.
Don't go there. But it's just a fact. Easy to believe for any naysayer that thinks this is a fantasy book. Verse 13: Then they took the bones. and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabish, and fasted seven days.
Years later, David's going to come up and dig these bones up and plant them in Benjamin's territory. We'll get that in 2 Samuel 21. The fasting, of course, there are different types of fasts. Example, there could have been no food till sundown. It's not likely they didn't eat for all seven days.
There are different types of fasts in Scripture. Just because we see Elijah go 40 days without nights, without food or water, and the Lord go 40 without food. We tend to think that all fasting is no food, no water, but that is not accurate. Anyway, a solemn affair. The afterword to all of this, this being the last verse.
is and I'm in one sense I'm happy to be done with Saul. But on the other side, if I were to preach it again, I would change nothing. Maybe some of the jokes. Yeah.
But in 1 Chronicles chapter 8, There's the genealogy, begins the genealogy of Saul. And Uh this passes over his life. It just gives you the genealogy. And Saul came from this one, and this one came from that one. And it's a tragic story, but the part that is told is this.
is deaf. They pass over his life and they tell you about his Shameful death. And you have to read that, say, I don't want to be that guy. And you have to tell the unbeliever, do you want to be this guy before God? He's a man who exhibited no desire to stand against his own flesh.
It's one thing to say, I'm going to stand against my flesh and fail. God will embrace that sinner. But to say, I ain't got time for that. I got other things to do. That's what Esau was doing.
That's what Saul, how he lived. And so, with all the true things to me that I've pointed out about Saul, just even reading them from the scripture, the men at Jabesh-Gilead might have challenged me and said, Well, you know, Saul, he came to our rescue, that's fine. But the survivors of Nob, they would challenge them back and say, Yeah, well, he slaughtered us. Don't expect us. to go retrieve his bones.
And this is how we look at we try to find the balance. This is a more tragic ending than Samson. I mean Samson was a tragedy and Samson would be in heaven. He had great faith at times, but he was but he battled his his flesh. There's one of my favorite, I don't.
If a poem doesn't rhyme, it shouldn't be a poem. I mean, I don't care about verse and all that other stuff, it gotta rhyme. And And some of these you know, these older guys In their commentaries, they like to quote a lot of old poetry, and to me, it's like boring, I don't get it, there's no rhyme going with it. Why don't just write a story if you're not going to rhyme? There's one that I really like.
I I like the whole song, but there's is one sad part in the poem. Old Palmer said in you know, anyway. Of all the sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these it might have been. That's what you could say over that would have been his epitaph. It might he could have been a great king.
But he opted out. And again, that's part of our message to lost souls. We are ordered by the Lord Jesus. To love our enemies in the sense of not wanting to see them go to hell. In the sense of volunteering to be part of any process God might use us to lead them to salvation, to never withhold the gospel from them unless the Lord orders us, and sometimes He does, tell us to be quiet.
Paul and Barnabas were forbidden from going into Asia and bringing the gospel. That was for someone else to do. And so our stops and our goals, they are ordered by God. And as we look at the story of Saul, Uh it's easy to start hating the menu. You have to catch yourselves.
All of us will, when somebody can push us in life to almost hate them. If we're not careful. And that would make us Haters. not lovers of Christ, we would hate them like Satan hates them. And Satan hates our Lord, and we'll have none of that.
so we suffer instead and we labor. And we focus on whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure, lovely, of good report. unbridled hatred. is not Christianity. There are other religions that have that.
Here's a picture in Acts chapter 8. This is Saul. After he heard the sermon of Stephen, he couldn't get it out of his head, he was enraged. How dare that man? Shoot down Judaism.
and no one could refute him.
So Saul's response was, let's get rid of the Christians. And so Acts chapter 8, verse 3, as for Saul, who would become Paul the Apostle, not King Saul. He made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging men and women off, committing them to prison. He hated them. That's not us.
Paul then later after his conversion writes to Titus he says, For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. When that one another, as Paul is using it, he's not saying one another Christian, he's one another human being. And so, of course, his conversion, he's no longer this person that wreaks havoc on the church. He wreaked havoc on hell by not being full of hatred. He could have said To his persecutors, you know, that uh He hoped they go to hell.
He would never say such a thing. Except for these changes, I wish you were all like me. And so we come to Christ and we disapprove of hatred.
Sometimes we slip and it may come out, and we go, Lord, that's not what I meant. And the Lord knows our hearts, and that's vital. This Saul It is sad life. is what he chose to make it because he chose to go in the opposite direction of Christ. He entered into Satan's reasons for living.
He could not say with the psalmists in Psalm 91. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. He could not say that. It came near him in final judgment. He could not say with the apostle, I have fought the good fight.
I've finished the race. I have kept the faith. He couldn't say David could say that at the end of his life. Saul could not. What is the good fight?
It's the fight that God has given us. And many of us Um are doing it. Many have Suffered and died doing it. A good fight. Is the God-given fight?
And it's worth it. Yeah.
Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel. If you'd like to listen again to this or other messages or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreferenceradio.com. Here, you can also listen to interviews with Pastor Rick to learn more about his life and ministry.
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