We come to the end of our study
in 1 Samuel. I hope you have greatly profited
from it. I know I have. I believe that God has been honored in the faithful exposition of
His Word. I believe Christ has been more
clearly revealed. That's the purpose of of everything,
isn't it? And our understanding should
be increased. Understanding of all things.
The Word. I brought up this verse of Scripture
to my wife just yesterday. Over in Proverbs it says, a multitude of counselors, their
safety. Where there is no counsel, it
begins. Where there is no counsel, the people will fall. But in a multitude of counselors,
there is safety. And of course, that is speaking
of those who are wise to give counsel. But I never thought
of it in reference to Psalm 119, verse 24. David said, Thy testimonies are my counselors."
So, God's Word is written. Whatever things are written,
Scripture says, are written. God wrote them down. Why? So
we read them. His people. Whatsoever things
are written are written for our learning. that we through patience. Patience means waiting on the
Lord. Just wait. Just wait. We'll see. We'll understand. And comfort. Comfort. And to teach us. So there's nothing
new under the sun. David, well Israel, all of Israel,
went through many trials and difficulties. There's nothing
new under the sun. Israel, as we have clearly seen,
always represents the church, the visible church. By visible,
I mean they were not all Israel that was Israel, right? God had
His people among those people, but they weren't all. But nevertheless,
they were all called Israel, right? Are you with me? And they've always represented
a church, the Israel. And everyone under the sound
of the word and everyone in a local body is not a church, but it
appears that way. There's nothing new under the
sun and the New Testament church and the New Testament has been
subjected to bad men, just like Israel of old. Our Lord, well, the Word says
there must be heresies among you. Our Lord said that. Even while the Lord had twelve
apostles and one of them. So that was according to His
purpose, wasn't it? Always is. And though the church
in the wilderness, Israel of old, was subjected to bad men,
God Almighty took care of them. In the end, his true men were
known, and Satan and his ministers, and that's who these men follow,
will be dealt with. That's the title of this message,
All Evil Men Reach an Evil End. And that's the end of this study. The last chapter is the account
of Saul's death. Saul, King Saul. This is the
end of a long and terrible ordeal for many. Well, it wasn't that long. It
seemed like a long time because it was so bad under him. And
we have seen very clearly that all of this was the fault of
one man. Now, from the beginning, we have
seen Saul not only as a type of Satan, we've been looking
at that, but also a type of Satan's deceivers or ministers who are
ministers of righteousness. David was God's true man. No doubt about it. God makes
it clear. David was a Christ-like man.
Christ was in him. He was a faithful man. Not a
sinless man, mind you. And we've seen that. God's Word
is so faithful, God's Word is, and true in that it reveals everything. It reveals the evil of evil men. It reveals the sins of good men. Chapter 26, go back there and
before we look at the last chapter, I want you to remember something
David said. the Lord through David. Chapter
26, David, as we said, was a true man, a Christlike man, God's
man. He was a peacemaker. He was not
a coward, but he was a peacemaker. And David was willing to take the blame
for his own mistakes, wasn't he? That's how you know a true
man. He won't try to cover it up.
He'll admit it. And he did. David did. And David, as we said, is like
Christ who was reviled. Our Lord in Scripture says, when
he was reviled, reviled not again, but committed himself to the
judge. That's what David did here in
1 Samuel 26, verse 8. Look at it. You remember when
Abishai said to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine
hand." Right now, Saul, remember they were in the cave and Abishai
wanted to smite Saul. David said in verse 10, As the
Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him. For his day shall come to die,
he shall descend into battle and perish. The Lord's going to take care
of him. And that's a lesson we need to learn in it. That's something that I take
great comfort in. I'm very zealous for you and jealously endeavor
to do so, as I'm called to do. This is God's church, and He's
going to take care of it. Your safety and protection is
not ultimately up to me, so I'm really not that worried about
it. Well, the Lord takes care of
His own enemy. Here in chapter 31, the end, I think we have clearly seen
also, there's some things that, why, no one can ever accuse me of
using God's Word for my own means and end. You can't do that. I faithfully deal with God's
Word as it comes along. Don't I? No one can say, well, he's trying
to tell me something. If I want to tell you something,
I'll tell you. And I don't use God's Word that
way. Many times I've wanted to deal with something or someone
individually, and my whole comfort is that God's Word will deal
with that in time. You just keep preaching and teaching
the Word line upon line. Because they're not going to
hear me. I've never seen one-on-one counsel
do anything, ever. But God's Word will not return
void. God's Word will deal with everything. And so we deal with it as it
comes, faithfully. And if God's Word seems to clearly
say something, it's clearly saying something. Right? And I think we've clearly seen
through this study, and why does the Lord devote so much time
to Saul in this whole chapter? I've learned
something here. I've learned a great deal. It's
been a great revelation to make this study. I chose this book because I love
it, because it's a beautiful picture of Christ. But I've learned
a great deal. My eyes have been greatly open.
And why did the Lord devote so much
time to this man named Saul and that story of him? Well, we've
seen, as we've said, that he's a type of Satan, but he's also
a real man. He's a real man. And Israel suffered
under him, and David suffered by him, and Samuel and so forth. And this is all Scriptures given
by inspiration of God as profitable for teaching, for reproof, doctrine
of reproof, correction, instruction, warning, as we say it, as the
Word said. The testimonies of God are our
counselors, and a multitude of counselors are safety. Safety,
Lord, is if we have our ears open, if we have our eyes open, we won't
sleep, as some do. And I think we have clearly seen
that An evil man is not always known by what he says. Bad doctrine. But he will be
known by his bad character. Balaam was in it for the money.
Balaam said all the right things. And Balaam made a prophecy of
Christ. But Balaam was in it for the
money. The Lord tells us that. And Saul was in it for position. He got the position. Keeping his father's asses was
in a very lofty position. King of Israel was. And we see how that he abused
that, don't we? All right, verse 1, Philistines
fought against Israel. And the men of Israel fled from
before the Philistines and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. The Philistines fought and wounded
many in Israel. They didn't have a real king.
They didn't have a real captain. You think back on God's true
men down through the Scriptures. You think back on Moses. When
do you ever read of people being slain and wounded and run and
scared under Moses? Huh? The only ones that were
were the sons of Korah and those that deserved it. Joshua. When
did the people run scared when Joshua was leading them? Gideon. Barak. Huh? They were united, weren't
they? Samson. What about Samson? There's
a man. What about Samuel? In this book. We read that, didn't we? Under
Samuel. Samuel wasn't a warrior, but
he had a sword, all right. God's Word. David. People had true men leading,
and you won't find them wounded and fleeing from the enemy, but
victorious. Victorious. They fled, and they were slain,
wounded. And as we said, what a picture
this is of us while we were under the God of
this world. Verse 2, And the Philistines followed hard upon
Saul and upon his sons. And the Philistines slew Jonathan
and Abinadab, and Natchezhua, and Saul's sons. Jonathan is
in the midst of all that. Jonathan. We've looked at Jonathan. We saw what Truth be known, why
I chose 1 Samuel was because David, Hannah's prayer, David, a glorious type, David
and Goliath, Jonathan, the story of David and Jonathan, those
things. Jonathan, we saw, was David's friend, wasn't he? Jonathan,
a type of Christ in one sense where David and Jonathan made
that covenant. Jonathan is also a type of the
church. God's people who are his friends and devoted to him,
fall in love with him. We saw that. You remember that
story? David loved him. I mean, Saul loved Jonathan.
Jonathan loved David. Let me get it straight here.
Jonathan loved David. He was David's friend and he
was David's brother. And he knew his father Saul. Do you remember that story where
he stood up to, in defense of his brother David? Remember that? But why is Jonathan in the middle
of all this? Why is Jonathan still there? You ask yourself that? Why is
he still there? Why is he still with Saul? God's purpose. We're going to
see that, well, we're not going to see, we're not going to study
2 Samuel. I wish we were. But Jonathan had a son named Lefebvre. And Jonathan has to die. for
that purpose to unfold of Mephibosheth. And you know that story, don't
you? But Jonathan is here. He's still there because God
never leaves Himself without a witness, a remnant. A remnant
was still in Israel. Always was. Like we were talking
about the church in the wilderness back going through the wilderness,
it seemed like everybody was just a bunch of unbelievers,
weren't there? A bunch of bellyaching, no good, unbelievers. That's
not so. John, there's a fellow named Caleb in the middle of
all that. A fellow named Caleb. Joshua was right there. And there
were more. There were more. God has not
left Himself without a witness. There's a remnant. Maybe Jonathan
thought, I thought about this, maybe Jonathan thought he could
influence his father, Saul. You know he did. Maybe he thought
he could. But I do know this for a fact.
Jonathan loved his brethren. Jonathan loved Israel. And he was concerned for Israel.
So he stayed right there. Do you understand? Paul said
this in his letter to the Romans. He said, My heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. My kinsmen. My brethren. My kinsmen, according
to the flesh. But here's the fact of the matter. He should
have gone with David. Because now he's going to go down with
Saul. He could have gone up with David,
and now he's going down with Saul. But the Lord dealt justly
with Jonathan, didn't he? Jonathan was one of his own.
Verse 3 says, The battle went sore against Saul, and the archers
hit him. Now, he was sore wounded of the
archers. They hit him. They found him.
Scripture said, archers found him. The arrows found him and
pierced him. Moses one time said to some evil
men, he said, ìBe sure your sin will find you out.î How? God. God Almighty. Now verse 4, ìThen
said Saul unto his armor-bearer, ìDraw thy sword and thrust me
through therewith.î Saulís mortally wounded and he asked his armor-bearer,
ìDo you know that John Gill believed this was old, what was his name? Doeg. Remember old Doeg who was
the spy there who went back to Saul and told on the priests
where David was and Saul had 80 priests killed? Doeg. Remember
that fellow? And Saul rewarded him for his But many think that this fellow
was Doeg. And anyway, this armor-bearer,
Saul said, kill me. Take your sword and thrust me
through, lest these uncircumcised thrust me through and abuse me.
But his armor-bearer would not. He was sore afraid. Therefore,
Saul took a sword and killed himself. and his armor barred it too.
Saul took a sword and killed himself. Now, over in 2 Samuel
1, if you have read it, there is another account. There is
a young fellow who David runs into, and the young fellow gave
this account. He said, I slew him. I slew Saul. I don't know if you read that
or not, but that's what he said, young fellow, thinking he would
incur David's favor. He's trying to show David that
he's for him, that he slew his enemy, and David had him slain.
But that young man was lying. And what a lesson this is in
reading God's Word. You need to know who you're reading. You need to know who's talking.
and the context and so forth. God Almighty through the Holy
Spirit wrote this down right here that Saul killed himself,
didn't he? That's the Holy Spirit. That's who we believe. And what a lesson this is for
us. Search the Scriptures and see
if these things be so. The whole world takes things
out of context. Like the story of Samuel the
witch bringing up Samuel, remember? It wasn't Samuel. See, I learned
something there, didn't you? So anyway, that's a little lesson
within the lesson. There are very few accounts of
suicide in Scripture. Very few. Suicide is self-murder. That's what it is. And though forgivable, our Lord
said all manner of sin shall be forgiven, didn't he? Though
it's forgivable, there's no assurance that it will be. Listen carefully, okay? I know
it has run through the mind of everybody. something real bad
takes place and it's so bad you think, I'm just going to end
my life. The passing thought has gone
through everybody's mind at some point. Hasn't it? Come on. Be
honest. But God graciously restrains. Suicide is really the worst form
of self-love. We're thinking only of ourselves,
and here's a good lesson within a lesson also. We're thinking
only of ourselves and our problems. We're not thinking of anyone
else we want out of our problems. And we're not thinking of those
we abandon to live with the shame that we've heaped upon them. Because whoever it is is going
to be blaming themselves for a long time, aren't they? And
the sorrow, the deep sorrow that they will have, never get over
something like that. Nor the indebtedness like a man,
a husband killing himself and leaving his wife to fend for
herself. That's the ultimate form of self-love. Why do I say
this? Because, believers, I'm telling
you, don't ever even think of it. There's no assurance that
you'll be received by the Lord. Note none. We're going to look at Hebrews
11. These all died in faith. And none of them killed themselves.
They waited on the Lord. So don't ever even think about
it. The Word in Season. But in the
truest sense, God wrote this down to show us how a man left
to himself will destroy himself. The old saying is, you give a
man enough rope, he'll hang himself. In the truest sense, Saul did
destroy himself, didn't he? Verse 7, when the men of Israel
that were on the other side of the valley, they were on the
other side of Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled and that
Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled. And the Philistines came and
dwelt in them. The men of Israel. They fled. And Israel was abandoned. Seems like the whole place was
abandoned, doesn't it? And the enemy came in. The Philistines
were now dwelling there. And what a picture this is. What
a picture this is, as we've been saying. A visible church. A visible
church. What has been called a church
down through the years. And especially now, you know,
there's more religion and more goes under the name of church
today than ever in history, right? But folks, Ichabod has opened
the door. God has not left himself without a remnant, but it is
desolate. I immediately thought of Isaiah
1. Isaiah is a prophecy 100 years
before the Babylonian captivity. But Isaiah said this, your country
is desolate, your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour it in your presence.
It is desolate. It is overthrown. Or that is,
it is now being dwelt by strangers. What a picture that is of the
so-called church all over, isn't it? Why? Why did this happen? And why did it happen? Evil men. That was the judgment that God
put on the people. with their idolatry and so forth,
he put them under evil men. Read it for yourself. All through
the Old Testament. And look at verse 8 and 9. It
says, It came to pass when the Philistines came to strip the
slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen, and they cut
off his head and stripped off his armor and sent into the land
of the Philistines round about to publish it. in the house of
their idols among the people. They cut Saul's head off and
paraded it like they did John the Baptist on Charjah. They
took Saul's head and paraded it through their city. And then
verse 10, it says they put his armor in the house of Ashtoreth,
their god, as kind of a trophy, and they fastened his body to
the wall of Bethshem. Fastened his body to a wall.
As we Noted. All evil men come to an
evil end. But this story is going to come
to a good one. It's going to have a good climax, okay? Listen to this. There have been some good men
down through the years in the past who have died horrible deaths,
haven't they? Even beheaded. John the Baptist
was beheaded. Paul. The Apostle Paul was beheaded. But there's no indication that
their bodies were humiliated like this. No indication of that at all.
And I thought of this. Listen to this. A good picture. Our great Captain Christ, the
head of the church, though his body was fastened to a tree, The evil man did not. They could
not. They would not sever the head
from the body. It can't be done. It can't be
done. It cannot be separated from the
body. And verses 11 through 13, when
the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, now these were some men at one
time that Saul stood up and defended. Saul and Jonathan, that is. And
they heard of what happened to Saul, what the Philistines had
done. These valiant men arose and went all night, traveled
all night long, took the body of Saul and the bodies of his
sons from the wall, came to Jabesh and burnt them there. They took
their bones and buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven
days. Would you turn with me in closing
to Isaiah 59? comparing Scripture with Scripture.
Isaiah 59. They were valiant men, some faithful
and brave men, not wanting to see their king, and Jonathan
especially, dishonored in such a way. They came and did what they could. Now, Israel seems like the lowest point in
the history of Israel. Israel is divided and conquered
now, isn't it? Isn't it? Like the book of Genesis. You read the book of Genesis,
it starts out in the beginning, God. And the last line of Egypt talks
about a coffin in Egypt. Madden. Joseph, a coffin in Egypt. Oh, everything looks so dire,
doesn't it? So bad. Divided and conquered. Well, desolate and afflicted. Inhabited by the enemy. But I'm
here to tell you, God is, as it's written, help is on the
way. Like Genesis ends up, our coffin
in Egypt, Exodus begins. There's a man born a son of Levi
and his wife of Levi, and under them was born a son, Moses. And help is on the way. Look
at Isaiah 59. Oh, I love these verses of Scripture. Verse 11. Let's just read. No
hurry. We roar like bears, we mourn
like doves, we look for judgment, there is none. Salvation is far
off from us. For our transgressions are multiplied
before God, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions
are with us. And as for our iniquities, we
know them in transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing
away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering
from the heart words of falsehood. Judgments turn way backward.
Judgment standeth afar off. Truth is fallen in the street.
Equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth, and he that
departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. The Lord saw it and it
displeased him that there was no judgment. He saw there was
no man and wondered that there was no intercessor. His arm brought
salvation unto Him. His righteousness, it sustained
Him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet
of salvation upon His head. He put on the garments of vengeance
for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to
their deeds, accordingly He will repay fury to His adversary,
recompense to His enemy. To the islands He will repay
recompense. So shall they fear the name of
the Lord from the west and His glory from the rising of the
sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of
the Lord will lift up a standard against him, and the Redeemer
shall come to Zion." David's coming, folks. He's coming. And
he's going to reign in Israel. And all Israel is going to be
saved. The evil men will come to an
evil end. All of them. And the Lord will be exalted
in that day, all according to His purpose for our learning.
Count on it. God grants. Vengeance is mine. I will repay it. Okay. Amen.