We're reading from 1 Samuel chapter
31 and verse 1. Now the Philistines fought against
Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines
and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed
hard upon Saul and upon his sons. And the Philistines slew Jonathan,
and Abinadab, and Malchishua, Saul's sons. And the battle went
sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was sore wounded
of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armour-bearer,
Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these
uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But
his armour-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid. Therefore
Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armour-bearer
saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and
died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons,
and his armour-bearer, and all his men that same day together. And when the men of Israel that
were on the other side of the valley, and they that 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. that came to pass on the morrow,
when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found
Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. And they cut
off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the
land of the Philistines round about to publish it in the house
of their idols and among the people. And they put his armour
in the house of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the
wall of Bethshan, And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead
heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant
men arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and
the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan and came to
Jabesh and burned them there. And they took their bones and
buried them under a tree at Jabesh and fasted seven days. Amen. May the Lord bless to us this
solemn reading from his word. We are picking up the narrative
of the battle between the Philistines and the children of Israel once
again. We've returned from David's victory
over the Amalekites to the battle between the Philistines and the
children of Israel at Jezreel. And if you've been following
what we've been saying here, perhaps you'll remember that
David had intended to fight on the side of the Philistines against
the children of Israel, but the lords of the Philistines, the
lords of the Philistines had sent him away. They did not want
David to be in their number during the battle against Israel. David
had gone back to his own city, Ziklag, and discovered that the
Amalekites had destroyed that city and stolen the families. And so that was where we had
spent our time over the past few weeks. But here we're back
again, really within a very short space of time. This is only perhaps
days, and indeed it's possible that David's victory against
the Amalekites and Saul's defeat at the hand of the Philistines
occurred on the very same day. We've just been following one
course and now we're back to the other course of events. You'll remember how David had
asked God for help in his pursuit of the Amalekites and God gave
him victory and he recovered all that had been taken, wives,
family, cattle and goods. Saul too asked for help but he
asked for help from the devil. He asked for help in the form
of the Witch of Endor. Do you remember speaking about
that a few weeks ago? And the pretend ghost of Samuel
was called up and spoke to Saul on that occasion. One old writer
speaking about this incident with Saul and the Witch of Endor,
and now Saul finding himself on the battlefield remarks quite
correctly that the witch of Endor had half slain Saul before the
battle even commenced. You see, Saul was a broken man. He believed that he would die
that day because this evil spirit told him so. He was without hope
and the darkness that drove him to Endor intensified during these
hours and days until it drove him to his death. But that death did not come quickly
and as if to highlight the miserable state of a soul separated from
God and outside of Christ, Saul is forced to watch all that he
held dear stripped away from him. His army buckled and broke
at the first attack of the Philistines. As his soldiers turned and fled,
the Philistines in pursuit, slaying them as they went, Saul and his
sons and his closest supporters fled on to Mount Gilboa, where
they were targeted by the enemy archers, whose arrows rained
down upon them. Jonathan and two other sons of
Saul are killed. Saul himself is struck and wounded,
perhaps several times, by the enemy's fire. His army is routed
and slain. Those who can, flee. Saul is trapped, he's abandoned,
and he's hopeless. In desperation he calls his armour-bearer
to draw his sword and slay him, lest he fall alive into the hands
of the Philistines. But his armour-bearer, out of
fear, cannot do it. And therefore Saul takes a sword
and he falls upon it, killing himself. And Saul's armour-bearer,
seeing the king dead, follows Saul's example and does likewise. A little lesson there. Leaders and influencers can influence
for good and they can influence for bad. And a nation that has
bad leaders will invariably have that same badness replicated
in their society because of the influence of those leaders. That was what happened with Saul's
armour bearer. He saw what Saul had done and
he copied and he slew himself. But it takes until the next day
for the Philistines to realise the extent of their victory. As they're going through the
bodies, looking to pillage, looking to rob, looking to take whatever
it was that they could amass for themselves, they find the
bodies of Saul's sons and the dead king. There's no respect shown to these
dead bodies. They chop off Saul's head, perhaps
because that's what happened to Goliath. They steal his armour,
they parade both through their land and they are placed triumphantly
in the temple of their God. The Philistines ignorantly praised
the idol of their God for the victory that they obtained, ascribing
to their God what the true God brought in judgement against
Israel. Let's be careful when these things
happen. As believers, we should always
attribute the providences and circumstances of our lives to
God, because God is the first cause. It's always tempting to
ascribe credit or bestow blame on the tools that God uses to
accomplish his purposes. but we will be wise to search
out and recognise the purposes of God in our lives and remember
that he is in control of the days of our lives and the circumstances
of our lives and the events that transpire around about us. The Philistines took Saul's body
without the head and they hung it up outside one of their cities
as a statement of disrespect. The men of Jabesh Gilead heard
about this and were told that they went by night to recover
the body of Saul and his sons And then they burned, although
they should not really have burned the bodies, but perhaps it was
because they were concerned that the Philistines would pursue
them and recover the bodies, or perhaps the bodies had just
become so unrecognisable and putrid that it was the best that
they could do. They burned the bodies, and they
buried the bones under a tree. This was their mark of respect
to Saul and his sons. And why Jabesh Gilead should
be involved in this? Well, perhaps you remember many
years before, Saul, in the early days of his reign, had delivered
the city of Jabesh Gilead from Naboth the Ammonite. The men
of Jabesh remembered their debt and they bravely honoured the
dead king. But Israel was humbled. They
were defeated and they were leaderless. With Saul, the nation had rejected
the Lord as their king, and as you remember, Samuel as his judge
and representative. Samuel had pointed out that no
good would come of this. And now Israel were left without
a king at all and also estranged from God. Perhaps this is what
Hosea the prophet was thinking of when he wrote much later concerning
the Lord. I gave thee a king in mine anger
and took him away in my wrath. As we come to the end of this
book of 1 Samuel, I want to make just a few little applications
from these verses before us today that I would like to leave you
with. And I think that, well, maybe they're a little bit grown
up, but I also want the young people to think about these things,
because these young people that are listening today will very
soon be fully grown and have to take responsibility for their
own lives and values. So here's what I would like us
to think about. We learn here of Jonathan's death
as well as Saul's death and the death of his other two sons. There was another son who wasn't
dead. We'll come to him in a few weeks time because actually he
ends up causing David quite a bit of trouble when David ascends
to the throne. But that's a story for another
day. But here three of Saul's sons
are slain. And Jonathan is one of them.
Jonathan was a dear friend to David, and it seems a true worshipper
of the Lord. And yet here he died too, in
the catastrophe brought on by his father's wicked ways. Jonathan died as well. And we learn from this that death
is common to all men and women. Those who love and serve the
Lord die side by side with those who despise him. The difference
is not in death itself. but there is a difference in
what happens immediately afterwards. As soon as Jonathan died, the
angels carried his soul into the presence of God in heaven. As soon as Jonathan died, there
was rejoicing in heaven. At the entrance into that place,
of one of the redeemed of the Lord. When Saul died and his
other sons died, they descended into hell where there was weeping,
wailing and gnashing of teeth. And when men and women die, some
go one way and some go another. The same Philistine arrows slew
all the sons of Saul that were present that day. But the difference
was that one left this world for the glory of heaven and the
others left the world for judgment and condemnation. Grace makes
the difference. Faith makes the difference. Jonathan
and all who trust in the Lord for grace and mercy and forgiveness
of sin will be blessed with everlasting life in the presence of God. Jonathan died with Saul, but
for him, life was really only just beginning. And I want us all to know this
too. The way that Saul died, by his
own hand, falling upon his own sword, was a form of self-murder. Suicide is a sin. And it is a sin never to be repented
of. Now some people might say, reading
these verses of this chapter, that it is understandable what
Saul did. Not wishing the indignity of
being captured and shamed and tormented, maybe even tortured. So he took this way out of If
his armour-bearer wouldn't slay him, then he would die by his
own hand and he fell upon his sword. And yet his own sons and the
soldiers around about him, they had died protecting his life. The life that he now took himself. They died protecting his life
only for him to take his own life prematurely. And today, we often hear about
euthanasia and assisted suicide. And it has become common for
men and women to want to end their lives, as they say, with
dignity. But is that really so? We believe, upon the authority
of the Word of God, that those who kill themselves to avoid
more suffering actually plunge themselves into even greater
suffering, trying to avoid the less. Saul was anxious that his body
should not be abused by the Philistines. But what of his soul? He felt
no anxiety for his soul. That was the most important thing. People take care of their bodies.
People look after their bodies. They're careful about exercise.
They're careful about what they eat. They're careful to get good
sleep. They're careful to have good hygiene. They think their
bodies are very, very precious. And so they are. We should not
deal badly with our bodies, but we should not concentrate upon
our bodies only at the expense of our souls, which are eternal
and even more precious. Saul felt no anxiety for his
soul. Saul thought that his state was
hopeless, that he was without hope in this world, that there
was nothing else for him than to take his own life, because
he was without faith, because he was without Christ, because
he was without God. So let me say this, especially
to the young people listening today, there is always hope. There is hope in Christ. Don't
ever think that you don't have a friend or that you don't have
a way of escape, no matter how hopeless things appear to be
around about you. The Lord Jesus Christ will be
your friend. He says, him or her, that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. And here's the other point,
and with this I'm done. Saul's hopeless state is the
sad theme of this chapter. He did all he could, short of
trusting Christ, short of trusting God, to gain hope He tried everything
that he could. He was king. He had at his disposals
all the pleasures of life. He even ended up going to witchcraft
and other abuses. Hopelessness is soul destroying. The old preacher, Robert Hawker,
he said this, and I think it's good. He says, it is dreadful
to die out of Christ, uninterested in him, void of all covenant
promises, unregenerate in heart, unwashed in the blood of the
lamb, and without the clothing the Redeemer's righteousness.
It is dreadful to die in such a way. But you need not be hopeless
because there is hope in Jesus Christ. A believer's hope is
in the life and death of Christ. By his death the Lord Jesus Christ
overcame death. He defeated death and he defeated grave. He is life and he is resurrection. He says, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And it's this new life, he gives
new life to all who come to him for it. He gives hope to the
hopeless, peace to the troubled, joy to the sad, spiritual life
to those who are spiritually dead in their sins. We preach these things. I preach
these things to you week by week because I want you to learn about
Jesus Christ and to trust him with your life and with your
precious soul. May the Lord give you grace to
believe so that your hope in life and in death will be upon
Jesus, the giver of everlasting life. Amen.