1st Samuel chapter 13, 1st Samuel chapter 13. Of course, we're looking at Saul, the man that best man that God had for the situation. He said that he was a man of great image, but little substance. But he was about he was the type of man that Israel was looking for. They were looking for a king who was like other nations. They loved the image. And they got there, they got what they wanted, but they lost what they had. Now, chapter 13 has several problems textually. And when I say textually, if there's any one problem in the Bible, as far as not knowing exactly what number, remember I've talked many times about we have problems with numbers in the Bible, but verse one, is one of the most difficult. Because we see Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose himself 300 men. We don't know exactly, that number is a blur. And how long did he rule? Now think about it, if he was a young man when he was anointed, by this time he already has a son who's old enough to lead an army. And then if, and the only thing, we don't know how long, because there's another blur where we don't know exactly how long he reigned, but Paul tells us that he reigned in Acts 13, verse 21, as he was talking to the church of Antioch, he said that Saul reigned 40 years. Now, if that's the case, think of all the different things that had to happen during that time. And this is where the Hebrew language is not very good at time. In fact, it confuses a lot of people because it's not time-oriented, it's content-oriented. For instance, a lot of people like to say that there was two different authors that wrote Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. But no, if you go back and read it like it's written in Hebrew, or as the Hebrew style was, and of course it's Oriental, was Genesis 1 tells us about creation. Genesis 2 tells us about, it fills in the element of man in that creation. And so, you know, some people want to say, no, you know, that there was two different authors and that's where, and anybody who does, that's a liberal. Let's put it that way. They don't know what they're talking about, and we can get into that discussion about liberalism that really came into our universities and so forth in the late 1800s right on up until now. And so there are those who want to take things like that and confuse the people who they're trying to teach or to lead astray. But if he reigned for 40 years, And just think about some of the timing then. That means if David was 17 when he was anointed and he was 30 before he became king, that means that he was anointed probably about the 25th anniversary of Saul's reign. And if that's the case, then Jonathan And this is where we get into all these things. What about this? And I'm not going to try to confuse you because pages and pages have been written on. Well, if this happened, this happened because this. But if this is the case, though, that means that Jonathan had to be in his 40s when or 50s even if and they were best friends when David was a teenager. Think about all the different things that are going on there. So there's a lot of confusion. I don't think that that's the case. I think that the Jonathan and and David were not more than 10 years apart. But yet these are the things that we get into when you get into chronology and all the rest. So I hope I'm just I'm not trying to confuse you, and I'm definitely not trying to get you to be skeptical of the Bible. I'm just saying that every once while there's only one or two places in the whole Bible like that. And so we see that God has preserved his word. But every one of these have nothing to do with doctrine. Nothing to do with doctrine. They have to do with timing. And so you can see, and that's why in the New Testament, the Greek is extremely time sensitive. And when they use a past tense or a perfect past tense, like when it says once and for all, that means once and for all, it never happened before, it never will happen again. When Jesus said, te telestai, which is, it is finished, it is finished, I did it, it will never happen, it has never happened before. I mean, it's a time-sensitive word. It is finished is one word in Greek, te telestai. And it means never again, never before. So you see that the people who do all this, that's the reason they spend their whole lives trying to figure out what the language is all about. I don't have time for that as a pastor, and I don't think many of us do, and most of us don't. It's like those computer geeks. I don't have time to get into all that stuff. Just give me the computer and let me figure it out. If I can't figure it out, I'll call Evelyn or whatever. But, you know, there again is that don't bore me with the details other than I'm just telling you that there are certain times that we just, you know, you get into it and you're not really sure about the perspectives. But David and Jonathan, and by the way, this is the first time Jonathan is mentioned in the Bible, but you'll see that Jonathan was the war hero, not Saul. There again, remember what we said about Saul, he was always in the background. Jonathan was always the one that bailed him out. It's kind of interesting how that is. And so we'll begin reading in verse one of chapter 13, it says, and Saul reigned one year. And when he had reigned two years over Israel, Saul chose for himself 3,000 men of Israel. 2,000 were with Saul in Mishmash, and in the mountains of Bethel, and 1,000 were with Jonathan, first time we've seen that word, or we've seen that name, in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent away, every man to his tent. And Jonathan attacked the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba and the Philistines heard it. Then Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land saying, let the Hebrews hear. Now all of Israel heard that Saul had attacked the garrison of the Philistines and that Israel had become an abomination or odious to the Philistines. and the people were called together to Saul at Gilgal. Then the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sand which was on the seashore in multitude. And they came up, and then Captain Mishmash, to the east of Bethhaven. And when the men of Israel saw that they were in danger, for the people were distressed, The people hid in caves and in thickets, in rocks and holes and pits. And some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal. And all the people followed him, trembling. Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people scattered from him. So Saul said, bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offering. So it happened as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering that Samuel came. And Saul went to meet him that he might greet him. And Samuel said, what have you done? So Saul said, when I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that they did not come within, and that you did not come within a day's appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together and mishmash, then I said, the Philistines will now come down on me in Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord. Therefore, I felt compelled. And, or as the King James says, I felt, I forced myself. I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering. And Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord, your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. Then Samuel arose and went up to Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people present with him about 600 men. Saul and Jonathan, his son, and the people present with them remained in Gibeah of Gibeon or Benjamin, but the Philistines in Captain Mitch Mash. Then raiders came out from the camp of the Philistines in three companies. One company turned on the road of Oprah, one to Shul, another company turned to the road of Beth Horan, and another company turned to the road, the border that overlooks the valley of Zeboim toward the wilderness. Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel. For the Philistines it said, lest the Hebrews make swords and spears, but all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his mattocks, his axe, and his sickle. And the charge for the sharpening was a pimp. for the plowshares, the mattocks, the forks, and the axes to set the points of the goats. So it came about on the day of battle that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan. But they were found with Saul and Jonathan's son. And the garrison of the Philistines went out to the pass of Mishmash. Again, Lord, we pray that you would open our minds, that we would see the great principles of your word. Lord, may we follow you. May we not get ahead of you. May we learn to wait on you and see what you can do. But most of all, Lord, no matter We realize that no matter if we're in a calm place like this tonight, or in some of the great pressure that's going to come upon us this coming week, that you expect obedience. And so, Lord, may we offer no excuses, but may we follow you. And we pray you'll bless us, Lord, as we look into your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Back in the 1800s, there was a man named Edgar Stites. And Edgar was an itinerant Methodist preacher. And he was also, he was a part-time preacher and a full-time riverboat captain. And he went to D.L. Moody with a poem that he liked, or that he had written, and Moody liked it. And so he gave it to his song leader, D.L. Moody gave it to his song leader, Iris Stankrey, and asked him to write a tune for it. And we sing it today, it's called Simply Trusting. And of course it goes, simply trusting every day, trusting through the stormy way, even when my faith is small, trusting Jesus, that is all. Now, yes, amen, but oh me. Because trusting, to me, is never simple. It's not easy to trust the Lord when the pressure is down, and when the whole world is against you, or when you feel like, you know, that you're alone. And all of a sudden, everything that God tells you seems to be going against you. Can we trust God during those times? And here we see that the Lord, many times God will put us in those positions just to test us. to see if we would move up the ladder as far as what he can do and trust us with. And of course, the Bible, the book of Hebrews says, our senses are exercised, that we will live godly lives. In other words, God will put things in our lives intentionally many times to allow us to grow in his grace and to find that he can be trusted. And so here we have a situation where we have a man with all image and no substance. And we have a test. Now, we could divide this chapter into about three parts, or actually two parts. It's kind of a sandwich. You have the first part where it tells you about Jonathan and what he did. And then we see the explanation at the end about the children of Israel and how they had no weapons and how they had to go down. And right in the middle of that, you have the principle, and that is that Saul did not simply trust the Lord. And we see that God intentionally put him through this, just this trial, not to hurt him, but to help him to grow. And he failed miserably because he didn't have the substance within him. We'll contrast that with another man soon. But as we look at this passage, We see that now, that Saul was a very impulsive man. In fact, especially you'll see in chapter 14, how that he makes rash vows and how that he nearly had his own son killed. All kinds of crazy things happen because someone says an expert is X is an unknown quality and a spurt is a drip under pressure. And we got a lot of experts that come on the radio these days, don't we, or on television, and they got all kinds of ideas, and most of them are harebrained. And yet we see that Saul was a man of great power now, or at least he should have been, but we see that he was a man who didn't have a whole lot of self-control. He's very impulsive. He is not disciplined. And someone has said there are three areas that he didn't have, starting with P, and that is he didn't have patience, he didn't have poise, and he didn't have power. didn't have power over his own emotions. Now, as we saw, some of you who were with us in Sunday school this morning, and we're looking at experiencing God, Henry Blackaby, he said, a lot of times you look at the leader to see if you should be afraid or not. Remember that he talked about, if you're on a boat and it's out in the ocean and it's tossed around, if you look at the captain and he's not afraid, then you're all right. But if the captain appears to be afraid, you better be afraid. That always got in my mind because my... wife's brother and I, they were a lot younger then, but we went out with a guy who said, come on out with me, I want to take my sailboat out to Mobile Bay. You know, Stephen had never been much to the ocean, let alone to own a sailboat, and I'd only been on one or two. And so we went with this fellow, he was from our church and everything, or my church, and so went out with him. We got out in the middle, and all of a sudden the wind picked up, and that thing started tossing all around. And Stephen said, well, will this boat hold up out here in the water like this? And good old Ron Visser said, I don't know. He said, you don't know? He said, no, I've never been in rough waters like this before. Well, both of us got a little afraid at that time. So fortunately, we made it back in. But here you have a man, and leadership requires a calm hand. If you're going to inspire others, you've got to be in control of yourself. You've got to be able to, if you're going to lead people into battle, you've got to lead. If you're going to ask people to be brave, guess who's going to be the first one who's going to be brave? And so we see that Saul, under his leadership, or that Israel didn't really have a very strong king. And as I said before, Jonathan was the one who was going to keep bailing them out all during his ministry, and him and David, of course. But so we see that he was image, but he didn't have a whole lot of substance. And so as we look at this, we notice now that Saul chose himself 3,000 men. And of course, we look at the last part of the chapter, he was down to 600 because everybody's running in hills and caves and going across the river. And so he was down to 600 men. By the way, though, that was still double of what Gideon had, wasn't it? But we don't see him looking to God. We see him going through the rituals, but we don't see him falling on his face before God. We don't see him waiting on the clear demand of God through his prophet Samuel. Samuel gave him explicit instructions, seven days, and I'll be with you. Now, many people believe that Samuel might have been right outside the camp just waiting to see what Saul was going to do. And Saul was within a few hours of obeying God. But all of a sudden now, all of his people were leaving. He's down to 600 men. Now he knows and he's heard about those raiding parties. Remember there's three and they were going all around and these were chariots. These were men that were fast movers. They were Calvary people as well as chariots and they were going through and they were raiding and burning the villages. That's what they would usually do during that time. So all of a sudden now, the very center, just a few miles north of Jerusalem, all these things are going on, and good old Saul is under a tree. Now, tells us that he didn't really have a plan. Within a few months of David becoming king, he was already building Jerusalem. We don't see that Saul was doing anything. He didn't have a vision for the people. He was a reactionary. He didn't plan. And to be a leader, you've got to be ahead of the people. You've got to give them a vision of what you want. And this, he had everything on the outward appearance. Hey, look, we got a good looking king. But the more that you look at Saul, the more you see that he was, again, as we said, an empty suit. But notice now that, notice in verse two or verse three, with all this going on, Jonathan was the aggressor. And Jonathan attacked the garrison. Now, wait a minute. Jonathan was the only one. He and Saul were the only ones that had a sword. What did he attack the garrison with? Pitchforks? With spears? What did, how did, back a few years before when Samuel led or the people had a great victory and they raised the Ebenezer stone, because what did they have? Because the Philistines were the ones who had the ironworks. They were seafaring people. And at this time, and the archaeology proves this, they were the ones who could build the chariots and put and armor them with the iron and so forth that made them stronger than anybody with just sticks and bows and arrows or whatever. I mean, now you had armor, you had metal now that was stronger than wood. And so the Israelites, they could sharpen a spear, they could have a pitchfork if they had permission from the Philistines. Remember, they had to go down and even have that sharpened. And a pin was about a third or two thirds of a shekel, which would be, I guess, around $20 today, maybe $25. But can you imagine having every one of them you have to go down and get your plows your axes your spears? Everything sharpened and every one of them cost you 25 bucks You would be paying every time you went down there two or three hundred dollars just to get your farm implements so the Israelites were in a bind because the Philistines and notice remember last week we saw they have garrisons throughout the land so they were able to They didn't occupy the land. They just kept you know, they kept the children of Israel under watch and surveillance so that they could watch for anything that came up about raising an army or whatever else. And so we see that now Jonathan attacked the garrison of the Philistines that were in Geba. Now that would be about, they're somewhere about 20, 30 miles away from the central part of Israel and the Philistines heard it And Saul blew the trumpet. Now there's that trumpet throughout the land, that relay of the trumpet from Dan to Beersheba. And they would raise their army, the Minutemen, whatever you want to call it, Paul Revere's right. But here you have their relay system where they would raise their army out of the land and said, let all the Hebrews hear. Now, all of Israel heard that Saul had attacked the garrison of the Philistines. You never see Saul correcting that. He takes credit for things, but he doesn't give credit. And there again is a sign of a weak leader. But we see that Israel had become a stench, an abomination to the Philistines. And the people were called together to Saul. Now, the Philistines gathered together in verse five to fight Israel. OK, you guys are calling people together. We hear those trumpets. We know what that's about. So we've got our army. And there again, they had the garrison throughout the land. So they had all their spies and all the observation posts they needed. And so Israel's raising an army. That means that we better raise our army. And so the thousand chariots and 6,000 horsemen, I mean, and a show of force and all the sand which was on the seashore multitude. Now you'll hear every once in a while in the newspaper that a certain country is having war exercises close to their border. You heard about that with Ukraine right after the last presidential election. And for months, we heard all the, you know, they're just having, well, it takes a while to gather an army. And that should have given us a lot of forewarning that something was going to happen. So whenever people gather an army close to your border, they're not doing it when going through all that expense and calling up men from all over the country just to play tic-tac-toe with you across the border. And so here you have Israel raising an army, boy, so that meant that the Philistines and they had the superior, they were outmanned and outgunned. And so here we have Saul, and the men of Israel, they saw they were in danger, and we saw they were distressed. And when the people hid in caves and thickets, I mean, what do you do with your family when you see 30,000 Philistines with chariots and horsemen, and now they're already raiding your villages, and you really don't have anything but pitchforks to go against them. And so a lot of these guys were hightailing it out of Dodge, I guess is the best way to put it, but they were hiding in caves. They were going over on the other side, Gad and Gilead. They were looking for any way out. And by the time that he had raised this army of just a few hundred or a couple of about 3000, the Philistines had 10 times that many. And by the time that we look at the end of chapter 13, he was down to 600 men because he had a lot of deserters. And so we see that Saul was in a mess. And yet he had, you know, the one thing that Saul did have though, and that same thing that David had was he had a memory. And just a few years before, Samuel had led the people of Israel into a great victory over the Philistines And remember they built that Ebenezer stone, or they put that Ebenezer stone, here I raise mine, Ebenezer, the stone of help, where God miraculously had delivered Israel under Samuel, and Samuel was still there. Saul, stay with me, or you wait for me, and I'll tell you what to do. And the one thing you'll see throughout Israel's history were the prophets were always behind the king. Whenever you read that David sought the Lord, then two places he went, either to the prophet or to the priest with the linen and ephod. And both, we don't know exactly how that little aphod worked, but we do know that God spoke to the priest or to the prophet. You'll see it throughout history. You'll see it with David whenever he had the priest with him. And he had, and he always, he wouldn't do anything without consulting the Lord first, all for 13 years running from Saul. And of course that showed a lot of patience, didn't it? I mean, he could have killed Saul twice and gone ahead of the Lord. But he said, no, if God wants me king, wants me to be king, he'll make me king. What a difference. And so we see all these things about Saul, the things that David had, a man after God's own heart, as we see here, and a man that didn't even have a heart. Or if he did, he was almost heartless. But we see that now David, that Saul was displaying all the things that were wrong with an unbeliever. They don't have a memory of God's past. They wouldn't sing a song like we sang tonight, oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. They probably wouldn't even know it. But David knew it, or didn't know that song, but if some things like it, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lay down in green pastures. By the time he was a late teenager, he had already killed a lion and a bear and credited it to God. And so we see that, what a difference in these two men. And so we see that Saul was still at Gogal in verse seven. And all the people followed him, trembling. They weren't brave because they probably saw a big, tall man that was head and shoulders taller than them. And he was trembling himself. And they waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel. Don't go ahead of me. We see that David had prophets. We think of a one man named Ahithophel. Never gave him any bad advice. Nathan came along and stood in front of him and said, you're wrong, David. And David Didn't kill him. He went and cried. Later on, you see Jeremiah standing before the king and said, Thus saith the Lord. The king rejected him and threw him in jail. And the king died. And all of Israel with him. And so we see that all through Israel's history, God had his prophet. It's the law and the prophets, not the law and the kings. Remember that. There's always that prophet was behind what was going on in Israel. And Saul, and this was a test, he only had a few more hours. If the evening and the morning, the way they count the days, then he was almost through the last days. But now he's having all these people leaving. And Saul, Samuel probably was just outside the camp. I don't know if he sent anybody in. And just waiting to the last minute because he said, wait seven days. And if he had just waited a few more hours, a couple possibly, But we see that now what he does, and a lot of people say he invaded the priest office. I don't think that Saul went in to be a priest. He had the priest with him. And so he instructed the priest to offer sacrifices. And you'll see David doing that and others, but it says that David offered sacrifices to the Lord or that Solomon offered 10,000 sheep before the Lord. He didn't go and give them himself. He knew what to do because a king was not to invade the priest's office. So the sin wasn't that he became a priest. The sin was that he went ahead of God and failed his testing. Now folks, whenever God gives us explicit instructions, then there's no compromise. This is the will of God, even your sanctification that you abstain from immorality. Is there any question about that? None. And so, well, pastor, you don't know. Please help me. I'm falling into that. But I just had to have that. No, no, no, no. When God says it, he means it. We don't make excuses. And that's why we have to come before the Lord as David did and say, Lord, I've sinned against you and you only have I sinned. I take full responsibility for it. And so when we do that, then that's when we have we confess our sins and boy, I don't know about you, but I, there again is, you have to spend a lot of time before the Lord eating crow, I guess, or whatever, don't you? I mean, a lot of times I have to go to the Lord and oh my, but he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins, is he not? Aren't you glad that he'll forgive you over and over again, even sometimes for the same sin? But here, one of the big problems that Saul had was that he did not really trust the Lord. Now, he was so good, but in the end, he was very impetuous. He saw all these people leaving him, and he said, you know, by tomorrow morning, I won't even have an army. If he'd have just waited, because the Philistines usually didn't attack at night anyway, if he'd have waited the rest of the afternoon, because the, you know, of course in the Bible, in the Old Testament, it was the evening and the morning, the day started the night before. So it would be, so he was close to it, but he ran out of time. And notice he offered the sacrifice. And now it happened, notice verse 10, that as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him, said, look, so good to see you, Samuel. And Samuel said, what have you done? That's kind of interesting to look at those passages in the Bible or words close to it, where in the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had sinned, the Lord came to them and said, what have you done? So of course the Lord already knew, but it's kind of like a parent. Have you done this? And so then we see with Cain and Abel, the Lord comes to Cain after he'd killed his brother and said, what have you done? You look at Achan who had stole the Babylonian garment and the gold at the battle of Jericho. And Moses came to him and said, what have you done? You look at Ananias and Sapphira, after they had lied to the Lord. And what did Peter say? In essence, he said, what have you done? I think it was a little bit different, but same type of question. So many times the Lord will come, and of course, the Lord's a good lawyer. And lawyers, good lawyers never ask a question that they don't already know the answer to. And isn't he a good counselor? So if God asks you a question, you can rest assured you're not gonna fool him. Amen? But the Lord told me I was forced to do this. And Samuel said, come on, Saul. God didn't tell you to do anything like this. Oh my, some of the things that I've been told that God has told people to do that were totally outside the will of God. God told me to, well, I won't get into it, other than get mad all over again, but just frustrating to see what people can do, telling me that God's told them to do something that's outside the will of God. And so we see that, what have you done, Saul? And so we see that, and Samuel said, or and Saul said, I saw the people scattered and that they had, did not come, that you didn't come. Notice he's blaming. Not only is he, so he's blame shifting. It's your problem. You didn't do what you told me you were gonna do. Saul, you had a couple more hours. And so, and the Philistines gathered together, mishmash, that's a hard one for me to say. Then he said, the Philistines who came down on me at Gilgal, hey, listen, they're already fighting me and you're up there in your priest office or whatever, and I'm down here in the woods and having to fight and get to keep all these people together. It's your fault. And I forced myself, I had to go ahead and do it because you weren't here. When Samuel said to Saul, in verse 13, you have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God. Now, of course, the commandment of the Lord his God at that time was Samuel had established himself even from a child that he was God's mouthpiece for the land of Israel at that time. They knew that when Samuel spoke and said, thus saith the Lord, thus the Lord had said. And so Samuel has told Saul explicitly what to do. Wait. And he didn't wait. And so we see that he says, you have not kept the commandment of the Lord, which he commanded you. For now, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. There's that big problem I have with the foreknowledge of God. because God had offered, we knew that he was already, that David was in mind, whether or not David was even born at the time. But we see that God gave you the chance, but now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord had sought for himself a man after God's or after his own heart. That's where we get the title of David was a what man after God's own heart. God already had in mind. We saw it all the way back into the book of Ruth that God had a plan and God's plan was that David through Ruth was going to have was going to be the first king of Israel. And so in God's timing, it would have worked out most of the time we get in trouble. is because God is a God of systems and timing. And His timing, look at the universe, everything is in perfect order. We don't see stars banging into each other. We see that order of the universe. They say that if the oceans were one inch higher, then the air would be too thick to breathe. If it's one inch lower, it would be too thin to breathe. God know exactly the ecosystem, everything he made, the system. You have systems within your systems in your body. I went to the doctor the other day and they got me going to three different doctors for three different systems. You know, and I said, wait a minute, I just want a doctor to tell me, you know, am I going to live or die? And they said, no, we got to send you to here and he'll tell you where you're going to live or die. Well, if he tells you you can live, then you go to second base and find out. And so if you make it all the way to third, maybe you can go home. You know, you kind of feel that way, don't you? When you go to a specialist these days. Because we have so many systems, but guess who controls all those systems? The Lord Jesus. He knows every area of your body, every molecule of your body. But then also timing. You have a heart. It gets out of a little bit of rhythm and it throws all the systems into a quandary. And so it is in life. God says, he knoweth the way that I take. And as I walk in his system, doing what he did in his goodwill, he abides with us still. But when I get out of his system or go ahead in his timing, It's when I get myself in trouble. I couldn't wait on God. I didn't do this. Did I say something wrong? You're smiling at me. My wife is smiling at me. I know something is wrong, but I'll find out later. But there again, we see that Saul never got into God's system. He never got with the system. He was always waiting and depending on somebody else. And we see that his son got ahead, his son went ahead. We see that Samuel got it. He didn't follow Samuel. We see that he's gonna wind up trying to kill his son. All kinds of crazy things had happened. And so we've noticed in verse 15, so Samuel arose and went up to Gilgal, to Gibeon, and Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people present with him. He's down to 600 men. But we see in chapter 14 that it wasn't that Jonathan took his men and won the victory. It's interesting how that God snatched the victory away from Saul. And so God did not allow him to gain the credit. And actually he lost a lot of favor with his people. You just don't kill the hero of the battle after he wins the battle. And so he lost a lot of credibility with his own men. He was always a weak leader. He never really got strong. Let me show you just the difference. Turn with me over to 1 Samuel chapter 30. First Samuel chapter 30, this is one of my favorite verses. It's really encouraged me along. You know, we talked about faithful men, or we sang that song, who've gone before us, faithful men who fought and so forth. But we look in chapter 30. Now this was one of the low points of David's life. He had been running from Saul for 13 years. And some of these mighty men that were gonna be later on mentioned as mighty men doing great exploits for David and for Israel. They were so discouraged that they had lost confidence in David and they even thought about killing him, stoning him. And notice what happens in verse six. 1 Samuel 30, verse six, you might want to underline this. Now, David was greatly distressed for the people spoke of stoning him because the soul of the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. His mighty men who had been with him for 13 years now had lost everything, including their wives and kids. But notice that phrase, but David, the King James says, encouraged himself in the Lord his God. He reached down deep and he encouraged himself in the Lord his God. He didn't need a priest, he didn't need a prophet. He had a personal relationship with the Lord his God. What a difference, a man after God's own heart. He could reach down and something down in deep where God says, I will hold you with my hand. And he found that to be true. David passed the test, didn't he? Think of people in history. Think of how that God raises up leaders. And so many times we don't deserve them. But one of the most unique generals in all of history was one of our heroes, and that was George Washington. He lost more battles than he ever won. In the first year of battle, he lost at least three major battles, and he was down to a bunch of barefoot men, and their enlistments were up. And the only thing that was a miracle to the British was that he still had an army. And he just found a way to keep going from where he got, he almost got cornered there in New York, Long Island. He went across New Jersey, and then he went into Pennsylvania, and he was really just moving and just staying ahead of the British army. And he was down to nothing. And yet, one of the things that we see is those pictures. We have to be careful with George Washington because there was a thing, an Episcopalian minister by the name of Bishop Reams, who wrote a lot of things about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and throwing the dollar across the Potomac and all that, and made him into Superman. And so a lot of the things that we know about George Washington, as far as children is concerned, we're not really sure they're there. But there are certain things that we do know that are there. And that was that George Washington, he had his big faults. But the one thing that he did do, and one of the most famous pictures we have of him, if you remember, if you've ever seen it, is a picture of him by his horse, kneeling down in the snow. George Washington had a way of when things were down, of knowing who to go to. And not only that, but he inspired his men to come with him. And right after that, they won, of course, the Battle of Trenton, which was one of the great turning points of the war. They crossed the Delaware, remember all that stuff. But he would have never crossed the Delaware if he'd have been a Saul. If he didn't know how to reach down deep inside, and keep on going and trust in his God. And for one of the things we do know about him, he felt, he had a sense that God was using him. He got that expression during back in the French and Indian War because he actually helped start that war because he got out and he fired at the Indians first, legitimately, but at the same time, he was the one that started it. But at the end of that battle, he had 34 bullet holes in his coat. and not one scratch. So he kind of took that as maybe the Lord's protecting him. I could tell you other things about him even in the Civil War or in the Revolutionary War. But the sense that God was hands on him, but he knew how to reach down deep inside and say, God's with me. I think he was a Christian. Another man we think that God raised up. And again, he was a man that went through all kinds of problems. He was one of the ugliest politicians that America had ever seen up to that time. In fact, some of his, some, Hearst Greeley, or one of the newspaper editors, called him, he looks like an ape. His name was Abraham Lincoln. And he went through all kinds of things in the Civil War. His son died, and his wife nearly went crazy because, I mean, she really had problems after that son died. He had all the, he never knew who to trust. His generals kept failing him. In fact, he fired one of the generals and that general ran against him for president. And yet down deep inside, he kept on going. And he just, and he inspired a nation to go forward. And as a result, he's bigger in life than, as a result of his death, he became bigger than life. It's just amazing how that God raises up men at certain times in history, even if we're not sure about their religious background, they did pray to the God of heaven. just amazing some of the things that God did. I think I could tell you, I think, whenever I read his biographies, I like to underline and I'll put it up, it's at Providence, so I can go back and read it again or whatever. You talk about Harry Truman and others. One of the things that, oh, one guy that was really, he was kind of like Benjamin Franklin. He was kind of all over the place spiritually, but old Winston Churchill. And again, remember, he was at the very point, 1940, where the Germans were about ready to invade England. And you remember that great speech he said, we shall never, never, never surrender. And they said that, now that's one thing to say on the radio. It's another thing to keep a group of people around you who believe you mean it. And so we don't know whether he really believed it or not, but whenever the Germans were bombing England, London and all that was going on in the darkest days of English history, their finest hour as he called it later on. He would be down in a bomb-proof shelter and he would have a map of Germany and Western Europe on a big wall. And one day a man walked in and said, Sir Winston, why do you have that mat there when the bombs are going over and we can hear them? He said, I'm planning the destruction of Germany. He just had it in his mind that God was going to deliver England. It's interesting how that God does that with different leaders, different people that God raises up, and my, do we need a leader like that today in America? People that when we're down, and I could, there's several presidents, I love history, and that's because you go back and you say, what caused them to be that way? I think of Harry Truman, and I better not get too deep because I can just keep on going, but Harry Truman, he would write the best and say, I don't know why I made that decision, but I think God was in it. And it was about Israel and all these different things. Moshe Dayan over in Israel. I like that story. How did he just, he whipped seven Arab nations at one time. I like this story because later on someone, the whole story goes that the American general said, this guy's good. We need him for Vietnam. And they said, okay, we'll trade you Moshe Dayan for, two of your generals." And he said, oh wow, that's pretty quick. What generals do you want? We give them generals. General Motors and General Electric. So there again, that's a Jewish joke, but I thought that was always funny. But you know, how does God raise these people up? And what did he do this to them? What does a guy like, I mean, you're talking about some guys that, boy, Weird when it comes to some of their spirituality, MacArthur, where he says, I shall return, and he did. Just over and over again, you see that God gives that to, God raises up certain people, and my, that's a gift of God when he raises up a person to lead a nation, isn't it? And oh, God has shed his grace upon us with the leaders that he's given us in crucial times. We want to pray that God will do it again. But then again, God wants to raise you up and God's promised you he'll never leave you or forsake you. And when the trials are deep, when you don't know what's going to go, what's going to happen next, you don't know what you're going to, if you're going to lose it all. That's the time when we can say, Lord, you promised me you'll never leave me. You'll lead me through the valley of the shadow of death and I will fear no evil. Although I'm scared to death, I'm going to follow you." So here we have a man after God's own heart and a man that didn't have a heart. Oh, that God would raise up men and women who have a heart for God that could lead us as a nation and in our churches and in our families and in our city. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for the fact that we can know you. And Lord, we know that we can follow you and that you Lord that we we put so much in the end bench, but Lord, may we have the substance to back it up. May we be able to say with Paul, I know whom I'm believed and I'm convinced that you're able. To take that which I've given to you. And to deposit it into my account. And that you will always use it for your glory. Bless, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.