1 Samuel 31 – 2 Samuel 1

Good morning, Saylorville! If you brought a copy of Scripture with you this morning, you can find the very last chapter in first Samuel, first Samuel chapter 31. We’ll be making our way to second Samuel as well. In the Hebrew Bible, they’re just one book.

So, and I wanna say right out of the… at the beginning, I hope you have a great Thanksgiving. If you’re traveling, this is the time to be thankful. We’re not gonna forget about that in this message, but the title of the message is a little counterintuitive to the season. The title of the message is A Time to Mourn.

So with that, let me ask you. Have you ever been to a funeral of an individual, a godly individual who’s end of days, was as faithful as their beginning? I have, and they’re beautiful funerals. In fact, they’re easy funerals to preach. Charles Spurgeon once said:

“It’s a grand thing to see a man dying full of life. God makes his dying people to be like the sun, which never seems so large as when it sets.” Charles Spurgeon

But how about those whose lives don’t end well? I’ve done a number of funerals in my day and I have done funerals of those whose lives, although they had trusted Christ, or at least they claimed to have trusted Christ, their lives did not end well. Now I’ll just tell you something. When it comes to preaching those funerals, it’s complicated.

How’s your life gonna end? I don’t mean the circumstances of your death, which we really don’t get to control that or shouldn’t. I’m talking about the condition of your soul. How’s it gonna end?

Death is in today’s story. I’m just gonna tell you, it’s in today’s story. At least one individual’s gonna die really well and another individual’s gonna die, well… not so well.

We’re looking at David, the man who captured the heart of God, and he’s the one as a teenage boy was anointed to become the next king, God having rejected the king that was there at the time, King Saul. Now just to let you know, we don’t have every detail of Saul’s reign. It’s important for you to know that, because he reigned for 40 years. There were better days in Saul’s life, I’ll allude to one of them soon enough. Saul did have good days. There just weren’t many of them. And so he, if you recall, considered David his enemy. Once, it was evident that David was killing, or Saul was getting his thousand, David, his tens of thousands. [1 Samuel 18:7] He was insanely jealous. David was on the run for about a decade, give or take, maybe more. But all that running was about to end. And so was Saul, who had in the course of those 40 years done a 180, and it really turned to the dark side, so dark, in fact, that in the 28th chapter, if you recall… we didn’t study it. I’m just going to allude to it. I told you I would, and I’m do it now. Saul who can’t hear from God, he’s not getting a word from God, goes to the mediums, goes to the occultist, goes to the witch of En-dor to get a word from her about the outcome of the battle. God sovereignly supersedes that situation and, shockingly, Samuel himself appears and speaks directly to Saul! [1 Samuel 28:13-19] Don’t look for anything normal about that, because that’s not normal! And in it, he tells Saul, ‘You’re going to be where I’m at tomorrow.’ [1 Samuel 28:19] That is… ‘You’re dead! You’re a dead man!’

And so, now to the battle. If you recall, this is the battle that David and his 600 members were supposed to be joining the Philistine kings up against Israel. Remember David feigned that he really wanted to go, and the king said you can’t go. David walked away and… remember then… well there’s… we’ll get back to that. David found out that his own town was on fire from other enemies! Anyway, David is not in this battle. He’s 80 miles away. During this pitch battle, Saul and his three sons… he’s got three sons, not just Jonathan… they all die. Their defenses collapse. They’re pierced by arrows, and they all die. Strangely, the Bible actually only describes Saul‘s death. And with that, chapter 31. Here’s what it says.

1 Samuel 31:1-10

1 Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

2 And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons, and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul.

3 The battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers.

4 Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and mistreat me.” (Look at Saul. He’s dying. He’s still concerned about how he looks!) But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.”

(Let me just make a point here. That’s how he died. We’ll come back to it)

5 And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him.

6 Thus Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, on the same day together.

7 And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. And the Philistines came and lived in them. (Now, I want you to notice what happens here. Be really… carefully watch the text. It’s gonna help you understand the conflict between this chapter and the following one.)

8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

9 So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor (No mention of a crown here) and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the good news (gospel) to the house of their idols and to the people.

10 They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.”

And will stop there. What we just read, the word “fall” or “fall” is used four times. The word “dead” or “die” is used four times in order to illustrate the dreadfulness of the moment. As for Saul, the wages of sin is what? — death. [Romans 6:23] There is a silver lining to all this, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

This all took place at Beth-shan. Now that is… the Philistines took Saul and his sons’ bodies, their dismembered bodies, and literally spiked them to the wall at Beth-shan.

Now I have been there three times with my wife and numbers of people here. There is the city, the archaeological, spectacular archaeological city there, Scythopolis. But you see the hill in the background? That hill, that’s the very city… that’s the… that’s the tell, the city of Beth-Shan where Saul and his sons were nailed to the wall.

Now there is a silver lining, if you can call it that, to this awful story. And that is in the response of the citizens, the valiant men of Jabesh-gilead who lived 10 miles away. And with that, back to the story. Pick it up in verse 11.

1 Samuel 31:11-13

11 “But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,

12 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 they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

(because they were so disfigured and mangled)

13 And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.”

David would later commend them for what they did. But why would these valiant men of Jabesh-gilead literally risk life and limb for a 20-mile round trip to Beth-shan and rescue the bodies of Saul and his sons? Why would they do that? — and the answer is because they were the beneficiaries of Saul’s better days. And we do have a little window of it.

You don’t need to go there, but in 1 Samuel 11, the Amorites were about to attack Jabesh-gilead. And so they said, ‘Well, strike a deal with us, will ya?’ And the Ammonites said, ‘Okay, we’ll strike a deal. Let us come in and take the right eye out of every one of ya, and then we’ll strike a deal with ya.’ And they went, ‘Ummm… We need to think about that for a while.’ And so, what they did was they sought Saul, the newer king, and Saul, the Bible tell us, filled with the Holy Spirit, rushed upon Jabesh-gilead and rescued the town, rescued the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, put a beat down on the Amorites.’ That answers the question, why they would risk life and limb. In a word, what drove them was gratitude.

The irony is that Saul’s reign began with rescuing the lives of Jabesh-gilead, and it ended with the lives of Jabesh-gilead rescuing his body, but it was gratitude that drove them. And get a hold of this… gratitude from 40 years earlier! You know, even today, you can go to the Middle East and it doesn’t take long to figure out who values life… and it’s not the radical Muslims, I’ll tell you that. It’s the Jews! Israel will literally have, and are willing to, and will and may… I hope they don’t have to do it again… they will empty their prisons of thousands of murderers from the terrorists side of the fence in order to exchange them not for living people but for dead bodies of Jews who have been killed and captured. That tells you how much who values life more.

I love the US Army’s mantra in war, “No man left behind.” — And they’ll do that. Right? They’ll risk life and limb to get the body of someone who’s killed in action. I love that!

Now meanwhile, David, who is oblivious to what’s going on here, what we just read, David is clueless, ’cause David is 80 miles away in Ziklag. Remember, if you’ll recall, he… after he wanted to join… the Philistine kings and they wouldn’t let him, and he went away poutin’ like he was upset, really… relieved! David didn’t get to go in that battle. In fact, I wonder if he had been allowed… remember the Philistine kings, they were worried that David would turn on them and rescue, in this case, Saul and his sons. I think that’s exactly what would have happened. David could have rescued Saul and his sons… and then ran for another 10 years! — because that’s what would would have probably happened. So he’s back in Ziklag oblivious to what’s happening… Knows there’s a battle, but doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s catching his breath when the news arrives of the battle. And we pick it up in 2 Samuel 1 when the news arrives.

2 Samuel 1:1-12

1 “After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag.

2 And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul’s camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. (He’s acting all mournful) And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. (acting all respectful)

3 David said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.”

4 And David said to him, “How did it go? Tell me.” And he answered, “…the people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.”

5 Then David said to the young man who told him, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?”

6 And the young man who told him said, (now watch these next two words) “By chance (underline that, because this is the lie. There is no “chance” here) I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear, and behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him.

7 And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called to me. And I answered, ‘Here I am.’

8 And he said to me, ‘Who are you?’ I answered him, ‘I am an Amalekite.’

9 And he said to me, Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers.’

10 So I put him out of his misery. That’s basically what the rest of it says. Because he wasn’t going to live.

10b And (then watch this… the middle of verse 10) I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet, (those are symbols of royalty) that was on his arm,  and I have (this is the only truthful thing about what he’s saying here! “And I have… ) brought them here to my lord.”

11 Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him.

12 And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.”

By the way, if you want to know the conflict between the last chapter and this one, it’s easily understood if you realize that the 31st chapter, the last chapter of 1 Samuel, that’s the historical, that’s the reliable, that’s the truthful account of what took place in that battle. This account by this Amalekite is the liar’s account.

Amalekites were notorious in Bible times to  being scavengers. They would literally come in after a battle… and they would swoop down, and they would strip bodies of all the goods, all the spoils if they could. And did you notice, in this case, when the Philistines in the truthful narrative in the last chapter, when they came upon Saul’s body and his sons bodies, they only took the armor, because that’s all that was left! This Amalekite showed up before they did… got his crown, got his armlet. I think he was trying to curry favor with David, hopefully, maybe trying to get in his future cabinet or something. I don’t know. But when he told … David, he put Saul out of his misery, which he really didn’t, but he said he did, thinking he was doing him a favor, David said, ‘You dared to touch the Lord’s anointed?‘, and killed him for it. [2 Samuel 1:14-15] So he’s basically signed his own death sentence!

Bottom line is, David and his men are devastated! They’re in mourning. They rip their clothes…a sign of mourning… They fast… they can’t eat. That’s what happens when you’re in mourning. And David, being the sweet Psalmist of Israel does what the sweet Psalmist of Israel does. He writes a song. And for the purpose of our… balance of our time, it’s worth looking at the song. This is what David wrote. Verse 17 says:

2 Samuel 1:17-25

17 And David lamented with this lamentation (watch this) over Saul and Jonathan his son,

18 and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar. He said: (And here’s the song)

19 “Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, (That’s… those are Philistines. That’s the enemy’s state. We don’t want them partying over this) lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.

21 “You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings…”

(By the way. If you were to visit there today in Israel, Israel has reforested this entire area… so much so, the climate has actually been affected! But on Mount Gilboa, there’s a shoulder. It’s called “Saul’s shoulder.” They purposely have not even tried to reforest it. It’s completely barren because of this curse.)

Verse 22, “From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.

23 “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! In life and in death they were not divided;

they were swifter than eagles; they were stronger than lions.

24 “You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.

25 How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle!”

We’ll stop there, because the next verse is a beautiful verse. It’s a stunningly beautiful verse! But I stopped short of reading it, because it’s been horribly misused. In fact, I would say it’s been dismembered, no pun intended, and misinterpreted by the adherence of the LGBTQ+ community. Here’s the verse. It says:

25b “Jonathan lies slain on your high places.

26 I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.”

The proposition that David and Jonathan had a homosexual relationship is unbiblical, it’s ungodly, and it’s a grotesque violation of their personal history with one another, as well as the text in the context of this passage. It’s a crying shame that’s been claimed by that community.

On the other hand, he does write this in a song! I mean, David said, ‘Jonathan, our love for one another was greater than the love of women.’ So what is with that? What does that even mean? What are you getting at? Well consider this. Jonathan and David were warriors. Most of us can’t relate to that… but if you’re a soldier you do! — and they relied, especially David, on one another. And as I said, if you’re a soldier… and God bless you… if you are a soldier, or you were a soldier, you have served our military. God bless you for protecting our country. Thank you! And if you’re a soldier who has fought in battle especially, you understand this verse better than anybody.

I have a friend who wears a bracelet, much like this one, with the name of his best friend who died in the very same battle he was in. He wears it every day. There were actually six men who died in that battle. He told me the other day he said, “Pastor, I’d wear six of them if they weren’t so cumbersome on my wrist.” There’s actually a first Ranger Battalion memorial with lots of names of men who have died in battle and room for others to be put up there. But if you were to zoom in on that, you know what they have underneath that giant memorial? — a quote from Jesus in John 15:13:

John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Yeah… They get it.

All that said, David is in mourning… both… BOTH for Jonathan and Saul, a great man and a not so great man, a man who was faithful to the end and a man who was faithless in the end.

So here’s the question before us. How does one respond when it’s time to mourn? Well first, ‘let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.’ [1 Corinthians 10:12]

I’ve done a lot of funerals. Did you know that funerals, biblically speaking, are meant as a time of deep reflection about your life? It’s not just a time to pay respect. Solomon said it best in Ecclesiastes 7:2.

Ecclesiastes 7:2, “It is better (and the word “better” is a term of comparison) to go to the house of mourning (that is a funeral) than to go to the house of feasting, (that’s a party) for this is the end of all men, and the living will take it to heart.”

Have you ever read that? Saul began by standing, but he ends by falling. What’s the whole point? Finish well! That‘s the point. Determine now to finish well.

Gerald Quick is a name some of you older ones will remember. It’s been many years since he went to be with the Lord. He was an older man, pastored little tiny churches. He made his way back to the church he grew up in right here at Saylorville. And he said, “May I serve the seniors?” — what would become the beginning of our… he started our Seniors’ Ministry. He was a quiet man, but he was faithful. He was diligent. He served quietly. And I’ll never forget toward the end of his life, he said to me, “Pastor, I just want to finish well.” And he did!

Now, unfortunately Saul would represent many kings that would follow him that had great beginnings and horrible, humiliating endings. So here again, write it down somewhere. Determine now to finish well. That expression is pregnant with thought. What does it mean? What do you have to do to finish well? One of the things that has to be incorporated into your life, not just with knowledge, but with character.

I just met with a bunch of guys the other day and we talked about knowledge and character. How important both… Peter… I just thought… Peter talks about all these characteristics that ought to be built into our lives as a result of the knowledge. What’s more important, your knowledge or your character? What’s more important when you’re 30,000 feet in the air? — the right wing or the left wing? Determine now to finish well.

Secondly, When it’s time to mourn, let the love of Christ adorn the way you mourn.

I have to be honest to tell you, I have done many funerals, and I have seen Christians mourn in an ungodly way when their loved one clearly loved God and is with the Lord. And it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to weep, maybe even lament loudly, but at some point, we don’t, we don’t… we are not hopeless people! We have… we’re filled with hope, and that should brace us in our time of mourning. The Apostle Paul said, ‘The love of Christ should control us.’

[2 Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;”]

Have you ever read that? “Control us.”

The men of Jabesh-gilead, they weren’t driven by Saul… they weren’t driven to go and rescue those bodies because of Saul’s sinful life… just the opposite. They were driven to rescue those bodies because of his saving actions, albeit 40 years earlier! Better days… Still grateful.

If you live long enough as I have, someone you were once close to, someone you deeply loved, someone… that once spoke life changing truth into your life, someone that you once shared a common pursuit with… is gonna die. And if somewhere in there before they die… sadly, somewhere along the way, some sin, some disappointment, some disagreement, some difference occurred between you and your love for them, your friendship with them, your camaraderie with them, and somewhere the camaraderie died and now they have… what are you gonna do about that? What are you doing about it now?

The way the folks of Jabesh-gilead and David responded to Saul’s death are beautiful examples of adorning the way you respond when somebody dies whose spiritual state at the point of their death is at best questionable. You’re still in your response, you’re controlled, you’re adorned by the love of God. So when it’s time to mourn, ‘let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.‘ Let the love of Christ adorn the way you mourn.

And finally, let the memory of the righteous be a blessing. That’s almost a direct quote from Solomon’s words in Proverbs chapter 10 when he said just that.

[Proverbs 10:7a] “The memory of the righteous is a blessing…”

Right? When you read David’s song, you might think, ‘Man, when I read the song, I’m almost led to believe that David loves Saul.’ You know why you would be led to believe that? — because David loved Saul! Remember the inscription from Psalm 18… we put up several weeks ago… where it’s… David said I wrote this “”…when God delivered me from all of my enemies and from the hand of Saul…” I’m actually quoting. I told you then. I’m telling you again, David never looked at Saul as his enemy. Saul looked at David as an enemy. David never did.

I was thinking about this and I thought of a movie I saw 15-something years ago. Anybody ever seen the Batman movie, The Dark Knight? Raise your hand. Take a picture here, Doug. You’ll get them all! I’m just kidding! Whatever. So, in that movie, Batman… there’s a final scene where there’s… Harvey Dent was, he was a hero of the city’s… strikingly handsome guy, but through, you know, by and by, he falls prey to the bad guy who… he ends up with a horribly disfigured face. He’s called Two Face in the comics. Anyway, he ends up dying. Harvey Dent is dead, laying on the ground, dead, and here’s Batman over him. And the commissioner is saying, “What are we going to do?” Batman then takes the disfigured face of Harvey Dent and turns it over, and when he does it, he says, he declares, “The public needs to see the heroic side of Harvey rather than his villainous side.”

I got to thinking about that. Don’t we do that at pretty much every funeral? I mean, have you ever been to a funeral where the preacher is talking about the person, and you’re thinking, ‘Are we…? I need to go back and look at the coffin. Is that the same person?’ We call it a eulogy. The word “eulogy” is actually a Greek word. You know what it means? It means, “to speak well of. So at funerals, we speak well. Sometimes you’ve got to dig really deep to find that thing to speak well on them. That’s why I say, sometimes it’s complicated, right?

Well, here’s a question for you. Is Saul in heaven? Here’s a more important question for you. Are you going to heaven? When you die, somebody’s gonna write about you. Somebody’s gonna talk about you. More importantly, are you ready to die and go to heaven? Some of you are not. God knows if Saul is in heaven. That’s why I love Second Timothy 2 where it says:

2 Timothy 2:19b, “The Lord knows those who are his…”

I go back to this scripture all the time. But the question is, will you be there?

Back in the 1940s and 50s, a man lived… that’s why most of you probably… this is not gonna be a name familiar to you, but it might be. A man, his name was Charles Templeton. Charles Templeton was a co-founder of Youth for Christ with Billy Graham. He was best friends with Billy Graham. Youth for Christ… Remember? … “Geared to the times, anchored to the Rock.” Charles Templeton was one of the co-founders of that movement. He traveled the world with Billy Graham, preached to tens of thousands of people, and thousands of people were converted under his preaching. And in fact, they said back in the 1950s, many thought that Templeton was more articulate, was a better preacher… than Billy Graham! By and by, Templeton would go to Princeton University, a liberal university, become liberal himself and deny the faith. He went from agnostic to blatant atheist. In fact, in 1999, in his older years, he wrote a book titled Farewell to God. And while many of you don’t recognize the name Charles Templeton, I’ll bet a lot of you remember the name, Lee Strobel. He’s still around. Lee Strobel wrote a runaway bestseller called The Case for Christ. He himself was not a believer. He did an investigation on the resurrection of Jesus, found out it was real, and believed! — became a fervent follower of Jesus. He wrote another book called The Case for Faith. So in that book, he actually addressed all of the arguments that Templeton used in his book, Farewell to God. So what he did was, he became a friend of Charles Templeton. He met with him and they talked. And in his book, he tells the story, this 80-some-year-old Templeton, he looked at him and he said, “What do you think of Jesus today?” — and Strobel says that Templeton’s eyes filled with tears and he said, (watch this) he said,

“I miss Him. He’s the greatest Man who ever lived.” Charles Templeton

And he hung his head and he began to sob, and then suddenly got kind of control of his demeanor, composure.

Do you miss Him? I’m thinking some of you do. Right now, some of you, if you were to be honest, would say, ‘It’s not like it used to be. I remember when I walked with God. I remember when His word was sweet. I remember when I super looked forward to coming to church and to worship, but now it’s more of a facade, and I miss Him.’ Did you know that Jesus ever lives to make intercession for you? He’ll take you back if you’ll come back to Him. Will you do that? Some of you just need to come to Him, repent of your sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, because one day we’ll all become a memory.

So beyond the funeral, what will yours look like, and what will they be saying about you? Let’s bow for a word to our Father.

We thank You for this story that involved death, reflection. It involves a man who had better days, but he sure had a bad ending, it causes us to wonder, ‘Where is he? Is he with You? Is he not with You?’ What a terrible place to be, to be an individual to whom others would look and say, ‘I don’t know if they’re a Christian or not.’ Lord, I pray that in this room and those watching online would seriously contemplate whether they portray a testimony for Jesus. And I pray that everyone in this room who actually knows you would determine now to finish well, and all that goes along with that for the sake of Your glory, for the sake of Your name. And I pray for those who’ve never come to know You that today they would forsake their sin, and trust the One who bore it in His own body on the tree and rose victorious. So would you do that? And we will give You the glory, for it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Let’s stand.