The King Calls Us to Action

Highlights from 1 Samuel

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

March 5, 2023

The King Calls Us to Action

11 Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.” ² But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.” ³ The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days' respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.” 1 Samuel 11:1-3

Pray

The Ammonites, led by a man named Nahash besiege the Jewish city of Jabesh-gilead, and the elders of Jabesh know they don’t have a fighting chance against the Ammonites so they ask to make a peace treaty with the Ammonites saying they will serve them. Nahash says, here’s my counter-offer: I will come and personally gouge the right eye out of every one of you and then you will serve me, disfigured and disgraced.

There’s history here between the Jews and the Ammonites. The Ammonites are descendants of Lot, and when Moses was leading Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land, when they came to the land of the Ammonites, God told them not to harass or attack the Ammonites because they were Lot’s descendants. So Moses and Israel passed by and left them alone.

Fast forward years later and we read in the book of Judges 10 and 11 that when the Ammonites saw that Israel was weak and had no leader they attacked them under the premise that Israel took land from them and they wanted it back. God raised up Jephthah to lead Israel and they defeated the Ammonites. The Ammonites never got over that defeat and their bitterness against the Jews turned into hatred.

So now, seeing that Israel is once again weak and disunified, they lay siege to the prominent city of Jabesh and the last thing they are interested in is making a win-win treaty. They want to demoralize and disgrace Israel and Israel’s God Yahweh.

One of the principles in understanding how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament is that the OT uses physical realities to help us better understand the spiritual realities revealed in the NT. In the OT the enemies of God’s people were the surrounding nations that worshipped pagan gods and alternately fought with Israel or led them astray to worship idols. In the NT the enemies of God’s people aren’t people at all, our battle isn’t against flesh and blood, but against rulers and powers of darkness.

Nahash is a picture or type of Satan and gouging out the eyes of the Jews is a picture of what sin does. The Bible tells us that mankind – all men, women, and children are created in the image of God and that eats away at Satan because as beautiful and powerful as he was created to be, he wasn’t created in the image of God. And so, since there’s nothing he can do to remove the image of God from us he does everything he can to distort and disfigure that image.

Jesus said the thief (Satan) comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. Like the treaty Nahash offers, there is no mercy, no compassion, no goodness in Satan’s agenda for our lives. He comes only to steal, kill and destroy. And he does it through sin. Sin only has one direction: death. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

Now sin might seem attractive at first. It might be pleasurable, even exhilarating, for a time. Someone on the brink of an adulterous affair might feel more alive than they have in years. Someone escaping their troubles with the bottle or with drugs might feel better for a short time. Someone living for all the world can offer – money, fun, success, sex - might feel like they’re living large for a while, they’ve got life by the tail. Maybe sin isn’t so bad after all, maybe we can make a peace treaty with it and come out ok.

Sin blinds us in one eye so we lose our depth perception, our sense of right and wrong, our ability to discern truth from lie. It blinds us just enough that we can see the attractiveness of sin, but we can’t see the destination of sin. We don’t see (or choose not to see) down the road to where sin is taking us.

Part of Nahash’s purpose in gouging out one eye was to blind them just enough to allow them to look in the mirror, or to look at their father, mother, son, daughter, or their brother or friend, and see the disfigurement and the shame they all lived with. The marred image of God in them.

Sin does that. We see the brokenness of sin all around us both inside and outside the church and honestly, we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. How many happy-looking families hide their shame and brokenness behind drawn curtains? How many young people post smiling selfies, but inwardly are struggling with powerful emotions that threaten to overcome them? I read recently that a significant percentage of young people struggle with thoughts of suicide. That’s the voice of Satan. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

Jesus came that we might have life and that more abundantly. But here’s what needs to be said. The church throughout history is a lot like Israel. We have some great moments, but a lot of low points. Nahash knew that Israel was weak, and fractured, and most of that was their own fault. Israel had sinned, had turned away from God, had fought and warred with each other. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Satan wants nothing more than to turn people away from Jesus and the abundant life he offers. Turn them off and turn them away from the church. A lot of the very people who are confused and hurting and struggling, who desperately need the abundant life Jesus offers them, look at the church and say, “no thanks.” They write it off as irrelevant and outdated. And sadly, a lot of that is self-inflicted.

Nahash was emboldened by the sad, weak state of Israel. What he didn’t know was that the Spirit of God was stirring. God was raising up a new king and a new day of Israel. Let’s keep reading.

⁴ When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter in the ears of the people, and all the people wept aloud.

⁵ Now, behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. And Saul said, “What is wrong with the people, that they are weeping?” So they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. ⁶ And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. ⁷ He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. ⁸ When he mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were three hundred thousand, and the men of Judah thirty thousand. ⁹ And they said to the messengers who had come, “Thus shall you say to the men of Jabesh-gilead: ‘Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation.’” When the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, they were glad. ¹⁰ Therefore the men of Jabesh said, “Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.” ¹¹ And the next day Saul put the people in three companies. And they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together. Vv. 4-11

When the people of Gibeah hear what’s happening to their people in Jabesh, they weep. Weeping is a good place to start, but that’s as far as it would have gone, except Saul, the new king, comes in from the field and when he hears what’s going on, it says the Spirit of God rushed upon him and his anger was “greatly kindled”. The Spirit of God burned in him and the fire of anger burned in him. There is such a thing as righteous anger. Sinful anger bullies and controls and rages to get our own way. Righteous anger gives us the courage to do what is right.

So Saul – the same Saul who was hiding in the luggage just last chapter – calls Israel to action by cutting up his own oxen (no returning to the fields for Saul) and sends them out to Israel saying, this is what we will do to the oxen of everyone who doesn’t come out to fight with Saul and Samuel. He’s saying don’t think you can sit this one out just because you’re not the one suffering. We’re in this together. If you don’t help them in their pain, you will feel the pain of loss too.

I want to share a couple brief closing application points from this.

1. Jesus is the king who came to save his people from our sin and shame

Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. He clashed with Satan and sin, not by angry arguments but by undoing the eye-gouging pain and disgrace of sin. He restored sight to the blind, healed the lame, straightened the withered hand of a cripple and cleaned the skin of the leper.

Jesus expressed love to the unlovely, called the sinner his friend, and bestowed honor upon the prostitute who washed his feet, forgiveness to the woman caught in adultery (and where was the man? Adultery is a two-person event), and acceptance to the Samaritan woman at the well.

How did Jesus fight the kingdom of Satan? Not by political maneuvering, or sarcastic social posts, or being the loudest, angriest voice in the room. He did it by restoring the image of God to broken, disfigured people. People who internally were lame and unclean and blind and deaf and disfigured.

Jesus died on the cross to cleanse us from our sin and restore us to deep, loving friendship with God, that we might be adopted as precious sons and daughters. Jesus is the king who came to save his people from our sin and shame. Who is “his people”? Anyone who will humble themselves before him and believe in him. Anyone.

2. Jesus gave us the Spirit of God in order to call us – and empower us – for action!

The key moment for Saul is that the Spirit of God rushed upon him. It was the Spirit who changed him into a different man. Who transformed his fear into courage, his hiding into action. And he called all of Israel to action and the Spirit of God filled them with the kind of fear of God that leads to action.

Jesus himself, the Son of God, did everything he did by the Spirit of God, and then he gave us the Holy Spirit not to bless our socks off or make church services feel good but to call us to action. To unify us in Christ by the Spirit to action.

We don’t need new programs, bigger structures, better marketing strategies, or big name celebrity Christians. We need the power of God to move through our weak vessels and change the world around us one person at a time!

I believe the Spirit of God is stirring. I’m usually not a big fan of the word revival cause I think it’s been overused and misused in the church, but real revival is what we need. Maybe we’re seeing some of that in the Asbury Revival. There are things about what’s going on there that I like, that seem genuine. They aren’t flashy, they’re just worshipping God. When big name Christians tried to get in on it, they were told you’re welcome to come and sit in the back seats but we don’t need you to grandstand.

I hear other college campuses are experiencing the same kind of fires of revival. Young people need to experience the power and love of God, and they need to be the ones – young people YOU need to be the ones - who lead the church into a fresh season of fruitfulness and life.

Here’s the call to action for us at least at this moment.

1. Pray. I thank God that God is teaching me to believe Him and lean on Him more aggressively in prayer. Still have a long ways to go, but when my heart grows weary, doubtful, anxious, or apathetic, my spirit longs to go to God in prayer.

Who is in your life right now? What sphere of relationships do you have? Pray for them. God works in their hearts, draws them to Him, and that God will give you opportunity to share with them.

If there’s sin hidden in our closets, we need to weep first. Joel 2:12 God says return to me with all your hearts. Rend your hearts not your clothes and fast and weep and mourn.

2. Act – We don’t want to think – everything’s ok with my family and that’s good enough. I don’t need to stick my neck out for others. I just want to go to church, hear a good message, go home and live my life. Jesus our king calls us to unify under his banner and to action by his Spirit. Let’s look for ways to advance the kingdom the way Jesus did: caring for people in their pain and brokenness. Offering them the good news of the gospel. Seeing the image of God in them and believing God to do His work in them (and yes, maybe through our weak efforts). You have people in your life.