1 Samuel 11 vs 1-15

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 1

·    Jabesh Gilead was to the east of the Jordan River where the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh had settled. That wasn’t a wise decision. They crossed the Jordan with Joshua and assisted in the conquest of Canaan, but then returned to the east of the Jordan to settle. It created a barrier between them and the rest of their people and left them vulnerable to the other nation. We even find in Judges 21 that the men of Jabesh Gilead did not join the rest of the nation of Israel in a previous conflict (albeit the civil conflict with Benjamin) …  

·    Now a leader of the Ammonites by the name of Nahash (last name Brown…, Nahash-Brown, HA!) (actually, interestingly, this name literally means, “Snake”) comes up against them. Their response is a sad revelation concerning the faith of the men of Israel at this time. The Ammonites come up against them and there is no mention of them going to prayer, calling upon Samuel, strengthening themselves, nothing. Their go-to is a position of defeat! No confidence in their true King, even though God had promised them that He would defend them as they trust in Him…

·    Ah, so that’s the problem… This is interesting and telling. Of course, OF COURSE they have no confidence in God to give them the victory…, they’ve been serving the Baals and Ashtaroth’s. We find that out in the next chapter… So much to say on that point… The victory isn’t in the moment of battle, that’s the revelation of the victory. The victory is in the everyday leading up to the battle…

·    Here the people have no confidence nor inclination to turn to the Lord for their strength because in truth He hasn’t been that for some time… Even though that is precisely what God had promised them IF they would trust in Him…

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 2

·    Incredible, this situation they are facing. Not just harsh. Not just shocking. But strategic. Take the right eye and no more firing of the bow. Take the right eye and no more attacking, only defending, as the shield was held in the left hand, covering the left eye. This was not just a humiliation; this was an attempt at a long-term defeat.

·    There was another path for these men of God. Even though they had not been the men they should have been, in one moment… one instant second of humbling themselves to God, they would not have to humiliate themselves before men!

·    Trust in God and obey Him…, do as He would have you to do and when the threat arrives, when the storm comes, there will be no defeat. Jesus said in Matthew 7:24-25, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.” God is the same today, yesterday, and forever…

·    It confuses me and never ceases to surprise me to the point of having to shake my head…, when someone chooses to root in deeper to pride rather than taking the golden ticket of humility. Do the will of God or enter into the servanthood to the enemies of God.

·    The servanthood to Nahash, the Snake…, it wasn’t to get their dry cleaning or mow his lawn…, serving him was to literally maim and disable them for the rest of their lives. Not just lose this battle but set them up to lose every hand-to-hand battle after this one! Harsh, evil, heartless, disgusting…, which is the price exacted when the world, the enemy and the flesh sucker someone in to a life of not knowing the Lord, not trusting the Lord… even Christians go this route! Sheesh….

·    This is such a strategy of the enemy! Notice the agreement asked of the people of God to harm them! John told us in 1 John 4:4, “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world!” The enemy wants to harm, hurt, harass and crush you…, and yet a strong man guards your heart… You and I have to offer a covenant, an agreement to him for him to have the authority to do those things to us…

·    His primary weapon is fear…, intimidation. Just like these Ammonites. You don’t get what you want on God’s side. He’s not going to give you what you really want. He doesn’t really love you; He just serves His own purposes… and on and on… Until we give in to him OR we walk by faith. What we need to do in that situation (that we all come to multiple times in our lives, sometimes in our DAY), is to faith up and take the position that what God wants is what I want even if it doesn’t serve my flesh, my life…, as James tells us in James 4:7, “Therefore, if you, submit to God, you resist the devil and he will (be forced to, has to) flee from you!” Golden ticket.

·    Even moreover, Satan and the demonic wants to pin you in a corner, trap you like a lame game of tic-tac-toe, so that you lose the ability to even fight against them in the future. You ever see a life set up for someone to just lose over and over again? It’s actually not that difficult for the enemy to trick someone into a bad decision that negatively affects them the rest of their lives…

·    What we are seeing here with the Ammonites is point in case clear the strategy of the enemy against the people of God. And the victory isn’t in the desperate plea to God at the moment of battle…, (although it can be – I don’t want to discount someone coming to their senses), but the real victorious living is in the days and seasons leading up to the confrontation with the enemy…

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 3

·    Look at this authority exercised by the people of God that they don’t even see themselves!? What is Nahash thinking!? Um, NO! Make your decision NOW. But there are a few things going on here…

·    First off this is God clearly giving us a type of the intimidation that comes against us by the enemy. Waiting is always a good option when you are faced with intimidation by the enemy. Wait. The great prophet Elvis Presley told us, “Only fools rush in!” You have the authority to make the enemy wait…, and the fact that you have that authority should tell you something! YOU HAVE AUTHORITY!

·    Here’s why Nahash was cool with that. Why conquer one part of the people of God when he can conquer them all? That’s no doubt the motivation behind Nahash agreeing to this… And that is what the enemy wants too… He wants it all… He’ll start with a threat, one eye…, one ability, one season, one corner of your life…, but he won’t stop, he is relentless. And the danger of one knew bowed to the enemy is a second… If you’re not in the battle, you’re losing ground… Because Satan doesn’t sleep.

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verses 4 – 6

·    This is intriguing, maybe even a little perplexing. The Spirit of God upon Saul, and great anger at the same time! Is getting angry, and I mean really angry…, is that wrong? It’s obvious by this verse that the answer must be not always.

·    Most of the time we get angry for selfish reasons. Someone is slowing us down, making us uncomfortable, offending us personally or just not doing what we want them to do. We get angry when someone is being rude or careless. And most of the time that anger is rooted in some sort of self service or self-righteousness. The “I would never do that” attitude… (Sometimes its rooted in fear – Fear of what the future is going to be like for me because of the other person not doing what I want or need them to do). In fact, self-service and self-righteousness are both offspring of fear…

·    Saul’s anger, or actually it’s probably better stated in this circumstance, the anger of the Lord that has come upon Saul, is rooted in an abhorrence (hate) of evil. All the people lifted up their voices and wept. Why? Because evil has befallen them. And in the Hebrew, it says that Saul’s nostrils flared!

·    Psalm 7:11 says, “God is a just Judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” A literal translation for that verse could be that God will always, in every circumstance, defy the wicked. It is not a sin to be angry for righteous reasons. Paul separates anger and sin in Ephesians 4:26 saying, “Be angry, and do not sin.” This is why, even for the people of God, Ecclesiastes 3:1 and 8 says, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

·    Not sure how to leave this powder-keg of a principle. Here we know that this anger is not sinful because it appears that it is not Saul’s anger, at least not alone. It is the anger of the Lord as it is the Spirit of love that has come upon Him. God is love. It’s true. And agape love is not tolerance of all that is evil. That actually would be much more like hate. Agape love is the culture of the perfect kingdom… Maybe this helps. The same amount of love I have for my children will be shown in furious action to what attempts to destroy them…

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 7

·    I love this! Who told him to do this? No man. He was told that he was king…, what did he do? He went back to the herd. He had no idea what to do. No one there to tell him what a king was supposed to do! Then the Spirit of God came upon him and he takes unilateral, personal, decisive, solitary action. Unprecedented, undocumented, unexampled, and no need for any of that! God is upon his heart! He begins to lead! (And with uncanny wisdom as he immediately strategically aligns himself to Samuel, a MUST in good leadership (strategic alignment)).

·    We worry so much what others do and what is the mold for the work of the Lord. What has God called YOU to do!? Are you willing to do that? If it’s bizarre and harmful then please, 1 Corinthians 14:33 says, “God is not the Author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” If the Lord has called you to do it and its unique, it will be confirmed because the saints will understand it! The Spirit of the Lord in you is the same Spirit of the Lord in them! He will understand Himself!!

·    Precisely the response we see from Saul’s leadership! It says there in the end of verse 7 that THEY, all of them, came out with one consent! One after the other with certainty of resolve is that phrase in the Hebrew!

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 8

·    The nation rallied around the anointing of the Lord! That’s just awesome! A redeeming verse for a troubled nation and people! And I’m not sure why Judah is called out separately from Israel, and I’m not sure if them being a tenth of the number of the children of Israel is significant…

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verses 9 – 11

·    I love this too! There is a complete annihilation of the enemy force! All the way down to the fact that the enemy is left without companion! God decimates the Ammonites to the lowest common denominator! How? Through the anointed king who presents himself in three companies!! No seemingly insignificant statement in the scriptures is actually insignificant!

·    God the Father gave justice and righteousness through the law to Moses. God the Son gave grace and truth through the cross of Christ and the resurrection unto eternal life. God the Holy Spirit gives power and precision to the work of heaven on earth through the hearts of redeemed people…, and those three companies…, check this out, justice, righteousness, grace, truth, power and focused precision slay all day, baby!! All the way to the thoughts and intents of the hearts of men!

·    The work of the Most High in the heart of a person! No thought is left coupled with another. No attitude, contemplation, character trait. I am this way because of this… Nope. I am this way. Decoupled and a thought on its own… I have to do something about it. See the separation!? Do you have God doing this in your heart? This is the three-fold victory march of the Triune God in the life of someone that empowers them and enables them to break through!

·    I am some kind of way because of what happened to me. Nope. That thought pattern doesn’t fly anymore. Something has changed and that just doesn’t ring right in your own mind anymore. I don’t justify my own sin. I can’t. There is no justice in sin. Justice is found only in sacrifice. And I know that that is backwards! I know! But so is this world that I am from…, but it’s not where I belong anymore and it’s not where I’m going! So, the thought lives by itself…, I am, I have, there’s something not right in me… God, change that (no matter why or what they’ve done)! And boom… God slays it… This is the work of the Most High in the heart of a person!! THAT is humility, humbling yourself to the King of kings! Does He do that work in YOU!?

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 12

·    Remember the haters from before? Don’t scream at them or hate them or abhor them because they don’t believe in you… Wait on the Lord, let God teach you how to be a leader, and then prove them wrong! Believe me, the satisfaction of this verse greatly outweighs the momentary smirk of telling people to shut up back in the previous chapter!

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verse 13

·    Oh, the kicker. When it comes time to say “I told you so,” you won’t even want to. Humility has birthed maturity! When you get here…, it won’t matter. Just like Saul. The work of the Lord is so much more important than getting even or having folks grovel at his feet… that isn’t even his desire anymore. Don’t tell people that though…, HA! They’ll hold to the thought, “Hey, I’ll get you later when it all works out for me,” and not know that when God does give the victory, their hearts will be humbled by the work of God…, and not their own…

1 Samuel Chapter 11 Verses 14 – 15

·    Saul starts off so well. He waits on the Lord. He is led by the Lord. He leads well in the Lord. Even going back to the roots of the nation. Gilgal is where they children of Israel came with Joshua when they entered into the promised land. And now they go back and anoint the anointed. The first official king of Israel! But, as it’s been said many times, it’s not how you start only, it’s how you finish…