Sermon Transcript Tone Analysis

Play to those of you who are watching online, Merry Christmas.

I am wearing two items of clothing that I was given for Christmas.

I do have some new Santa socks that was given and this was actually a early Christmas present males, wearing a Christmas present today.

Welcome to episode 16 of the plan.

This is a sermon series that we're going through this year.

Starting in September with Genesis.

We're going through the whole story of the Bible, from beginning to end, and we are synchronizing up with the Resurrection on Easter, which means that on Christmas Sunday.

We are in or the day after Christmas.

We are in 1st, Samuel 15 is where you'd expect to be today, right?

We've been telling this whole story, and if you haven't been here with us, the, the story that we've been finding that links all of the different individual stories of Bible together as this.

It is.

The Bible is the story of God's plan, to establish a Place full of people who live out their purpose.

In his presence.

Is it at every stage in the Bible?

That is what God is working to accomplish in the world.

So he created the world and he put people in it and you told them to rule on his behalf.

And then he came down to live with them on the 7th day.

And then we messed it up at the end of the Bible.

We see that the way the story ends is with a new Earth full of God's people that are raining on God's behalf and God lives there with them.

So we are supposed to end where we began and the story of the Bible is the story of how God gets us from the way.

We've messed up the world to restoring us to that plan.

At this stage in the story.

God is working through the nation of Israel.

They are his chosen people and he's giving them one particular place on the earth to rule over and he's giving the law of Moses so that they can rule over it on his behalf.

So they know how to do that and he lives among them there in the promised land.

And so the idea is that everyone can all the nations can look at Israel and see what makes them different and that will Point them towards gods.

And there is that reveals God to a world that has forgotten him.

Now at this point Israel's doing better than they have in the past.

They did very badly and judges.

But after they lost the ark they they repented and they started to do better.

And then as the prophet Samuel's Ministry started to end, they asked for a king.

And that's what we talked about last week about the, they ask for a king because it was basically, it was too much work to try and follow God directly.

So how about we'll follow this human beings and human being can worry about following God and being faithful and waiting and making all the right judgment and we'll just follow the person in front of us.

And at the end of that sermon, we found out that Not only was I not God's intention but that they are now tied to a King who is not the kind of King.

God wanted God, gave him the kind of thing they wanted.

And so we saw its the sum.

Troubling signs of the end of the last sermon about where things were headed until as we go into our opening passage today.

That's what we're seeing is.

Racine saw show his true colors and we're finding out what kind of King the Israelites really have to remember.

This is how we keep our bearings in a story in terms of how it connects with the plan watch for, who's the story about, where is their home?

How can they meet with God, and what does God tell them to do for a lot of these?

Now, you'll remember them from previous sermons, but this passage will update us in a couple of ways.

To Samuel said, the song, I am the one, the Lord sent to a point to anoint you King over his people Israel.

So, listen.

Now to the message from the Lord, this is what the Lord Almighty says.

I will punish the amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.

Now go attack the amalekites and totally destroy all the belongs to them.

Do not spare them.

Put to death men and women children and infants, cattle and sheep.

Camels and donkeys.

All right.

So who was the story about?

At this point, the story is about Saul and the issue.

I see this is the thing about a king, is that anointed by God?

Is that now?

That means when God has things for the Israelites to do, he's going to go through Saul, Saul is the appointed leader.

And so Samuel, even the prophet of God doesn't go to the people, he goes to solve who is responsible for leading the Israelites and following God's plan.

Where is there home?

I'm calling it, The Land of Israel at this point.

We might start to call it the Kingdom of Israel.

There's a major transition that's going to happen.

But in the rule of the first three kings, where we're going to go from being a loose Gathering of tribes, and to a solid Kingdom, and we're in the early stages of that transition.

How can they meet with God? Now?

This was not addressed in the passage.

So we have to remember what the stage that were at.

Normally, they would be able to meet with God, in the Tabernacle.

The ark, you go to the Tabernacle you worship there.

And that's where the presence of God is, and they seem to still be doing that at this stage in the story.

However, there is one issue that's going on, which is that the ark is still in Exile.

Remember they, they gambled with the ark and they tried to use it to fourth guy to win a battle for them, and it got captured by the Philistines, and then God liberated the ark, but when he sent it back, he entrusted it to gibeonites who are not Israelites.

So, at this point, the ark is not at the Tabernacle, which means there's some sense that God's presence has not really been restored there.

So even though they're worshipping their, they seem to still be in this kind of trial, separation with God.

They're still barriers there so that they, they aren't fully connected with God, the way they're meant to be.

Finally, what did God tell them to do?

The instructions he was given were to totally destroy the amalekites.

Now.

This is actually referencing back to an an order that God gave them in Deuteronomy.

He said, don't forget what the amalekites did to you because with the amalekites, basically, they fought against the Israelites on their way, to the promised land, but they also like attacked their them as they were traveling and pick off stragglers and we're just relentlessly in an attacking them until in Deuteronomy.

God says, don't forget this because we need to set that, right?

And so when you get into the land, I'm going to have you.

I'm going to have you totally destroy them.

Now, if you were not here for the sermon on Joshua, I would encourage you to an end.

You're interested in the concept and I'm talking about right now.

I would encourage you to go back and listen to that server because we really delve into this idea.

If you remember of total Destruction that were being translated as totally, destroyed is not actually mean totally destroyed.

It means devote to God.

It's the same thing, the guy told him to do these Canaanites.

What it means is normally for us, Warfare isn't really an economic thing anymore.

I mean, we talked about the, the companies that have contracts to make weapons making money, but but you don't really like, we don't pillage anymore.

At least we're not supposed to write.

That's, that's not how we justify battle that back.

Then pillaging was the main way you paid for warranty was part of the reason you went to war.

So when God sends them to war to fight for his purposes, like in this case, it's meant to punish the amalekites for what they have done to Israel on the way.

They oppose God's plan.

To totally destroy means that you devote it all to God of Asa means.

You don't keep anything for yourself.

That's the important Point.

Even the exaggerated language about killing.

Everyone will find out.

Whenever it says they're supposed to kill everyone, their descendants are still around later because they didn't actually kill everyone in systems judge rated language.