I Samuel 31 2-4: the Arrows of the Enemy

Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on July 13, 2008
By Captain Michael Ramsay

Did you ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right? I remember my first day of University. It was big deal. I attended community college before but heading off to University is still quite intimidating. Moving from a small campus, which the college I went to was, (it had only three buildings on its campus and just a few people in those days) to the big University was quite significant.

UVic was a lot different from Camosun. It is much bigger: UVic has a population of about 20 000 people!1 If UVic was here, it would be the one of the larger cities in the whole province! It is a little intimidating. There are so many buildings, so many people, so much to know.

I try to be prepared though. I go to the campus the day before. I have people show me the building that my classes would be in. I have people show me how read the boards in order to find my classes. I even print out my class lists a whole month before so that I will know when and where my classes are. I have all my books. I put gas in car the night before. I am ready. I am already.

The next day – my alarm doesn’t go off! When I wake up and look at my clock it is five minutes before class is supposed to start; so, I run out the front door as fast as I can and I jump in my car, I turn the ignition and…nothing. I turn it again and…nothing. I turn it again…nothing. Nothing. At this point I am quite upset and am actually practising my creative English skills quite a bit – if you know what I mean.

I run back into my house and call everyone I can think of who has a car. I finally get a hold of Dan who comes and drives me to the school. I run across the campus to the education building. I frantically try to find the class that I am in and try to sneak in the back door without being found out. No luck, I am caught. I am half an hour late for an hour-long class on my first day of school at the big university. I try to elude capture but I am caught. I am caught and the teacher draws attention to me. All I want to do is hide and the teacher is having fun drawing attention to me. I just want to sit down. I just want to hide in the back but my teacher has caught me trying to hide and is targeting me to make a point about punctuality and I am caught. I am vulnerable and in front of the whole class, she is exploiting my tardiness.

I am quite embarrassed by the time she is done shooting me with these arrows of humiliation. When I am finally released from the front of the class to go to sit down as the teacher asks for my name to check it off the list.

“Michael Ramsay,” I say.

“Michael Ramsay?”

“Yes, Michael Ramsay”

“…There is no Michael Ramsay on the list.” I look around again…the students all have musical instruments. This is a music class. Not only am I half an hour late for class – I am half an hour late for the WRONG class. I am embarrassed. I am really embarrassed and I just want to hide.

In our story today we read about Saul when he is caught and he is unable to hide. The archers have found him and they are exploiting his weakness; he was in the wrong class at the wrong time and the teacher, the archers have found him.

1 Samuel 31: 1-6: Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.

Saul said to his armour-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me."

But his armour-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armour-bearer and all his men died together that same day.

Saul was a man who took so much of his decisions… he took so much of his life in his own hands. Remember when he was about to be made King; what does he do? He, taking matters into his own hands, hides among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22).

Remember when Samuel was apparently late for offering the sacrifice, what does he do (1 Samuel 13:8-13)? He takes matters into his own hands and offers the sacrifice himself.

Remember when David, the son of Jesse, is anointed and makes friends of King Saul’s children (1 Samuel 16:1-13, 18:28-29), what does he do (1 Samuel 19-30)? He takes matters –and a spear - into his own hand and tries to kill both David (1 Samuel 18:10) and his son with the spear (1 Samuel 20:33).

Remember - just before the battle of today’s passage - when he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, what does he do? Saul takes matters into his own hands, and consults the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28). Now Saul is pressed from all sides. It looks like there is no hope for escape and what does Saul do? He takes matters in his own hands; he takes his life by his own hand (but cf. 1 Samuel 16:14). Saul dies.2

So what do we do when life is pressing us from all sides? What do we do when various arrows come flying at us?

What about the arrows of embarrassment and fear of failure? I was humiliated in that music class and honestly, it was difficult for me. You see I can be quite competitive and in post-secondary (when I was in my early 20s). I had developed almost a fear of failure and so whenever I ran into a situation in where I might not be able succeed at the level I had set for myself, I would pour more and more time into it. I would pour more and more of my own effort into it. Don’t mistake what I am saying here about that: work ethic is important and good things come out of hard work. 3

There is a problem with this though and the problem with this is the one we learned from Ecclesiastes and 1 Samuel 17: the battle is not to the strong and the race is not to the swift (Eccl. 9:11); the battle belongs to the Lord (1 Sam 17:47). When we forget this and when we try to do things just on our own strength, when we try to do everything on our own and when we fail, we are often destroyed.

I had a friends of mine who responded to University just like I did by pouring her whole being into her courses. When she did fail – whatever she considered failure – she felt utterly destroyed. She tries to drown herself when she doesn’t do as well as she had hoped. She recovers and is doing really well these many years later but at this time, she was as utterly destroyed as Saul and his sons on Mt Gilboa, when the arrows found them.

What about other arrows that the Enemy fires at us? What about the arrows of death and loneliness? These are arrows that strike many of us when we try to defend against them on our own. I have heard many stories of husbands who die shortly after their wives pass away for just that reason. The one they love is gone and when they try to deal with that on their own, they can’t. I know of people, who have never drank before, who become alcoholics on the passing of a spouse. These arrows of death and lonliness are powerful arrows that can cut any of us down and when we are found fighting on our own strength, we will fall.

What about the arrows of wealth and success?4 Isn’t true that even many of us here today can get so caught up in the business or the trappings of the wealth and success (and I don’t care who we are in this country – even the poorest person in this country lives in the wealthiest per cent of the world) of our society that we can forget God; we can forget about prayer and we can forget about the Bible? Isn’t it true that instead of building a solid relationship with our Lord and Saviour that we can be distracted by things that it seems our wealth provides, like work, gardening, hobbies, TV, family, or even boredom? Isn’t it true that we can be so distracted by the affluence of North American society that sometime we can forget about the shelter our Messiah offers and sometimes we can walk straight out into the arrows of the Enemy; sometimes we can be separated from our Lord and sometimes – maybe - some even die.

I am reminded of a storybook that my daughters have about two real life women pirates. They love the fact that the heroes are girls! (As I’m sure some of the people here do as well!) The heroes are strong women. They are pirates and they are on a very successful pirate ship. They, as well as the male captain and all the male crew, are getting quite wealthy and quite proud and quite content.

One day the two lady pirates are on duty on deck while all the men are drinking, gambling and indulging themselves below - they’re slacking off. They’re slacking off and a ship from the British Royal Navy (the superpower of their day) shows up. The women man the battle stations. The women call the men. The men don’t come up. The women call the men again. The men still won’t come up. (There must be a game on!) The men are too busy drinking, gambling – slacking off. The Navy vessel is getting closer and closer. The women call and the women call but the men, the men remain beneath the deck eating, drinking, gambling – they are just slacking off. They never come up. The soldiers board the ship and take almost everyone captive. The women fight to save the lives of their comrades and themselves but they are captured and – had they not been spared because tehy were pregnant – they would have died on the gallows with all their men folk because the men preferred to indulge themselves rather than to keep a lookout.

This is like Saul. He had many chances to return to the Lord. In many of the episodes that we read, he could have repented; he could have turned to the Lord. When he was about to be made King, he could have repented from hiding among the baggage (1 Samuel 10:22). When he took matters into his own hands and made the sacrifice for himself, he could have repented and cried out before the Lord (1 Samuel 13). When he wouldn’t wait any longer for an answer from the Lord, instead of taking matters into his own hands and consulting the witch at Endor (1 Samuel 28), he could have repented; he could have turned; he could have called upon the Lord tirelessly, without ceasing (Cf. Luke 18:1-8). And Saul now as he is pressed from all sides and it looks like there is no hope for escape. Even in this last moment he could call upon the name of the Lord and be saved (cf. Acts 2:21) but instead he takes his life in his own hands. He took his life by his own hand.

This is what we must remember. We must remember what was spoken to us through David in 1 Samuel 17: the battle belongs to the Lord. We have to follow him. We can’t like those men on the pirate ship who give up keeping watch. No man (or woman) knows the time or hour of our Lord’s return. No one knows the time or hour when our name will individually be called. Some of us will live one hundred years. Some of us will live forty. Some of us will live more and some of us may live less.

Jesus, the scripture says, will return like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2). When he does the question to us will be: have we truly been serving Him or have we - by making our own decisions without consulting the Lord about our work, our family, or our health - have we been serving ourselves? When the Lord comes back, those of us who serve Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who turn to Him; when the Lord comes back, those of us who realise like David did that the battle does belong to the Lord, we will be raised to eternal life in His Kingdom.

Those of us who continue to do things on our own though – like King Saul – those of us who continue to make up our own minds and continue to serve our own whims – those of us who serve ourselves instead of the Lord will not be in His kingdom but there is still good news: no matter how long we have been serving someone other than the Lord, it is not too late as long as we are still alive. It never too late to turn (repent); it is never too late to turn or return to the Lord. As long as we have a breath in us we can still be saved…and maybe Saul was. Samson in his dying moments, even though he took his life by his own hands, repented and earned his spot as a hero of the faith (Hebrews 11) and Saul may very well have done the same but we don't know that (his name is absent from the walk of fame) and I would encourage us not to leave it to the last moment at any regard. Why die in uncertainty? Why live in uncertainty? Instead, as His yoke is easy (Matthew 11:29), Let us all turn to the Lord today and be saved.

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1 http://www.canadian-universities.net/Universities/University-of-Victoria.html
2 Now to be fair, there is inter-play here between Saul not relying upon the Lord and the fact that the Lord sent an evil spirit to torment Saul. Saul rejected the Lord and the Lord rejected Saul. This interplay is somewhat reminiscent of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart at the time of the mass Israelite exodus from Egypt.
4 The depression that we just mentioned around the king, Saul, certainly is prevalent in our wealthy societies whereas it is almost non-existent in poorer nations. What about the Enemy’s arrows of wealth and success? I read a very good journal article recently that compared the actions of King Saul to a person diagnosed with depression and then they created interesting clinical test to see if the results could be duplicated and they could. It was very interesting. Is it just a coincidence that depression is most common in the post-Christian western world where whole societies almost seem to want to only rely on ourselves?