FBCWest 729 | Holy Anger and God’s Victory
Recorded On: 09/13/2026
Bulletin
Hymn # 375 “Have Faith in God”
SCRIPTURE READING – Psalms 103:1 - 5
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“Echo Holy”
“Way Maker”
“Raise a Hallelujah”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Holy Anger and God’s Victory”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“What An Awesome God”
Acknowledgements and Announcements
Sermon Notes
1 Samuel 11:1 – 3 Ammonites besiege an Israeli city and the citizens ask for terms of surrender
1 Samule 11:4 & 5 A messenger brings the news and the people weep
1 Samuel 11:6 Saul wants to know why the people are weeping
1 Samuel 11:6 The sprit of the Lord comes upon Saul mightily and he becomes angry
1 Samuel 11:7 & 8 Saul cuts up a yoke of oxen and sends the parts with a threat and 330,000 respond
1 Samuel 11:9 &10 A plan of attack is communicated with those being besieged
1 Samuel 11:11 The Ammonites are defeated
1 Samuel 11:12 & 13 The people want to kill those who didn’t want Saul as king, but Sau acknowledges that it was the Lord who accomplished the deliverance
1 Samuel 11:14 & 15 Samuel says to renew the kingdom at Gilgal and Saul made king
Proverbs 21:31 The victory belongs to the Lord
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
The Bible contains 66 books which is the Word of God, Himself who He is to us and who we are. Yet as vast as the Bible seems to be, it is so compact with teaching that we're going to take a look at one short historical event that reveals many things about us in life. Things that I'll mention now are that if we compromise with spiritual evil and surrender, it may leave us scarred and disabled for life.
It also reveals to us that God deals with individuals. It also tells us that God deals with nations. As well as other teachings in this short passage of Scripture revealing historical event that took place. I encourage you to find out what those teachings are. The Emmer night came up and besieged Deybash Gilead and all the men of Jebash and said to Nehash with us and we will serve you. Basically what their situation is is that the enemy has come and the men of this city, this town, are wanting to know what are the terms of the surrender. Whether it's armies or nations, they will argue about the various terms and sometimes the terms are unconditional surrender and others are. If you lay down your arms, your army can go, just promise not to fight or will take you as prisoners of war.
They want to know what the terms of surrender are. They want to know what the terms are. But Nehash, the Emmer night said to them, I will make it with you on this condition that I will make out the right eye of every one of you and that I will make it a reproach on all Israel. So as you want to know what the terms of surrender are, I am going to take out your right eye. Which are in my way thinking very terms of surrender for the following reasons. I don't want to lose my right eye. I don't want to lose my left eye.
I don't want to lose any eye. That's a lot of pain and it's going on top of that. Present other difficulties. It's going to affect your judging of this. Also in difficult times, if you were not, if you had some disability, that would prohibit you from attending worship or doing other things or sacrificing. And therefore basically outcast because you had this disability.
And Nehash knows it because he said, I want to make you reproach. So every time you present yourselves to other people, they're going to see that you are disabled and it will be a reproach wherever you go. It is a permanent situation. It's not like, well, I surrendered and I start on you like everyone will know that you surrendered. To teach this, when you offer to surrender to evil, it will leave you disabled, scarred and permanently affected. All too often we think that it's very cheap to surrender to evil.
God tells us that there are permanent consequences when we surrender to evil, when we surrender to a spiritual enemy. And that's when an Ammonite's were. They were a spiritual enemy. They didn't, not only did they dislike Israel, they didn't want them to exist. And so they were a permanent enemy saying, if we surrender, this is what's going to happen. Surrender never has no cost. And so maybe we should think about that when it comes to spiritual enemies.
And the others of J.B. said to him, let us alone for seven days that we may send messengers throughout the territory of Israel, then if there is no one to deliver us, we will come out to you. So they're saying, give us seven days to try to find help. Not like, give us seven days to think about it.
It's no. Give us seven days to find out if there's somebody will come to deliver us. Now if I were in a hash, I just said no. Got a couple hours. And so what happens then the, then they messengers came to give you a saw and spoke these words in the hearing of the people and all the people lifted up their voices and wept. So NASH gave them the seven days. Wish me a couple of things.
Both are all either one. NASH was overly competent. He was, he was ad hubris. That no matter what happened, even if they sent somebody to deliver them, they would be victorious. And maybe he knew or thought that no one would come. Or maybe he had spies and we'll see, because we'll see that the reaction is everybody kind of is panicked.
They don't know what to do. They're crying. And so he may be confident. They're going to come out and surrender. And I'm going to gouge out the rye and I will have victory over them because no one is coming to help. And talking about a hopeless situation when you think no one is coming to help. So they lifted up their voices and they went notice they didn't say we need to form a new army.
They have a militia and we need to march up there and save our brothers. It's poor, poor them for us. The whole soul is coming from the field behind the oxen. So here's the king and he's working his fields.
And he said, what is the matter with the people that they weep. So they related to hand the words of the men of J. Bash.
So they tell them the story. We're going to have to have a right eye gouge out. Then the spirit of the Lord came upon all soul mightfully when he heard this word. He doesn't understand so many people think that God is a far off. He doesn't care about what he's doing.
This tells us God is involved with individuals. The spirit of God enters soul mightfully, not pathasically, not a little bit, but mightfully. And he became very angry. A lot of people have the misinformation that it is not Christian to be angry. It is not good for followers of Jesus or believers in the Lord to be angry. It tells us to be slow to anger.
It doesn't say don't be angry. It says slow to anger. Because when you're hot tempered, you do stupid things. Because you react rather than consider it and being slow to anger and thinking about what you need to do. So he becomes angry also the scriptures say don't let the sun go down on your anger, which means don't be permanently angry.
Unfortunately, we all know people who just always seem to be angry. No matter what happens, they're just not happy. The Bible says when the sun goes down, relax. So it never tells us not to be angry. But I interpret this as when Saul, because the Lord comes upon him mightily that he has a holy anger.
He's not upset with the conditions. He's with that the people aren't responding and faith to God. So he has a holy anger. And I think that it's entirely appropriate for us not only to be angry, but especially when we're angered as the enemies of God. One thing to pray for our enemies has David understood those who are mocking God. We're not friends. And he took a yoke of oxen and cut them to pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of messenger saying, whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel.
So shall it be done to his oxen and the dread of the Lord fell on the people and they came out as one man. Notice one, Saul does something that a lot of leaders have always done. Leaders of nations and leaders of armies. When there are people who are afraid, you make them more afraid of you than the enemy. You think you're afraid of what they're going to do to you, wait till you fall into my hands. And this happens throughout the centuries. There are times whether it was in battles with Greeks, the Romans, or in the American Revolution, whatever war sometimes I'll take the American Revolution since we're on the truth.
The militia were known for not necessarily hanging in there in difficult battles. They would run. As a matter of fact, the command forces at Kalpins used that knowledge as a strategy. But often, what they would do, whether it was the Greeks or whatever, they would station the army behind them so that they'd either be banged at them, shoot them, or whatever the means of the weapons were. Because the one thing that is bad is fear. But fear, Franklin Delano said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Fear is not necessarily a bad thing. I've never fought in a battle, but I'm not going to assume that any normal thinking person doesn't want to die.
And there probably will be a fear. But the difference between fear and courage is not the absence of fear, but doing your duty or doing what is right even though you're afraid. And the worst thing that can happen to an army is to panic. And so notice God has involved himself in the life of Saul.
But he's also put the fear of dread. God deals with the individual and with the nation. So instead of being fearful, they found their courage and came out and followed Saul. Because they were more afraid of Ford than the Ammonites. And the number of them in Bizec and the sons of Israel were 300,000 and the men of Judah, 30,000. That's a good-sized army in response to this. They said to the messengers who had come, thus you shall say to the men of Jabas Gilead. Tomorrow, by the same time the sun is hot, you will have deliverance.
So the messengers went and told the men of Jabas and they were glad. They gave us 24 hours and we will be there. And you thought that there was no one to deliver you and there is. We are coming. Tomorrow, we will come out to you and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.
Now, this may be one of two things. It may be one of ruse. They're saying, we're going to come out so that you're going to kind of let down your guard. And then this is going to happen. Or they say they don't show up like they said they would.
We'll surrender. Not sure which way. I'm going to take the positive and thinking, well, we're going to be a little difficult to see. The next morning saw put the people in three companies and came into the midst of the camp at the morning watch.
And struck down the eminites until the heat of the day and those who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together. The route was so great that they eminites instead of being proud and courageous. We're so panicked, Ricken, that they wouldn't even come to get, they would just disperse. Now, I'm in two of them together. It's kind of like the joke that says in the forest and a bear starts charging them and one guy goes, I hope we could outrun the bear. And the other one says, I only got outrun you. And so the two are saying, if they won't chase us if we're by ourselves because it's not worth it.
So they were scattered. Then the people said to Samuel, who is he that said, shall all reign over us. Bring them in that we may put them to death. So there were those, if you've been following this series, who didn't be king. And they said so. So the people go, we remember those guys. We should kill them for treachery, treason, whatever because they weren't loyal.
And we don't want this to happen again. So let's put them to death. But Saul said, not a man shall be put to death this day. I want you to catch this for today, the Lord has accomplished deliverance in Israel. Saul put the victory exactly where it belonged with God. Now, in my Bible, which I like the translation and some of you like King James and whatever, in our Bibles, and verses, they weren't in the original Bible. They were there so that like for us that we're doing first Samuel, chapter 11, you can find it.
If it was just a scroll, it would be more difficult. So it's there to help us. There's also like in my translation, it tries to give you a little thing to tell you what's happening, so that you can kind of find what's happening. So like if you want to know about David and Goliath, you can see the little heading and you'll know that it's about David and Goliath and then you can read it.
My translation puts a wrong heading here. The heading said, Saul defeats, demonites, even Saul himself acknowledges he did not defeat them. God, that little thing isn't the Word of God.
It's an incorrect interpretation that even the Bible corrects. Victory belongs to God. In Samuel said to the people, come and let us go up to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there. So we're now going to move from the location of the victory back to Gilgal. So the people went to Gilgal made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord and their Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
I want you to notice something. Now being king was not God's idea if you will. It was a people's idea. Samuel took it personal and God goes, no, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. But listen to them. Annoyed this one and he anointed Saul.
Then he has Saul chosen by lot while having Saul prophesied and do all other things in the spirit of the Lord to stand upon him giving Saul confidence that God has chosen him even though when he was being chosen by lot he was hiding out in the baggage. And now again God is confirming Saul as king because the people acknowledge it and now the people not only acknowledge it we wanted to kill those who were against you. But we repeatedly confirms his anointing. How does that with you and me? Who reminds us over and over and over that we are his children?
Then nothing can set from the love of God. Just as Saul has been repeatedly reconfirmed the position he has been given God repeatedly confirms to us. So taking all of this into account we know surrender to spiritual evil as an impact or beyond a simple surrender. God will deliver you out of your situation. I say deals in the lives of end of no one is too insignificant for God to say. No one is so sinful that God cannot say.
God knows you exactly who you are and his spirit can fall mightfully on you. And when we see the times and the culture and the politics and all these things that are happening, he calls in our lives. He is the king of kings and Lord of lords and nothing will happen without his consent. Even if it seems like evil is winning, it only seems like it. He will also make deliverments. And while Saul, we will see in the future, we will make some really dumb decisions. We worship a king with God Almighty who knows all things as all power and loves you. And the world may think who can snatch me out of hand.
God says hope comes in the morning. I will look to the hills and where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord. Just like Ilya Ghibish, we are delivered not by the numbers of the soldiers but by the power of God.
Whatever difficulty or insurmountable problem that you may have, God knows it and can deliver you. And all God is beautiful, stand.