An unexpected consequence

In 1984, Hollywood released a classic blockbuster hit, Conan the Destroyer, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, just in case you haven't seen this movie, I just want to give you a little bit of a recap. Conan and his warriors descend upon this kingdom that is undergoing a lot of issues. And Conan actually winds up finding out that the evil queen who reigns over this kingdom is about to sacrifice the beautiful princess so that the demon god, this sounds interesting, right? The demon god and his power can now be unleashed and you know embrace a tyrannical rule over the kingdom itself. Well, that won't happen because Conan and his warriors take up arms and they vanquish and kill the evil queen and this demon god and the princess of the country now becomes the good queen who will rule over the land. And at the very end of this movie, um, which I have no idea why I remembered this before the sermon, but the the very end of this movie was very interesting, even to me as probably a 10-year-old watching this, uh, is that at the end, the queen invites Conan to rule and reign by her side over this land. And this very puzzling moment here, Conan says these words to her, I will have my own kingdom and I will have my own queen. and he walks away in this very antilimatic scene. And the movie goes on and shows at the very end as the camera pans, Conan, now gray and old, sitting upon a throne alone by himself. And it says, Conan eventually found the kingdom he wanted to, but he wore a troubled crown on a troubled brow. And then the movie ends. And one of the things that sort of struck me about this movie is this idea that Conan and I actually had to research why in the world would Conan leave the queen. Like why would he like abandon all of this like this happy ending this great thing? And it was ultimately as many internet guys out there say is that Conan really wanted to be his own kind of king. He wanted to be autonomous. He didn't want a kingdom handed to him. He didn't want to rule with co-authority. He wanted his own way. He wanted to to carve out his own path. He wanted to have his own autonomy, his own power, something that he had forged by his own hands rather than having it just given to him and to receive it freely. And you kind of think about even the spiritual parallels in life of how we so often times can neglect the offering of God's free grace of God's God's invitation to be his ambassadors to rule and to reign in hisstead here on earth to carry forth his gospel and his beauty and his kingdom to the ends of the earth and to have this sort of power and authority that he establishes through us that we carry it forward. And yet so much of the American spirit goes against that. We want we and we love as a nation to forge our own path to blaze our own trail to have our own identity and our own individualism and our own autonomy and our own reign and our own rule and my life, my money, my career, my world. And it becomes so much about me me. And there's something in the spirit of the age and the spirit of the world. Something I even see and hear this same language oftentimes used by Olympic athletes when they've won that medal and they talk sometimes, not always, about that same idealism. I blazed my own path. Nobody believed in me. I rose up against all odds. I conquered. I vanquished. I did. I did. I did. Anything you set your mind to, you can overcome. You can claim. You can be. You can make it yours. Your reality, your world, your truth. Take it. Take it. And there's something about that spirit. maybe even in Conan of like we can walk up to to what God offers us and we can say no thanks. I think I'll have my own kingdom in my own way. And today we're going to be looking at the story of a man who has done that throughout his life. He has decided ultimately that God didn't establish his kingdom and give it to him, but it was a kingdom of his own making. and rather than walk and reign in thestead of God being the ultimate king and him being a prince that ultimately ushers in God's reign and God's law and God's goodness and blessing in the land. Saul is more and more trying to make the kingdom be established and to steer it in directions by his own hand and only to use God to help enable his plan, not him carrying out God's plan. And this has been the the course throughout Saul's life. And now we have this final moment of ultimately like a doom that Saul has come to the very end of his life. And we kind of see what has played out over the course of Saul's life. And we also what we're going to look at today is see that Saul is a man who winds up seeking over all of his life his own salvation, his own authority, his own kingship, and the unintended consequences that that leads to. I had a uh an NBA professor. He was an adjunk professor that came over from the Air Force Academy when I was at the University of Colorado. And he used to always say this thing was a strategy class and he would say life's about choices and the choices that you make can also position you in certain ways and have different ripple effects and consequences down the line. And he applied it to all of life. He actually would tell his kids stuff like that all the time. It was like he would preach this sort of mantra, life's about choices. Saul has made choices and it's sent his life in a very certain and different direction than God intended for it to be. And you and I can do the same thing. If we're not careful, we can start to make choices in that desire to blaze our own trail. We can wind up foregoing the good things that God offers us and ought for something else created by our own hand. and it will have unintended consequences. So today we're going to be looking at 1st Samuel chapter 31. We did it. 1st Samuel chapter 31. We did it. We're making it to the end of this book. Um I'm going to look at the final chapter today. I'm going to be reading chapter 31. Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gibboa. And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons. And the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malishua and the sons of Saul. The battle pressed hard against Saul. And the archers found him. And he was badly wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor bearer, "Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me." But his armor bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his own sword and died with him. And thus Saul died with his three sons and his armor bearer and all his men on the same day together. And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled. and the Philistines came and lived in them. The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. And they put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth. And they fastened his body to the wall of Bethon. But when the inhabitants of Jabes Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethon. And they came to Jabesh and they burned them there and they took their bones and they buried them under the Tamarasque tree in Jabesh and they fasted seven days. This is God's word. Let's pray. Lord, I just pray that uh at this time, Lord, that you would give us um just insight into your word. Open not just our eyes and our ears, but our very hearts to hear from your Holy Spirit uh this morning. Lord, I pray that you would help me to explain clearly and articulate the the message and the word that I believe that you have for us today. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. So today we're going to be looking at Saul and this ultimately even now in this hour Saul is seeking a kind of salvation, a kind of way to be happy and to escape. But it's the accumulation of a lot of events in Saul's life. So we're going to look at three things. We're going to look at how Saul seeks salvation, what Saul's salvation cost him, and what salvation on Saul's terms achieved. And so the first thing that we are looking at today is how Saul seeks that salvation. And ultimately we see here in verse two, and the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons. And the Philistines struck down Jonathan and uh sorry, I'm in verse three. The battle pressed hard against Saul and the archers found him. And he was badly wounded by the archers. So the archers have found Saul. They've closed in on him. Now your your your Bibles in most of the translations will say that Saul was wounded. But pretty much all the Hebrew scholars and if you actually just read it in Hebrew when they look at this they actually see it doesn't say that he was wounded. It just says that he trembled greatly. He writhed or trembled greatly. And so it could be that he got hit with an arrow, but it also could be that he just was overcome. Maybe he's hunkered down behind a rock or behind his shield and the archers are shooting at him or whatever and he and he sees that his men are gone and they're dead and and he's just got him and his armor bear and either he's been hit with an arrow or he's just overcome with great fear. But the thing is is that like all moments Saul finds himself pinned down. He finds himself in a perilous situation, a moment when he's afraid and he's unsure. And Saul begins to look to his own hands and figure out how can I make the best of this situation. How can I just find the best plan? Because ultimately for Saul that is salvation. Finding the best option to find the the path that makes him the most happiest that is free of the most amount of pain. That's the way that it works in Saul's life. And if you'll remember back all the way to chapter 13, uh Samuel had told Saul, "Don't sacrifice the sacrifice. wait 7 days, I will come. I'll offer the sacrifice. And presumably once the sacrifice is offered, he'll get further instructions, a word of the Lord about what to do because he's facing off with the Philistines here and he's waiting and there's two camps are there. Well, the men start getting kind of afraid and some of them start kind of trick trickling away and his his army is growing smaller and Saul begins to panic and it's been seven days. The morning comes up and he's not sure what to do. And so instead of waiting for the end of that day and letting things close out, he decides his own plan and he says, "You know what? I'm going to offer the sacrifice, you know, so I can appease God. I can get the good luck or salvation that he wants." But Saul's ultimately in charge. He's looking to his own plan and his own way to establish the good and the salvation that he wants. And he's just using God to help enable and empower that mission. God is just this trinket, if you will, that he can use for that. And Saul's ultimately looked to his own hands, tried to figure things out. And Saul always winds up trying to sort of modify the plan. You know, you see it even in chapter 14. Saul has sworn an oath to the Lord that whoever eats food before the battle is over at the end of the day will die, right? He's sworn an oath before the Lord. They find out Jonathan's done this. And he says, "May God do so more to me also if I don't kill you today." But the men don't want it. So, is he going to honor his word or does he need these guys and their approval? Because the kingdom's his and he needs to keep it going. So, he needs to keep these people happy, his constituents. And so, Saul modifies the plan, even breaking his own word and oath, which is really a rash oath. There's a lot of things going on in that chapter, but Saul ultimately once again modifies the plan in a hasty way. We see it in chapter 15. Same thing happens over and over again. This is a theme in Saul's life. God has said, "I want you to judge. You are the arm of my judgment on the Amalachites. I want you to wipe them out. I want you to kill everything, even their sheep and their goats and everything, the bulls, everything. Wipe it out. This is a holy war. This is the judgment of God on them." But Saul, you know, they wipe out the people and then then he thinks, well, you know, the men don't want to sacrifice these things. They they they want the spoil, you know, because that's what soldiers want. And and so Saul kind of modifies the plan. He says, you know what, maybe maybe we keep the sheep alive. We keep the animals alive. And then we sacrifice them to God instead of just killing them. And then the men get to have, you know, a lamb steak or whatever from this. So they're happy and God's happy. And we found kind of this in between plan because I need their approval so that I can continue to be king. So I can kind of rule the way I want to rule. I can live the way I want to live. And we find that over and over again Samuel is warning Saul. Saul stop living this way. Because see for Saul salvation comes by his own hands. He'll look to God to help enable it but ultimately winds up looking to his own hands. And he always has an excuse rather than than submitting to the will of God than elevating God above and seeing him as the one that establishes kingdom. Seeing him as the one that keeps this thing going. He he looks to his own self and he only sees God almost like a co-regent that helps enable his kingdom and his salvation and his way and his autonomy. And so he will use God or he will use whatever means around him necessary to keep that going forward. That's always the story with Saul's life. He wants his own kingship by his own hands and he will turn to whatever means to sustain it. And this this ultimately thwarts reality because when you begin to believe that you are the end of yourself and maybe you believe in God, but ultimately, you know, you you you really trust in what you can see and what you can know and in your own assessments, you will begin to process life through a false lens. And in moments like this when the battle surrounds you, you will have to depend on yourself and not God for the salvation that you seek. And that's ultimately, even in this hour, we're going to see in just a second that that's ultimately what this is about for Saul. How do I find the good? How do I make the best of this situation? How can I find the happiness and the good life? And it winds up so distorting reality for Saul that all of his life he began to process, I'm my own king. God helps enable it. And he begins to sort of see everything with fear and with paranoia in a way that makes him live a very different kind of life. And he goes through life doing what? He sees David now, his committed son-in-law in general, as the enemy. He's coming for me. And Saul begins to become paranoid and fearful and it be it sends him down in a kind of life where he's got to he has to maintain his own kingdom. Blessing of God isn't there. God doesn't enable his rule. He rules. He does it. It's by his hands. And so constantly David begins to see reality differently. The priests are against me. They're in cohorts with David. Let me wipe them all out. Let me take them out. And all of David's life, he lives this way. He wants his own kingship. And in this final day, even now, even now, Saul surrounded, quaking with fear, maybe wounded, caught and pinned down. Saul needs an escape. What's the best plan now? All my life, I've never wanted to be dishonored. And I've always wanted to avoid shame and pain and responsibility and all of those things. And how am I going to get out of this situation? Will I face it? Will I fight my way through it? Will I maybe, just maybe, call upon God? Not for salvation, but just in sober repentance because my actions have led to this moment. I'm alone on this field because I abandoned God a long time ago. I didn't listen to him time after time again. And even in this moment, it should create a reflection in Saul's heart and in his life where he just looks at the sum of his choices and is just honest for the first time with himself and with God. And I really believe that just knowing the character of God throughout scripture that if Saul even now, even now as he's pinned down, would just be honest with God, be honest with himself, enter into a moment of repentance, I believe that he would see the grace of God in this moment. God may or may not let him out of the battle. Maybe like Samson, he would repent and die with the Philistines, but I believe God would meet with him with there on the battlefield. Instead of those things, what does Saul decide to do? He turns not to God, but to his armor bearer for a solution, for a salvation, for a way out. Kill me. Kill me. Take me out. I don't want shame. I don't want to deal with the consequences. I don't want to deal with this. So, the best option right now is the way out. This is my kind of salvation to escape it. He actually really ultimately fulfills what Blaise Pascal used to say in his uh in his work meditations. Blaise Pascal said um all men want to be happy even those who hang themselves. At the end of the day, Saul is still seeking a kind of salvation, a kind of happiness, kind of way that he controls the reigns of this. He wants a way out. And when the armor bearer won't do it, Saul will turn once again alone to his own hands, to his own escape, to his own salvation, and he will take it. You know, one of the things that Saul so misunderstands about salvation is it's not a thing. It's not a merit badge. Salvation is in God. God is salvation. The goal of life isn't to like earn this merit badge or to earn this trinket of salvation. It's to abide and live for the glory of God, to seek his will and purpose, to know him. And through knowing him and living in fellowship with him, you begin to experience the life and the power and the goodness of God. Part of Samuel's call all of Saul's days to obey the Lord wasn't just for some external rules or legalism. It was how he could live for the glory of God. God put you here, Saul. He made you king. He's going to keep you king. He's going to establish your rule through you. He's going to do great things in Israel. Walk in fellowship with him. Trust his plan. Have faith. Understand his purpose. Live life through that. And through that connection, he would begin to experience not fear, not delusion, but the assurance of God, the boldness of God. Because there's something about walking with God that it it changes your heart. Grace has taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved. Walking with God like that is the salvation that we seek. It's not a thing. It's life in God himself, experiencing his presence and his glory. If you just want the trinket but not God, then you don't actually understand what salvation is. And so often today in our world, we begin to buy into these cultural ideologies. Salvation being a thing. I believe in God. Try to be a pretty good person. And at the end of the day, because of that, he'll give me the merit badge, the trinket, the salvation. That's a wrong understanding. And that's a deistic understanding because you want something from God, but you don't actually want God himself. And that makes all the difference in the world because he is the salvation. He is the source. Life in him is what begins to flood your life with think about it. Grace, undeserved, unmmerited, forgiveness, joy, life, love, all these powerful things that come when our life is connected and abiding in the life of God. And if you just want the trinket, you'll never experience the life in God that he wants to provide. Saul can't because he keeps thinking about the trinket. Just just for a second, the gospel, you see, is that God is relational. It's personal. It's not a trinket. God wants you in his family. He wants you to know him. He wants you to walk with him. He wants you to be in fellowship with him. and to experience that relational connection. Salvation isn't just a just justification, forgiveness, marked clean. It's also like you're a son and daughter of God. You're invited into the family. You were adopted. Do you see the relational aspect of it as well? It's life in God. And it's to experience that. And the gospel is you did nothing to deserve it. You did nothing to earn it. In spite of all of those things, God gives it to you. God invites you in. Come to me. Even in this hour, Saul, come to me. Turn to me in this hour. And you would experience a a complete shift and transformation for your life. If the gospel doesn't warm your heart, just just for a second, think about it like this. Think of the darkest moments in your life. The darkest thought or deed. There's probably more than one of them that you've ever had or thought or done. Think about that. And through that, remember that God's grace and God's forgiveness pierced through that moment. that in spite of all that, he already know. He knows and sees it. And yet, he still loves you. He still chose you. He still sought after you. That is the gospel that that despite of everything you've done in your darkest and lowliest moments, God loves you. God forgave you. God sought you. And if if that should warm our hearts, it should should make us come alive because it's undeserved. God, really, of all of these things that I've done, of the things that I've thought, these nobody would understand it. Nobody would accept me if they knew of these things. And God says, "I see it all. I still love you, and I'm going to change your life. I'm going to heal you. I know who you can be. I know who I have planned for you to be, and I'm going to begin to push out all of that brokenness in your life and transform it if you would just trust me." And that should over and over again just warm our hearts so that if you understand that, I just want us so much to get it. If we understand that it changes everything. It takes us from trinket salvation as a thing as a reward as as just a relationship as life in God itself. And it makes you want not the trinket. I want the God that would do that for me, that would forgive me that way, that would be so gracious undeservedly to me, that would see me for all my mess and still take me and still be working good for me and still offer me his love. And then all of a sudden, grace and mercy, they take on a new tone. They take on a whole new tone. And we need to understand it not as trinket, but as relationship. And that's what Saul doesn't get. He sought a salvation of a trinket all of his life and he's never understood the gospel. And if you find yourself buying into a deistic understanding of salvation, if you find yourself believing in God but drifting, then you've gone astray and your understanding of the gospel and the salvation is changing wildly. And so much of our culture, I've I've shared this before, in the last 25 years, 40 million people have left the church. And most of them studies show is because they drifted. It wasn't because of any big thing most of the time or a big scandal. A lot of people just that that the enemy and life deprioritized it. And hey, I still believe in God, but I've drifted. And God wants you to understand it's not about the trinket. I want you. I want you among my people. I want you growing. I want I want you to experience life in me connected to me. Well, Saul got what he wanted in this case, but it cost him. And so, let's take a look real quick at what salvation, what Saul's salvation has cost him. Ultimately, it c it cost him judgment on him and his family. God has rejected Saul and Saul's throne. We find in verse two here it says, "And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons. And the Philistines struck down Jonathan, godly man, protector of David because of the sin of his father, but he brought on his household." Annabadab and Malishua, the sons of Saul, and the other two sons of Saul will ultimately die because of Saul's sin. Later on in 2 Samuel, because of Saul's sin against the Gibeonites, whole other story, but upon his whole household, he begins to experience the judgment of God, not the grace of God, because he wouldn't receive it. He got his own crown and his own kingdom, but he wore it with a heavy crown on a heavy brow. And then he loses the land and the people. Verse six and seven say to us, "Thus Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer, and all his men, and that same day together. And when the men of Israel were on the other side of the valley, and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities, and they fled, and the Philistines came and lived in them. The promised land of God, the inheritance of Israel. Now, the enemies of God have invaded and dwell in that land. They've taken what is the promised thing from Israel. And this judgment that continues to fall not just on Saul, but on Saul's household and on the land of Israel. Because of what Saul has brought upon, he doesn't bring God's blessing. He winds up bringing God's judgment. And through it, it begins to not just exist in a vacuum, but to affect the lives of the people that we know and we love around us. And that is the way that sin often works. Saul's rebellion and lack of remorse are why this happens. And and I I want to just pause because it sounds like we're kicking Saul here at the end of his life as he's dying. But I want you to understand that we can be Saul. Saul didn't even want to be king at the beginning of this book. And I think there were moments of humility and feeling undeserved for this role and the great weight of that crown. And yet throughout the years, he did not want to let go of that crown. And he worked so hard to make it his own and to establish it by his own hand. And so often the as I heard it one time in a movie said, the path to darkness isn't a light switch. It's a journey. And for Saul, it has been a journey. Choice after choice, not dealing with the rebukes and the warnings of the prophet and of God time and time again and is brought upon judgment. And ultimately Saul is now left as his own god looking for his own power and his own way and his own salvation out of this. He's tried the different idols. He's looked to his men. They're all dead. He's looked to God. God won't answer him anymore. He tried to bring up the prophet Samuel. Samuel just had a bad message for him again. He's turned to the medians and the dark powers and the evil spirits. Can they give me salvation? It won't come. Salvation by your own hands winds up becoming no salvation at all. And in the end, there's no one but Saul left to save himself and to give him that escape. So, what has that salvation achieved for Saul? And one of the things that's been happening throughout this book that I've not highlighted a lot is that over and over and over the the author very very you know uh very skilled is putting David and Saul's life side by side over and over and over throughout this book. And if you'll remember and even just look at these last two chapters just from last week to this week that's what we begin to see happening is this comparison and contrast of two different kinds of lives, two different kinds of kings. And so we see this Saul and David comparison happening. Remember David was surrounded and in peril of being stoned. And in that moment instead of quake even though he was overcome with more mourning and and sorrow and sadness the text reminds us that he strengthened himself. He turned to the Lord his God and he found strength in an hour when he was surrounded. Saul is surrounded by the archers in this moment. And who does he turn to? A boy for salvation. and then ultimately to his own hands. We find also that that David at the end repents, finds renewal, leads his men out and achieves this restoration and this victory that come forth through this. Saul loses all of his sons. His men the land and everybody flees and goes running. David rallies the troops and advances. Saul and his men turn and run and flee. David finds renewal and restoration. Saul never reconciles the sin in his heart and he dies. And we can look over and over just so many different little comparisons that we find in these two very different lives being lived out. Neither perfect, but in the end, David made a different choice in the way that he responded in that moment of peril. And it wasn't going to be by his own hands anymore that he looked. And that changed everything for him. In the end, Saul has nothing. He wanted to be king. His kingship and his royal line are taken from him. Saul wanted to be honored. He winds up shamed. The text says that he was beheaded, stripped, and hung on a wall for everyone to see, trophied around. So the shame that he wanted to escape, he did not escape in the end. He just didn't live to see it. Saul wanted to pass on his dynasty. All of his sons die. Saul wanted to expand the nation of Israel. The land is now taken in many ways by the Philistines. And we won't go into the thing, but they've cut off the north in the way that they've invaded the land. And there's some military things that give the Philistines a military advantage at this point in time that really risk the uh the nation of Israel and their being sustained as a people. At this point in time, Saul has achieved autonomy and independence. He's now fearful and angry, finally alone. He's lived life on his own terms, but it's brought him shame and loneliness. He wears the troubled crown on the troubled brow. And we all want life on our own terms. And we think it will make us happy. would think that if I make the choices and I'm in control and I blaze my own trail and I make my own destiny and I take things by my own hands and I I look to little things around me to make me happy or to give me the salvation I seek at the end we just wind up alone because none of these options worked and God is quiet and we don't turn to him because it changes us and we wind up a very different person almost incapable of turning to God in these moments and this is what we see in the life of salt. But there's this weird weird sort of epilogue to this story, this memoriam, if you will, that happens in the story and it says that the men of Jabesh hear about this news. They hear about their king and they go and they take Saul and his body off that wall and they go and uh probably burn his body for purification purposes and then go bury his bones right there in Jabash. And if you don't remember the men of J Bash, if you don't remember the city of J Bash, this is one of the glimmers of hope of Saul's life. It's it's a it's a reminder of better days because early on when a lot of people weren't even sure if Saul should be should be king, the men of Jabesh were surrounded by the enemy and they were uh at least at the very least all going to be killed or they had made a deal saying, "Hey, after seven days uh you can pluck out our right eye and we'll become your servants." Saul would not have that. And so as the new king of Israel, he rallies the men of Israel. They go down there and they wipe out the army and they free and deliver the men of Jabesh. And all these decades later, Jabesh has never forgotten what Saul did for them. And there's something good and godly about the honor that is extended to Saul in this moment and the reminder of maybe who Saul used to be. Maybe who he could have been capable of being if he had just continued to walk in the authority that God gave him to be obedient to God in his life. And so we see this glimmer and this reminder, but at the end of the day, it's just a memorial to days and and times that are long gone in Saul's life. You can gain the whole world like Saul. You can have the honor and the kingship and the people and yet lose your own soul. You can have the crown and the throne and the things that you want and yet wind up being alone looking to your own hands for salvation, even if it's a salvation by your own death. You can do good things but still reject and not know God. And God will allow you to build your own world of salvation, a monument to your own autonomy. A monument to your own autonomy. You know, one of the things I've been reading, uh, I was reading Revelation recently and just the reminder of, you know, at the end of the Bible, um, there's this picture of the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ coming down, and it's it's a huge city. It's like 1,400 miles, you know, and it's gigantic. And it says that there's no temple. The light, the light, it's never dark. The presence of God dwells there among his people. It's this beautiful picture. The gates are never shut. There's no need to. There's always peace. Within the city, there is no evil or wickedness. There's only righteousness, wholeness, goodness in the city itself. But then it says outside the city there are those who are wicked. Those who have chosen a life apart from God who have chosen their own salvation and their own autonomy. And it's interesting the gates are open. They're not going in because we can become such a person that we continue to look more and more to our own world. And that doesn't even sound like a good world anymore. And it can so distort reality and our own heart that more and more we become or in our life becomes this monument to human autonomy outside of the city of God and the salvation of God. Not even wanting it, turning to it, desiring it, but rather having our own kingdom, our own crown, our own way. Just like Saul, just like Conan. Will we deal with the the sin in our heart? Will we be honest about these moments when we've sought autonomy and independence apart from God? When the moments of fear and the archers surround, what do we look to? What do we hope for? Will we keep seeking salvation from these things around us? Will we keep treating God like trinket salvation, wanting what he gives us but not him alone? If we do, it will cost us. Will you choose life on your terms or a kingdom given to you through Christ in which you serve him as his ambassadors in this world? Or will you choose your own kingdom, your own reign, your own salvation? And maybe just one final thing that so many of us you can lose your way in the middle of life or in the latter years of life. I've seen that so often in people's lives in times where they start off so great and somewhere life gets hard and difficult and messy and we just begin to lose our way. And Ironically, not only in the Bible, but in stories throughout life, so often times we start off good and we can sort of assume that we're still good and not realize the drift, the choices, the compromises, the unreconciled sin. And it is changing us, is changing you. Be sober. Be sober about the state of your heart. Be sober about the enemy who seeks to kill, to steal, to destroy because he is also working. And we must be vigilant, prayerful, and aware. Let's pray.