Wages

What we are seeing here in this opening verse is actually God being faithful to His word. When God entered into covenant with His people Israel and they entered into covenant with Him, He made a choice and they made a choice. And it was a conditional covenant — an if-then covenant. If you honor and keep the covenant, you are going to be blessed beyond comprehension. And if you do not keep the covenant, you are going to experience the curses of the covenant. They entered into this covenant willingly. God made it with them. He gave them the law. He laid it all out. They knew the reality of it. Part of that covenant judgment, those covenant curses, is coming to life here. Deuteronomy chapter 28:25 says — and Deuteronomy 28 is this covenant curse text that lays out what will happen if you don't keep the covenant, if you run after other idols, if you serve other gods, if you turn away from the Lord:

We are watching that play out in real time here in 1 Samuel 31. The text continues:

Some translations render "overtook" as "pursued closely." It is an interesting Hebrew word here — a word of intimate connection. It is the same word used in Genesis chapter 2 when it says a man and his wife shall cleave together and become one (Genesis 2:24). That is the word used here. The Philistines are cleaving to Saul and his sons, pursuing them with that kind of relentless, intimate closeness.

They're hot on their backs. They're running, trying desperately to get away, and they can't get away because the Philistines are on top of them. And it's not just Saul — it's Saul and his sons and the army. And so Saul's son Jonathan — what a tragic opening to this narrative. Jonathan, the one who had been so loyal and kind and faithful to David, who loved David, who interceded with his father for David so many times, but has now been separated from David for a significant amount of time, partially because of David's sinful choice to leave the land. Now Jonathan, this great man, dies along with his brother Abinadab and Maleshua. They're struck down.

That phrase "struck down" comes from a verb that is the covenant term for warfare in the Old Testament. It's used over five hundred times in the Hebrew scriptures. It's the same verb that's used when Joshua conquers Canaan, when Gideon defeats the Midianites, when David killed Goliath. It's the covenant warfare verb. It means God is fighting for His people. Now it's reversed. When God's covenant people abandon the covenant, God doesn't fight for them — rather, He fights against them. It's the same word that's used in Deuteronomy 28 for defeat. The sons of Saul are now suffering the covenant curse.

And names are important here. Jonathan literally means "Yahweh has given." The gift that God has given is now taken away. Abinadab means "my father is noble," which is a little narcissistic to name your child — and we might call Saul a lot of things as we walk through this story, but noble is not one of them. Maleshua means "my king is salvation." The irony would not have been lost on the ancient Israelites reading this text. They know the meaning of these names. They see it here: "Yahweh has given a gift," "my father is noble," "my king is salvation" — lying slaughtered on the mountainside.

This is the tragedy of sin. It not only affects us — it always ripples out. There is a corporate reality to sin. And lest we get too discouraged, this text shows us a son who dies for the wickedness of his father, and in some beautiful ways it begins to point us to the true Son who dies for the wickedness of us all. But it's tragic. Let's not get that wrong.

Verse three says the battle pressed hard against Saul. I like this — it pressed hard, it weighed heavy. The Hebrew word here for "pressed hard" comes from the same root as the Hebrew word kavod, which is how we translate "glory" in the Old Testament. When we talk about God's glory, it uses this word for heaviness, weightiness, substantialness. The weight that should have been God's glory resting on Saul is now the weight of God's judgment crushing him. It's a divine reversal. Back in 1 Samuel chapter 5, it says that the hand of the Lord was heavy against the Philistines — the same word. When Israel had been faithful, when Israel was walking with the Lord, God was keeping His covenant promises and His hand was heavy against the Philistines. Now, because of Saul's intentional, persistent, consistent choice to rebel and sin against God, the hand of God is heavy against him and against Israel.

And the archers found him — which is an ominous sentence — and he was badly wounded by the archers. I prefer the translation that he trembled and breathed in pain because of the archers. The king who stood head and shoulders above everyone else now writhes on the ground in pain. He's been brought low as the consequences of his choices come home.

Then Saul said to his armor bearer — and this just keeps going from bad to worse — "Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me." He says, "Kill me," and he explains why. He says he can't have the uncircumcised kill him. Now, this is not an ethnic derogatory sort of reality. Circumcision is the sign of the covenant. He's saying these are the enemies of God, clearly shown in their uncircumcision at that time.

And there's something about that statement that just grips me, because for all intents and purposes, Saul has been living and acting as one who is uncircumcised — he's not keeping the covenant. And yet he still wants to stand as if he's better than, different from, or set apart. He certainly had every opportunity to be that, but he didn't live that way. And he says, "These uncircumcised will thrust me through and they'll also mistreat me." That word "mistreat" means to deal severely with, to abuse, to mock, to torture. What that tells us is that at this moment, as his death is imminent, Saul actually fears humiliation more than he fears death — which is entirely consistent with his character throughout the story.

This has been Saul's major problem. And I want to just camp here for a second. Whenever we're talking about sin, each and every one of us has a list of the sins — like, these are the bad ones. And then we have a list of the acceptable ones, which is an oxymoron from the get-go. There are no acceptable sins. And yet we tend to function and live that way. It's always interesting to me how the list of things that are really, really bad are the things that you don't struggle with, and the list of things that are acceptable are the ones that, I don't know, maybe you do on a daily basis. Do you see how that works?

There's this real temptation to think about sin in terms of categories, and if we want to talk about the scope and nature of sin, not all sins are equal in terms of their consequence and effect. But all sin is sin. And there's a way of looking at this story of David and Saul and going, this doesn't seem right, this doesn't seem fair — because David commits some of the big sins. He commits adultery and murder and does all sorts of stuff. And Saul never really does any of those big sins. I think that's part of the text we really need to wrestle with, because that's not the way this works. God does not have a scale, a weighted system of sin, where once you tip it too far — no, that's not how this whole thing works.

Sin is sin, and it destroys. And more often than not, it's the little sins, as we see them, that end up doing the most damage in our lives. Saul was vain. The heart of Saul cared more about what people thought than about what God thought. And that's what destroyed him. I'm not sure if we were putting together a list of the big sins that any of us in this room would have gone, oh, like caring what people think would be on the bad list. And that's why we need to pay attention to these texts.

Saul says, just kill me. And his armor bearer is like, no, I'm not going to do it — for he feared greatly. This is fascinating. The armor bearer had more reverence for Saul's position and anointing as king than Saul did himself. David wouldn't kill Saul. Why? Because he was the Lord's anointed. The armor bearer would not kill him because he was the Lord's anointed. Saul, on the other hand, doesn't respect that at all and does not fear the Lord. He fears man. So therefore, Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.

Even in death, Saul was rebellious. Even in death, he showed no respect for the Lord. He fell upon it. It's the same word from verse one that described all the army being slain, being pierced. Saul has joined the army. Saul has joined his sons. He's been pierced. It says when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. And that just hits a little different in this story. You're like, why would he do that? Just go away.

I think the lesson in this verse is: be careful who you bind yourself to. Be careful who you yoke yourself to. Be careful who you give your allegiance to, because when the head falls, the body falls with it. It's loyalty — but tragic loyalty. Loyalty to the wrong king, loyalty to the wrong leader. Thus Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor bearer, and all his men on the day together. This verse functions in the Hebrew like a funeral dirge — the repetition of "and," like the drumbeat of death. Saul died, and his sons died, and his armor bearer died, and his men died. And the definite article is there: on the day. The day promised by God. The day of reckoning. The day that God held Saul and Israel to account for their covenant unfaithfulness.

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 Hebrew word for "lived" here is the word to dwell, to abide. They're taking up residence. What we see here is God's faithfulness to the covenant — keeping His word. If you break the covenant, the curses will come upon you. It's the reversal of the conquest.

If you've been with us over the last few years, we walked through Joshua and Judges as God brings Israel in. And as they are faithful, God is faithful, and they dispossess the inhabitants and take possession of the land that God has given to them. But now, because of their unfaithfulness, it's reversed. And this is what sin does — it flips God's right order upside down. Sin is a violation of the way that things are supposed to be. There's a way that God has structured and ordered all of His creation to function. And if you want a definition of sin that you can grab on to —

This part of the story is perhaps the most striking of all. It is simply a violation, a breaking of God's good order, and there is always a consequence to that. Fortunately — or unfortunately — the story doesn't end with Saul's death on the mountain. If only it did. Because what happens next reveals something even more horrifying than the wages of sin. Sin doesn't just destroy you, it desecrates you. It corrupts you. It doesn't just take your life. It will take your dignity, your honor, your name, your legacy.

The Philistines weren't done. They had killed Saul's sons. Effectively, they had killed Saul — he did it by his own hand. They had won the day, and to the victor goes the spoils. The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain — this is what people in the ancient Near East did, this is what people throughout history have always done — you go out and you scavenge the battlefield, taking the armor, taking the weapons, taking whatever valuables you can from the fallen. The Philistines went out to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. So they cut off his head and stripped him of his armor.

There is a reversal theme continuing a narrative that everybody knows from 1 Samuel — the story of David and Goliath. David slays the Philistine giant, and what does he do after the slaying? He cuts off his head. Now Saul falls in battle, and his head is cut off. There is this divine reversal of judgment operating throughout the text. And then — and this is the horror of sin — listen to what it says. They sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the news. Remember from last week, the word used here is the Hebrew word for good news, for gospel. They sent messengers throughout the land to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people.

Just think about that. The Philistines are sending messengers throughout the land, and where do they tell them to go? Go to the temple of Dagon. Go to the temple of Ashtoreth. Go to the temples of these rival false gods and proclaim their victory over Yahweh. Because Saul wasn't just representing Saul — Saul was representing God. So the consequences of Saul's sin not only disgraced him but defamed and devalued God. Yahweh is now being paraded by these messengers who carry the good news that the gods of the Philistines have defeated the God of Israel. And they are absolutely wrong about that. And yet it is an incredible tragedy that the good news being spread at the end of 1 Samuel is not the good news of Yahweh and His faithfulness, but rather this — because of the sinfulness of Saul. This is unbelievably tragic.

Verse 10 says they put his armor in the temple of Ashtoreth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. It did not end well for Saul. His armor being put in the temple is again this visceral, physical demonstration that Ashtoreth has conquered over Yahweh. It won't last long, but it is still so terrible. And I don't have time this morning to unpack it fully, but I hope that those of you who have been with me through this series are seeing the supernatural reality being demonstrated here. These are not merely idols of stone. These are rival gods, spiritual beings that are under the judgment of God. And Saul's sinful choices resulted not only in his death, but in the devaluing and defaming of Yahweh.

Verse 11 tells us that when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose. This is a great Hebrew word — the valiant warriors. This is the same word used to describe Boaz, the same word used of the mighty men, the brave men. They arose and went all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. These men demonstrate something powerful to me. Even in death, even under God's judgment, the human dignity of Saul is not simply erased. They come to show honor. They come to do the right thing even though Saul had done the wrong thing. They come in danger, exposing themselves to risk. They are smart about it — they come at night, they are careful. They retrieve the bodies — and let's be honest, this would have been a grim and grueling task. The bodies had been mutilated.

Sin is a real destructive power and force. We try to sanitize it. We try to justify it. We try to rationalize it. We try to distance ourselves from it. We try to objectify it. We try to make it a principle or an idea. But sin is real. Saul, who had been anointed as king of Israel, who could have had his lineage reign over Israel perpetually — because of his sin, it is all taken away from him, and nothing is left but a rotting corpse attached to the wall of an enemy city. They take it down, and they burn it. I think probably pragmatically it was quicker, it was safer. Ancient Israelites did not normally burn, but they did see burning as purifying, as cleansing. And it seems to me that the men of Jabesh Gilead, even though they owe their lives to Saul, they know how bad he's been and they know what's happened to him. And so they're still trying to do the right thing.

In the next verse it says that they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and there they sat and fasted for seven days. Biblically, tamarisk trees are often associated with sacred space and sacred sites — Abraham set up one of his first altars to worship Yahweh under a tamarisk tree in (Genesis 21). So they come and they bury the bones after they've been burned, and then for seven days they sit and they fast. That seven-day fast marks the end of an era. It's a transitional time. It's the closing of the chapter of Saul and the continuation and opening of the chapter of David's kingship. And that is a hard and harsh ending to the book, isn't it?

Lesson number one: don't play with sin. The consequences of sin are brutal. They're ugly. They're devastating. And they're never just confined to you. That's one of the great lies of our age — that everything is just about you, and why should you care what anybody else does, and why should anybody care what you do, because it's just your thing. But we are communal beings by nature, by intent. God made us this way. You will never have a sin that just affects you — ever. It's impossible. It's not the way that God has set things up. There is a corporate, communal reality of sin, and the Bible has always been clear on this reality. It starts this way in Genesis chapter 3. What do you get in that temptation narrative? On the day that you eat of it, on the day that you defy God's order, on the day that you sin, you will surely die. That's what sin does. It breaks down. It destroys. It corrupts. Sin kills.

And yet, how easy it is for you and I to not take our sins seriously, to rationalize that we're not doing the big list of sins — just these little pet sins that we nurture and care for over here. Surely they'll be okay. James 1:15 says,

One of the things I love about this verse is that it reveals the reality that there's a process. And this is what gets us sometimes. We know something's wrong, and it's like when you're trying to see how cold the pool is — you go, "Can I get away with this?" And we do it and we're like, "Oh, nothing bad happened. Okay, I guess I'm good." But see, there's a process. Sometimes it goes really quickly. Most of the time it's slow but steady. And the reality is you never get away with anything. There's always a consequence to that reality, and it will always ultimately end in death.

This is what sin does. And I hope you can think of it as physical death, which it does involve, but there's so much more. There's the death of your peace. There's the death of your relationships. There's the death of your reputation. There's the death of God's reputation. There is so much death that comes when we choose to walk in sin, and it's not something we can avoid. This sermon is titled "Wages" because of Romans 6:23 — the wages of sin is death. I think that summarizes Saul's life and the story of 1 Samuel 31 pretty well. The wages of sin is death. The natural consequence, the unavoidable logical culmination of sin is death.

But — forgive me, I like big buts, and this is one of the biggest — the free gift of God is eternal life in King Jesus our Lord. This story is depressing. It can be discouraging. It can be demoralizing. It's harsh and it's hard. But even in the darkness of the story, there's a glimmer of light. It points us to something better. The men of Jabesh Gilead are that glimmer for me in this story of horror and tragedy. They do something beautiful. They remembered Saul's faithfulness to them.

They risked everything. They showed covenant loyalty when no one else would. And they gave Saul's body the dignity that the Philistines tried to strip away. And then they fasted for seven days, a sign of genuine mourning, genuine grief over what had been lost. This is mercy in the face of judgment, faithfulness in the face of failure. This is what covenant love looks like. They show love and faithfulness even when Saul had broken it.

And as beautiful as this act is — and it is beautiful — it cannot undo what has been done. They can bury the body, but they cannot reverse the curse. They can honor the dead, but they cannot raise the dead. They can fast for seven days, but they cannot pay the wages of sin. All they can do is bear witness to a tragedy and say, "This should not have happened."

And that is where we must turn from Mount Gilboa to another mountain, from one king's death to another, from Saul to Jesus. The story of 1 Samuel 31 is not just about what sin does. It is about what God will do in response. Saul here is an antitype of the Messiah, an anti-shadow of Jesus, an anti-Christ. We have two mountains, two kings, two deaths. Saul on Gilboa, Jesus on Calvary. Both were anointed. Both died on mountains surrounded by enemies. Both were pierced.

But Saul's death is judgment for his rebellion, while Jesus's death is His obedient substitution for mine. Saul got what he deserved. Christ got what we deserve. Saul died in fear, afraid of humiliation. Jesus died courageously, enduring the shame. Saul's death brought defeat and dishonor. Jesus's death brings victory and honor beyond imagining. Saul's death is the end of his story. Jesus's death is the beginning of ours.

See, here is the good news. Paul says in Romans 5 that just as one man's disobedience brought death, one man's obedience brings life. Just as Adam's sin corrupted and broke the reality that God had created, the obedience and faithfulness of Jesus breaks the curse.

Here is my question. Which king do you choose? Which king will you follow? Saul or Jesus? Mount Gilboa or Mount Calvary? The king who lived for himself and died for himself, or the king who lived for others and died for others? Which king do you follow? The wages of sin is death — Saul. The gift of God is eternal life — Jesus. Which king will you follow? A king who feared man more than God, or the king who feared God more than man?

Saul is a king buried in a tomb under a tree. Jesus is the king who died on a tree, emptied the tomb, and now lives forever, high and exalted. Which king will you follow?

Maybe you are here today and you feel like Saul. Maybe you feel you have made choices that you cannot undo. You have sinned in ways that have consequences you cannot escape. You feel like you are on Mount Gilboa, surrounded by enemies, with no way out. Here is the really good news this morning. As I have shared along the way as we have read this text — you are not David. You are not the hero of this story. And I want to share with you this morning as well: you are not Saul. You are not the enemy. You are the people that Saul failed to save and that Jesus succeeded to save.

See, there is another king, a better king, who did not fail, who did not fall, who did not flee, who stood his ground on another mountain and took the judgment you deserved so that you could have the life that He earned. The wages of sin is death. But Jesus paid your wages. And now He offers you a gift — eternal life, abundant life, real life. Not because you are righteous like Jonathan. Not because you are loyal like the men of Jabesh-gilead. But because He is merciful. And His mercy triumphs over judgment when we simply turn to Him in repentance.

God, may You grace us to repent quickly like David. And may we follow Jesus together. Amen.