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Rise and Ruin
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Have you ever looked back on a decision and honestly wondered, what was I thinking? We've all been there — kids, students, all of us. There's a phenomenon that drives us into those moments.
Neuroscientists tell us that when your brain perceives a serious threat, something fascinating happens. The amygdala — the emotion-focused part of your brain — takes over, or hijacks, the more rational part of your brain. Suddenly you're not thinking logically or carefully anymore. You're reacting. Your world shrinks, and all you see is the danger in front of you.
Psychologists call this the amygdala hijack — those moments where fear overwhelms our ability to think clearly. And the same thing can happen to us spiritually. In fact, it has happened to many of us spiritually so many times.
Fear can hijack your faith. And when it does, even people with the best intentions — even people who genuinely love God — can make decisions they'll regret in the long term. Today, we're going to watch that happen in real time in the life of King Saul.
Let me give you some context. In 1 Samuel 13, Saul has been king for about two years, and he's facing a threat from the Philistines — Israel's perennial enemy.
In the time of the judges, Israel would pull together ad hoc militias whenever they faced a threat. But now, for the first time, Israel has a king and a standing army. Saul's son Jonathan launches a successful attack against a Philistine outpost, but it triggers a war they aren't prepared for. The Philistines respond by mobilizing with overwhelming force.
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And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. (1 Samuel 13:5)
This reminds me of the old Facebook days. Somebody was talking crazy about my brother online, and as the oldest, I had to slide into his DMs to let him know this is not that. He didn't even respond with words — he just changed his banner photo to a little foldout table covered in semi-automatic weapons. I immediately sent a follow-up: "Dear sir, upon further reflection, I now realize I am not about that life."
That's exactly what happens here. Israel jumps out there against the Philistines, then realizes they're in over their heads.
When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard-pressed), the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns... and all the people followed him trembling. (1 Samuel 13:6–7)
Saul's specific situation is unique, but he's facing a challenge every leader understands. There's a problem it's his responsibility to solve, and everyone is anxious about it. They see an obstacle, not an opportunity. Saul is trying to lead in an environment of high anxiety and low morale.
He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. (1 Samuel 13:8)
Put yourself in Saul's shoes. Day one. Day two. Day three. His inbox is filling up. People are coming into his office: What are we doing? What's the plan? Why aren't we moving? Day four, five, six, seven. The anxiety keeps rising. Samuel still isn't there. Soldiers are starting to leave. You can imagine Saul watching the dust clouds of the Philistine army getting closer and closer.
So Saul said, "Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings." And he offered the burnt offering. As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. (1 Samuel 13:9–10)
Samuel, God's prophet, asks, "What have you done?" And Saul does what we all tend to do.
First, he rationalizes: "When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered..."
Then, he spiritualizes: "I said, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.' So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering." He makes it sound super spiritual — I was compelled, I didn't have any other option.
And Samuel said to Saul, "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God... For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart." (1 Samuel 13:13–14)
Saul numbered the people who remained — only about 600 men. This is the beginning of the end for King Saul.
I've been a victim of the amygdala hijack myself. When I first got my driver's license, I was coming home one day trying to turn into my parents' driveway. I didn't get the angle right, and I was staring straight at their brand-new fancy iron mailbox.
In that moment, my rational faculties shut down. Here's what I thought: If I push the accelerator harder, I'll turn faster and miss the mailbox. That is not how the story ended. I gunned it and punted their brand-new mailbox all the way across the yard.
My fear hijacked my rational capacities. I thought if I just took matters into my own hands and sped the situation up — if I could just get to my destination a little faster — everything would be okay. This happens to all of us, in small funny ways and in some pretty tragic ways.
So how do you know when your fear is hijacking your faith? We see three symptoms in Saul's life.
Look at how the Philistines are described in verse 5: "troops as many as the sand on the seashore in multitude."
We've seen that language before. When God's people first came into the promised land under Joshua, they faced a similar situation:
And they came out... a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots... And the Lord said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will give all of them over to you, slain to Israel." (Joshua 11:4, 6)
And that's exactly what happened. God rescued them.
Now here's the thing — the people in 1 Samuel 13 knew that story. It was one of the legendary stories in their national history, told over and over across generations. They knew God's miraculous power, His steadfast love, His unchanging faithfulness. And they hadn't just heard about it — they had experienced it. In chapter 4, God wreaked havoc in every Philistine camp until they sent the ark back. In chapter 11, God empowered them to defeat the Ammonites.
So why didn't they trust God? Verse 6 tells us: the people were hard-pressed. That word is vivid in the original Hebrew — the sense of being squeezed or trapped by circumstances beyond your control, physically and psychologically overwhelmed. One commentary put it this way:
"Hard-pressed isn't abstract anxiety. It's the sensation of being compressed, hemmed in, with escape routes closing."
Isn't that what life feels like? You feel hemmed in. Your options seem to be slipping away. The walls are closing in. The window is shutting on the only opportunities you can think of.
In those moments, here's the thought process that starts to control us, even when we're not consciously aware of it:
If I don't ______, then ______ will happen (or won't happen).
Let me confess this can happen on a ministry level too. When we fear that numbers are dwindling, or that we're not as popular as another church or preacher, we think: If I don't compromise biblical truth...
But notice what's missing from that thought process. God isn't in it. "If I don't... then I won't." God isn't in it.
So we have to ask: Is that actually true? Is your future ultimately dependent on your power? Are your options only limited to what you can see and control? Is your life really in your hands, or is it ultimately in God's hands?
Let me do a quick exercise with you. Close one eye. Now take your hand and cover the eye that's still open. Can you see me? No.
I'm 6'2", about 180 pounds. Is your hand bigger than me? Of course not. But your hand is so close that it blocks you from seeing me, even though I'm bigger.
That's what happens when all we can see in the heat of the moment is the thing we're afraid of or the thing we want. Like Saul, we have to zoom out and remember:
Your circumstances are not bigger than your God. Your problems are not bigger than God's promises. Your weaknesses are not bigger than God's power.
When we let our circumstances, desires, and fears block our view of who God is, we end up living like functional atheists. Our fear hijacks our faith, and we fail to see God for who He truly is.
Back in chapter 10, God gave Saul clear instructions through Samuel. After three specific signs confirmed God had chosen him as king, Samuel said:
"Go down before me to Gilgal. And behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do." (1 Samuel 10:8)
Did you notice? "Wait, and I'll show you what to do." That means God already knew the situation Saul would find himself in, and God already had a plan. But instead of trusting God, Saul freaked out.
Here's the thing — Saul actually started to obey. He did wait seven days. For many of us, it's easy to trust God in the beginning. It gets harder the longer we wait, because our faith begins to drain. We feel the window of opportunity closing.
And here's the tragic detail: as soon as Saul offered the sacrifice, Samuel showed up. Most scholars agree Samuel did arrive on the seventh day. We don't know if it was an hour or a minute later. As they used to say when I was growing up: God may not come when you want Him, but He's always on time. God fulfilled His promise — but Saul could not wait.
Not only did Saul disobey the command to wait, he assumed a level of authority God had not given him. Old Testament scholar Bill Arnold points this out:
"This episode illustrates the way Israelite kingship was intended to function. The king was not free to initiate warfare whenever and against whomever he wished. He had to answer to a higher authority. He could only receive marching orders from Yahweh and his prophet."
Saul's authority was a limited authority under the ultimate authority of God. In essence, Saul made a decision: I'm no longer willing to live within God's limitations.
It's the opposite of Psalm 16. Saul essentially says, "The lines have not fallen to me in pleasant places. I'm not content to trust God within the boundaries He's placed in my life."
You can hear this in your own heart: God, what do you expect me to do? I didn't put myself in this situation — You allowed it. You know how You made me. You know my desires, my trauma. So what do you expect me to do? Just live without marriage and fulfillment? Keep missing out on what my friends are doing? Keep struggling to make ends meet while everyone gets promoted around me?
Rewind to chapter 12. Shortly after Saul became king, God gave His people a clear warning through Samuel:
"If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice... it will be well. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king." (1 Samuel 12:14–15)
This is why Samuel's confrontation is so pointed, and this is the saddest part of the story:
"For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue... because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you." (1 Samuel 13:13–14)
God warned him not to go this direction. But under pressure, Saul decided he knew better than God.
We ignore God's warnings all the time — warnings that come clearly through Scripture, through people who love us enough to tell us the truth, even warnings we sense in our conscience or our gut. But under pressure, we ignore them and make the decision anyway.
Why? Because in that moment we think the benefits of our sin or short-term decision outweigh the potential consequences. Deep down, we're asking the wrong question, but it feels like the most pressing question:
What will I miss out on if I DON'T take matters into my own hands?
But as we read Saul's story, we realize the question we should be asking is:
What will I miss out on if I DO take matters into my own hands?
The enemy will get you to ask the wrong question and let it drive your decisions. And here's one of the scariest things in Scripture: you don't know what you'll miss out on. This is why it takes faith not just to believe God's promises but to believe God's warnings — because His warnings are promises too.
You may try to calculate the cost — I might lose my family, my relationship with my kids, my finances. You may calculate some of it. But sin will take you farther than you want to go, and the consequences are often more profound and painful than you anticipated.
If we're honest, most of us don't really believe God will follow through on His warnings. There's no real fear of God. And like Saul, many of us will learn the hard way.
"But to the wicked God says: 'What right have you to recite my statutes...? For you... cast my words behind you... These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.'" (Psalm 50:16–21)
"Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." (Galatians 6:7–8)
God is so loving and merciful that He warns us — through His Word, through His people, in our conscience — because He doesn't want us to experience the painful consequences of sin and foolishness.
Some of you are carrying an even more painful question. You're not sitting in a hypothetical — you're sitting in the consequences of choices you already made, the regret, the shame, the fallout. You ask: Did I forfeit God's purposes for my life? Am I locked out of God's will? Am I forever stuck with something second-best?
Our sin does have real consequences — you see that in Saul's life. But it's important to distinguish between God's sovereign plan and our participation in it. God's plan didn't change; He had always planned to raise up the Messiah through the line of King David. But Saul had a choice about how he would participate, and his sinful choice had real consequences.
So yes, our sin has consequences. I don't want to sugarcoat that. But the good news is: your sin does not have to be the end of your story. The same God who warns us away from sin is the same God who invites us to repent — to turn, to make a U-turn.
That's the ultimate tragedy in Saul's story: there's no acknowledgment of sin, no repentance. That's the difference between him and David, a man after God's own heart. Both sinned. Both faced consequences. But David humbled himself before God, while Saul defended himself and doubled down.
So the question isn't whether we've failed — we have, and we will. The question is: will we respond like Saul, or will we humble ourselves and invite God to use even our regrets for His glory?
You have not out-sinned God's grace.
You have breath in your lungs. You have the opportunity to make a U-turn and experience the reality that God, in His sovereignty, is more powerful than even your sin. He has a way — that we can't fully explain — of taking the broken pieces of your life and redeeming them into something good, something beautiful, something that showcases His mercy and grace. It is not too late for you.
All of us are like Saul. We all struggle to trust God, to wait on His timing, to obey when everything in us and around us says take matters into your own hands. So how do we break out of it?
On January 15, 2009, shortly after departing LaGuardia, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of birds and lost both engines. Imagine being the pilot. I'll be honest — I'd have been running up and down the aisle yelling "Save yourselves!"
But Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles assessed they couldn't make it back to an airport and executed a controlled water landing on the Hudson River. Every passenger and crew member survived — the "Miracle on the Hudson." When CBS asked Sully how he did it, he said:
"For 35 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, and on January 15th, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal."
Under pressure, he was drawing from something built up before he was in the situation. He had learned to trust his training instead of letting fear hijack his brain.
Martin Luther said:
"The sin underneath all of our sins is the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ, and that we must take matters into our own hands."
When we're under pressure, we struggle to wait on God because we're not sure we can trust His love, His grace, His wisdom, His word. So in that moment, we have to reach down into what we already know about who God has revealed Himself to be. We have to zoom out to see something bigger than our fears and our problems.
Saul took matters into his own hands. Jesus refused to.
Think about His life and ministry. When people wanted to make Him king, He said, "My hour has not yet come." When His brothers pushed Him to seize the moment and flex His authority in Jerusalem, He said, "My time has not yet come." When the soldiers came to arrest Him and Peter cut off a man's ear, Jesus said, "Don't you know I could call twelve legions of angels?" — but it wasn't time. Even on the cross, while people mocked Him, Jesus waited.
Saul could not trust God enough to wait. But Jesus trusted the Father enough to wait — even when waiting meant the cross.
Why did He do that? Because according to God's perfect will and timing, the eternal Son of God came to live a perfectly righteous life, and when the time was fulfilled, He went to the cross to die in our place — for our impatience, for our lack of trust — and He rose from the grave so we could have eternal life. He demonstrated for all eternity that He is worth the wait.
"If God did not spare his own Son... how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (cf. Romans 8:32)
Jesus not only forgives us, He identifies with us and joins us in our struggle and our waiting. You have a high priest who knows what it feels like to wait. He is with you right now to give you strength, to help you see beyond your situation, and to hold you down as you trust Him and walk in faithfulness.
Take a moment between you and God. Confess, pray, and spend time with Him.
Father, we thank You for Your word. It's a mirror that shows us ourselves, but it's also a window that shows us more of who You are — Your desires and intentions for us. God, help us to turn from ourselves, from our sin, from our failure, from our fears, and to turn to You, to look to You, to see You for all of who You are. Help us by Your Spirit to trust You. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
