Two Deaths . . . A Study in Contrast, Part 2

Choices sometimes the entire family feels the consequences for generations to follow. Whether it was an ugly divorce spiritual rebellion or an immoral lifestyle. These moments create emotional baggage for children and lugging around a painful legacy is burdensome for sure today on Insight for living Chuck Swindoll reminds us that the insidious cycle of generational sin has been broken by the one who gave his life for us. Let's turn to the Old Testament book of first Samuel Chuck titled his message to deaths. A study in contrast, Samuel 31 two significant things happen all of a sudden. First, there was a battle that was raging, and second, there was a king guide look at the battle of the Philistines were fighting against Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell asleep on Mount Gilboa battle went heavily against Saul and the archers hit him.

So the point is, he couldn't escape. He was dying. So Saul took his sword and he fell on, I think it needs to be addressed. No I want to camp on it. But the issue of suicide is no slight one, especially in our day. Suicide is murder. It is the ultimate in murder. It is also the ultimate cruel death for you, leave your remains for your closest to find you, and to provide some kind of dignified service for you in case you would like to know. Here are some proven facts that have been documented by the Los Angeles suicide prevention center just listen to the stats once every minute someone of the United States attempts suicide every day, 17 Americans succeed they take their own lives.

That's almost 3 every hour every day in this country. There are 24% more deaths by suicide than by murder in LA County more people kill themselves and die in traffic accidents, suicide is the number nine cause of adult death in the US for Americans between 15 and 30 years of age. It's the number three for teenagers. It's the number two killer suicide rate for Americans under 30 years of age has increased 300% in the past decade, until recently, women attempted suicide three times as often as men.

The latest statistics show a drastic increase in successful attempts by women, especially young black women, four of five people who commit suicide have tried it previously. Contrary to popular opinion, people who threaten suicide often mean it. The old myth. Those who talk. Don't jump is dangerously false threat should be taken seriously. That's a ghoulish subject.

I don't enjoy addressing it, but I I think it's it needs to be addressed. I want to say this evening that if you struggle with thoughts such as this. You need help and you needed desperately and you need it soon. If you have children that speak of this rather regularly. They need help in the needed soon and needs to be professional help. If you have a roommate, a close friend who speaks of it, even to the point of talking of the details of it but to seek help for that person. They are probably not joking.

I have not kept a record of it, but it would be of interest to all of us be included.

How many people have written me during the week following a Sunday saying that day was the lowest day of my life and I came with thoughts of suicide in mind God's word has opened a whole new dimension of hope that I did not have before I linger on it only long enough to remind you that when you hear the word and when you hear it spoken of red flags go up in your mind.

Don't laugh it off.

I buried more suicides in the last five years and never in my ministry. It's a growing way to quote Cope which really is no coping at all. Saul chose to take his life and he died an infamous death that if you think that's a bad scene hold on the next one is even worse, the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley with those who were beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled in that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandon the cities and fled the Philistines came and lived in them, so they moved family.

They sacked the area and they simply began to live in the cities where the Israelites had once lived.

It came about in the next day when the Philistines came to strip the slain. That's normal in battle.

We were taught to newsletter veterans were taught that in battle when you take the enemy you take all that you can the process. It might be in your survival as the battle rages in days to come in though and so it's common to strip the enemy. Take everything you can take sleep to take Elise to remove it from there.

Taking it back later in battles against you.

So they began to strip slain a lot. They stumble upon Saul, it says that they found Saul verse eight, and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa tragic scene. Look what follows they cut off his head stripped off his weapons symptom throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. How about that the man who once knew the joys and blessings of the kingdom, the man who was the representative of God, to the greatest of all the chosen people.

This man Saul is now headless and his head is carried from place to place. They may just of it made light of it. I'm sure made all sorts of profane comments regarding the Jehovah of that people. Verse 10 says that the they put his weapons in the temple of Pastor Rob in the that's.

By the way that the goddess of lust. They fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan's Alfred it or shine written in his written work entitled Bible history or Old Testament history is a way of putting a few words. The truth of the of passages like this. He writes, and now it was night, a dark Felicity night the headless bodies of Saul and his sons deserted by all swung in the wind on the walls of Beth Shan amid the horse music of vultures and jackals. It is need never have been. That's the tragedy of it all.

This man with all the promise of youth need never have died like this.

He chose his path he chose. Answer by day by day to compromise and to live in the light of disobedience and he spit in the face of the one who gave him grace, as if to say, I don't need you to live and die as I please.

If DeMar says this is the bitterest of all to know that suffering may not have been that it has resulted from indiscretion and an inconsistency that the vaulter which feeds on the vitals is the nestling of one's own rearing me this is pain and friends. It's one thing to sit here, look at Saul and Kluck are tongs and think what a shame. What a sad scene apathetic and to live a life just like that do not have is popular just inch out one day after another just to make eight hours at work just to nullify our testimony live in mediocrity in the chooser or the easy way like the world because it's it's tough to live for Christ, weekend and week out counting for eternity. But what a rewarding life. Saul turned off the light at night and tell you it was filled the room was filled bats guilt and despair and bitterness. A like acid inside him.

He chose that life.

I emphasize it again and it need not have been that someone did take pity on this man. Look at verse 11. Oh, I should mention something see the words Beth the wall of Beth Shan. The little geographical starting, I found out that that was not far from where Saul was inaugurated is not something his entire 40 years. For decades, as the king and he made no headway territorially for the nation Israel. He wound up right where he started the fact he backed up a few feet hanging his body hung, silhouetted against the moonlit night, not far from where in his heyday. The trumpets blasted, and he was announced, king of Israel, tragic will these people came, not the Philistines but the inhabitants of gibberish. Gilead look at this and they heard what the Philistines had done to Saul and all the valiant men rose and walked all night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan. They came to Jay Bish and they burned in their this is the only account of cremation in all the Bible is verse should mark that we come across such one-time only versus you should mark them. People will ask you what does the Bible say about cremation. By the way, this is not all the Bible says about the Old Testament includes passages in Leviticus where cremation was to be used among the godly or the ungodly Jews as is the ultimate punishment for their crimes.

Remember Aiken and his ilk. They were to be burned. Apparently, the Jews did not for creation or for cremation.

When they are buried there.

There dead.

They buried them bones and all in fact defined were Jacob and Joseph. The bones were maintained and they were carried when Jesus died, he was placed in a grave. When Abraham died, he was placed in the grave alongside Sarah. There was often the reminder in Scripture of the place of burial or the dead. The remains were placed in a site that could be visited scene. Now the Greeks cremated the Romans cremated heathen tribes cremated on a regular basis. In fact, it was not uncommon for there to be child sacrifices for the living were burned to death, but having said all that I have to honestly say there's nothing in the Bible that directly attacks cremation for some traditional believers. By that I mean haven't had too many fresh thoughts in the last 40 years. If you're among that group. You have trouble even thinking about the possibility of such but you show me Bible verses and I'll become more convinced Bible is silent, no arguments from silence or Little League words, if you say it doesn't mention it.

Therefore we shouldn't do it. To live a hard time finding justification for driving a car right or for wearing the necktie know the words arguments from silence are simply that the Bible is silent and in such cases, a person must have his preference and he must in his preference have peace with God. Land is increasingly more at a premium in our generation. In fact, there are now burying 2D in their speaking of varying 3D you to know that some places are emphasizing for the sheer fact of the premium since of land that seem nation, is the answer the burning of the remains taking the remains over the sea and sprinkling it out there. By the way, it gives some people trouble to think that a body could be cremated and then later resurrected. That's no problem with God he can handle that. Seriously, he made us from nothing, he can bring us back from nothing.

Think of the men who died at sea and the remains were never found. Think of the men and women in battle, who died, their bodies blown to bits and they will never be put back together but some of them were believers and at the resurrection.

He'll do it. To give you authority when you want to study and not a problem of resurrection, study the life of Roger Williams at the pianist but the reformer years ago. Roger Williams is a man who was buried not far from an apple tree in the root of the apple tree penetrated the coffin and made his way through the skull down the spine forking at the legs so that his body was inhabited by the roots of an apple tree hold on the nutrients of the body and the remains went into the apple tree and became part of the fruit, so some of the people were eating Roger Williams. I could go on but there's no need to do that God can handle it when it comes the day to resurrect Roger Williams these by full force glorified body slowly hung up on the fact that the burning of the body means God's going to have a problem on his hands to get y'all back together.

He didn't do it. He pulled it off in a moments notice. All I'm saying is be comfortable in your spirit that it's what you should do, you will be hard-pressed to find biblical justification or assault on it. It silent. It is significant that the Jews of old did in fact bury their dead and return to those burial sites but however there was not such a premium on land is now needs to be thought through needs to be justified in your mind. Verse 13 says they took the bodies and they buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jay Bish infested seven days. Saul dies at something you know it is really a scene to consider a man with that kind of promise died that kind of infamous death when all across his life could have been written, it need not have been behind the tragedy of all of this is a very interesting analogy and I've done some thinking and meditation upon the analogy between Saul's death and Christ's, they seem not to fit it all.

They seem to be in no way congruent to one another. What in the world will be fine.

Common to Saul and Christ both but I think there are five or six things worth noting. First of all, Saul's death appeared to be the end of all national hope the people who surrounded Saul's leadership must've thought that's the end of Israel. The Philistines will conquer now Christ's death. It appeared to be the end of all spiritual hope. If you question that you have put yourself in the place of the disciples, they surrounded the cross. They look having run during the arrest and trial. Having fled from him. Some of them watching from the safety of the shadows look at the cross and thought we believe in a hoax. It was a phantom. There's no there's no kingdom were finished look like the end of all spiritual hope is another analogy Saul's death.

See, it seemed as though the adversary had one a final victory Philistines marched in triumph. They had the head of Saul and the heads of the signs that dangled the body in front of all the we won the victory when Christ died. It seemed as though the adversary one. He must've strutted all over the gates of hell declaring the victory is mine. I am the conqueror, the Messiah is dead. Here's 1/3 Saul's death pave the way for an entirely new plan of operation that happened with Christ's death. When Jesus Christ died a whole new operation moved into action and if it hadn't been for the death could've never taken place.

Fourth, Saul's death open the throne room to David, Christ's death open the throne room to the to the center. The Gentile would never have otherwise been able to enter and come boldly in grace. Fifth, Saul's death ended an era of dissatisfaction and failure.

Christ's death ended an era of law and guilt. Finally, Saul's death displayed the foolishness of man.

Christ's death displayed. If the men of earth could have declared it the foolishness of God that the fifth through the foolishness of God's plan he brings to pass the incredible he takes the preached word. Any changes lives because of his son's death. They dangled the body of Jesus and they shoved it in a grave in a hurry because the Sabbath was coming. Little did they realize that God was on the verge of doing the greatest miracle the entire New Testament era when he brought it back from the response coffin puts her finger on our feelings when we go through times like Saul lived in and died in she calls it simply take over that first Lord I ask you to take sides with me with David's Islamist eyes circle and underline the words the Lord is for me maintain my rights. Oh Lord, let me stand above my foes, but with all my pleading. I lay drenched in darkness until another confusion. I cried. No, don't take sides.

Lord just take over and suddenly it was morning. It won't happen quite the fast for most of you, but I think he is saying to some Saul's who are in in process of living out the kind of life. Now's the time to stop Lord don't take sides. Just take over and you show me again through the death of Christ, the kind of power that you have available for me to rearrange my life and put it back together again. I'll trust you to do that for me. We want nothing to interrupt the worship so therefore let's bow together. That's flush out all of the thoughts of tomorrow and yesterday. Let's concentrate right now in time on our lives, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all as a lamb before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth, we come before our Lord is sheep. Most of us who have gone astray. All of us in one major. Another son needing cleansing son needing simply salvation, our father may there be nothing that interrupts the thoughts of your sheep summer bleeding and crying because of the way they have chosen summer rejoicing because you have brought them to their knees. You have shown them the value of the committed life.

The life that is chosen to walk with God in time summer confused, not knowing your way summer reeling in the midst of difficult hard times. Whatever might be the condition of the sheep make that of less and less importance as we focus upon the shepherd our Savior, our Lord, the one who is gone before us and will see us through. We love you and we adore in Jesus name, amen.

Today Chuck Swindoll is teaching from first Samuel we see the striking contrast between Saul's self-inflicted death and the selfless one that came much later this month for teaching ahead on Insight for living.

When our study on the fascinating life of David continues, so please stay with us because we were closing comment from Chuck in just a moment if you like to learn more about this ministry, we invite you to visit us online@insideworld.org. If Saul's demise demonstrates anything, it's this the people we meet in the Bible were imperfect and flawed.

Just as we are there tragic stories provide a striking contrast of Jesus death, which offered eternal redemption and hope. Along those lines, we received an encouraging note from one of your fellow listeners who said good morning from Chicago. Thank you for leading me back to Christ. I am five years clean from all drugs. I owe it to God first and you Insight for living. I found your program while in prison. There I was staying up at night and I found Insight for living on the radio.

The first sermon I heard was on addiction and bad habits. Laugh out loud.

God is good. Yes, he is in your letter is a shot in the arm to all of us to financially support Insight for living it's our mission to help people discover the meaning and relevance of the Bible because we can't overcome our daily struggles without God's help, here's Chuck. Thank you Bill are subject to on Insight for living is other than David the one of whom God said there that one is after my old grand heartwarming statement and what would God say that if David will David were learning to walk in harmony with God. He had his priorities straight. And even when David fell short. He didn't waste time recovering with genuine humility and bone deep integrity. He was after all a man after God's own heart. By the way, you can become a person of spiritual passion and destiny. Just as David was, no matter who you are regardless of what you may have been through Jesus Christ gives us supernatural strength to live for him.

This is the heart of our message and Insight for living ministries and now it's time to rally around a shared mission that is to proclaim God's truth and to make disciples of all the nations, you see many depend upon this daily program as their single source of Bible teaching and spiritual insight occupying the places my honor and absolute privilege, but I can't do this alone. This is a genuine partnership. It's a team effort solely as God prospers you and as you measure the impact of our daily program on your life and in your home. Please take a few extra moments to give a donation before the June 30 deadline arrives together. Let's tell the whole world no matter how difficult life is become, no matter how far a person may have strayed from God's best. It's never too late to become a woman or a man after God's own thanks Chuck you can respond right now and get in touch with us by going online to Insight for by the way, when your fellow listeners go from far away and said Chuck you are a blessing here in Soweto, South Africa. It's unexpected comments like these that are made possible because people like you give generously to insight you can give your donation by calling us if you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or it may be quicker to get your contribution online@insight.org/don't join us.

When Chuck Swindoll describes the dramatic story of David's assent to the highest position in Israel that's Tuesday on Insight for living. The preceding message to dense a study. In contrast, was copyrighted in 1978, 1988, 1997 and 2009 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll.

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