But if that's what it takes to praise You Jesus...

Wooo love this song!

This is found in:

2 Samuel 22:2-4
2 He said,
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
3 my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation,
my stronghold and my refuge,
my savior; you save me from violence.
4 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

and

Pslam 18:1-3

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.

I love the descriptions...

ROCK: In whom I take refuge, solid as a rock, definite, unwavering, steadfast. Why should we worry when we got the rock as our foundation? Should we worry about our house falling apart, the world falling apart? our lives falling apart? Nah man, we are resting on the ROCK, relying on the ROCK, depending on the ROCK. Will something solid, definite unwavering, steadfast, never breaking, never falling, never failing, fail us? NOPE! In our times of trouble, the problem of sin mainly, we can truly rest and rely on God. And He has proven Himself reliable, trustworthy, and faithful through the gospel, by sending His Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins, that only through faith in Jesus, reliance on God are we saved. Not by our own works, wavering works, indefinite works, prone-to-fail works, imperfect works, below-average works, not by the works of the fallible man, but through faith in the infallible GOD. Perfect, steady and firm, we can rely, rest, trust, and depend on GOD, our ROCK.

FORTRESS: stronghold, defensive structure. Where do we turn when we are under attack? When we need help, safety? our FORTRESS! We know...we know that we are safe. In times of uncertainty, despair, hopelessness, we are safe here with God. God will take care of us. He is in control.

DELIVERER: He rescued me, saved me from sin through the sin-atoning death of Jesus. In times of trouble, God is our deliverer, He gets us out of trouble and succeeds. He gets it done. He delivers!

SHIELD: What does a shield do? It protects us. Protects us from wounds, harm, injury, destruction, and God does that as our shield. He shields us from evil, from sin through the gospel. He shields us from destruction, the enemy. In war, battle, everyday life, we know that God is protecting us.

HORN OF MY SALVATION: This is kinda unclear honestly speaking, but horn in this context is often viewed like the horn of a bull, as strength, and a gorger of enemies, of sin. Nevertheless,
we know that God is all for our salvation, He will save.

STRONGHOLD: Similar to fortress, we know that we can rely on Him and find rest, safety, strong defense, safeguard, and security.

As God as our Father, and we as His children, how assuring are these words, how encouraging are these words. No longer do we have to rely on our own strength which always fails (Romans 3:23); now we can rely, depend, rest, like children on our Heavenly Father, who has proven Himself rich in righteousness, founder (Jesus) of our salvation, redeemer of our dead-in-sin state, firm, mighty, strong, and trustworthy. God is glorified! God is glorious!

20Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.

21His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.

Hmm do you think this could be where we got the word "jubilee" ?? eh eh? haha sike idk...maybe lyres and pipes have nothing to do with the word "jubilee"

"...So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue..."

Context: It's Israel vs Philistines and Saul is king, Samuel is the seer, or the prophet. Saul was at Gilgal and I think the Philistines were at Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven. Saul was waiting for Samuel to come and then offer the sacrifice, I think under Samuel's authority. Saul's motive for the sacrifice was to "sought out the favor of the Lord" (v. 12).

According to the above passage we see that Saul "forced" the offering of the burnt offering and according to Samuel, it was "foolish" and disobedient.

But WHY?? Why was it forced?

"...And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you (Samuel) did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’..."

"When I saw" (Got this from my Bible's notes, The Reformation Study Bible)

Basically Saul was like, "Oh no people are leaving, ahh how are we gonna win now? I need to do something cause the Philistines are coming soon"

(The second part about what Saul said, "I have not sought the favor of the Lord,"

I honestly think that Saul said that because he was responding to Samuel and needed to find some legit excuse why he forced the offering, some legit spiritual-related or God-related excuse so that Samuel would partially say in his mind, "Oh I see, you just wanted the favor of the Lord, that's good of you." In this way, "that's good of you" the rebuke of Samuel would be less harsher and Samuel would give Saul more credit...but in his (Saul's) mind, Saul really just didn't want the people to leave. Either way, what Saul did was WRONG.)

So we can see from verse 11-12 that Saul was worried. Worried about what? That he would not be able to defeat the Philistines, or basically, that God will not deliver. He did not trust in the Lord for Israel's success, deliverance, and in some sense, salvation.

What was the result? "your kingdom shall not continue"

So what can we learn from this? Is it salvation/deliverance/God's favor by works? Based on "You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you."??

I think it's the opposite.

See Saul was trying to do things on his own, instead of obeying God. I think salvation by works is similar. We are always trying to do good things to outweigh the bad as if to say, "Oh no, I am going to die, and I need to be good to go to Heaven, so I need to do good. I need to do good things so that when God sees me, He can be like, 'Oh yeah you did many good things, more good than bad, therefore, you are good.' So I need to do these things, out of my own ability, I need to FORCE these things so that I can go to Heaven" (similar to Saul).

But I think we need to RELY on God, TRUST in God, and whatever He says the plan is, let's do that, let's obey and submit and rest on that GOD WILL DELIVER. and God HAS! through His SON JESUS CHRIST, that if we have saving faith in Jesus we will be saved. Rely on God, trust God, faith in Jesus, faith in God. That's it, and our own selfish efforts (like that of Saul) are in vain and are "foolish" and disobedient.

What do you think?