Tag: saul

1 SAMUEL #7. THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Saul was a tall, impressive, handsome man. The people wanted a king that would make them look good to other nations, and that made Saul the best choice, given their own parameters, which God honored, though it limited the options. Even at this early stage, there were some warning signs about Saul’s character. Yet, when the Lord chose Saul, he used that choice to end the shame of the small tribe of Benjamin, and he began to give Saul opportunities to respond to Him in faith.

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1 SAMUEL #7. 1 SAMUEL 9-10. THE CALLING OF SAUL

There is an age-old story line, repeated in all the great books and movies. Boy meets donkeys. Boy loses donkeys, and goes looking for them. Boy forgets donkeys when he meets the prophet who anoints him as the first king of his country. Boy briefly joins a group of different prophets, then goes back home, because the donkeys, having more common sense, are already home as well. You know what I’m talking about, right?

OK, so it isn’t a normal or well-known tale. But I love it, in part because it seems almost random. Yet in that randomness, we can see God at work. That gives me comfort when events in my own life seem both ordinary and random.

In chapter 8, The elders of Israel gathered and asked God to give them a king. Through Samuel, God warned them against it, but they persisted in asking for it anyway, so the Lord agreed to give them a king. Then everyone went home.

The narrative suddenly switches, and 1 Samuel chapter 9 tells us about a young man who went out with his servant to look for some lost donkeys. The young man was named Saul. He was not at the meeting where the people asked for the king. He was not seeking the Lord, or going on a pilgrimage to a place of worship. He was just doing his job, which at that moment, was to find his dad’s lost donkeys.

After a few days of wandering in the hills, Saul and his servant decided to give up. As they turned back, they were near Samuel’s hometown. Saul’s servant knew this, and suggested that they ask Samuel to ask God where the donkeys are. Saul wasn’t sure about it, because they had nothing to give Samuel, but the servant had some money. Saul then said, basically, “OK, if you think it will help us find the donkeys.” In other words, he had no desire to see a prophet in order to get closer to God, or to learn God’s will for his life. He just wanted God’s help with his own problems.

We learned at the end of chapter seven that Samuel used to travel around to various places in Israel and lead worship and judge disputes and share God’s words with the people. Even though Samuel did not live very far from Saul (compared to other areas of Israel) the two had never met. This implies that Saul had not, up to that point, been particularly interested in God. He clearly had never sought guidance from the Lord through Samuel for any other purpose, and he obviously had never taken a sacrifice to worship with Samuel when he was in Saul’s area. Even in our text for today, he seeks Samuel not because he wants to know God, but because he’s lost his donkeys. His focus is not on the will of God or on relationship with God, but rather what Samuel can do for him.

So by this point, we can already see some things about Saul. The first few verses tell us that he was an unusually tall and large man – the tallest man in all twelve tribes. It also says he was handsome. But other than that, there is nothing out of the ordinary about him. We can see from the incident with the donkeys that he isn’t particularly persistent. He isn’t especially patient, or spiritually sensitive. He’s just an ordinary person, except that he is very tall, and impressive to look at. He had no clue what was coming.

Samuel, as always, had been talking to God and listening. Samuel is one of my favorite heroes of the faith. The people wanted a king. God told Samuel he would grant their request. So Samuel went back to work, and waited for God. He didn’t immediately go out and try to find a king for them. He talked to God and listened, and then, some time later, God told him when to anoint the first king. So when Saul showed up in town, Samuel was ready. He recognized him as the person God had chosen to be the answer to the request of the people of Israel. God had previously told Samuel to expect someone like Saul, and so Samuel made him a guest of honor at the feast he was going to.

After the feast, Saul stayed overnight with Samuel. They spoke for a long time. Later, in private, Samuel poured oil on Saul’s head which was a symbolic gesture showing that Saul was now chosen by God. The significance of oil was that it represented the Spirit of God. The idea was, that along with the oil, the Holy Spirit was poured out onto Saul, and he was to be God’s chosen instrument from now on. The pouring of oil on the head, and the pouring out of God’s Spirit are both sometimes called “anointing.”

This anointing shows us one of the big spiritual differences between the time before Jesus, and the time since his resurrection. In the Old Testament it appears that God generally filled only one or two people with His Holy Spirit in each generation. It was as if he had just a few chosen instruments for each period. But the prophet Joel predicted a great change that would arrive after the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah:

 28 ​​​​​​​After all of this ​​​​​​I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people. ​​​​​​Your sons and daughters will prophesy. ​​​​​​Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; ​​​​​​your young men will see prophetic visions. 29 ​​​​​​​Even on male and female servants ​​​​​​I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29, NET)

That’s a promise that things were going to change. No longer would God limit his spirit to one or two people in each generation. Instead, all people who trusted the Messiah (Jesus) would have God’s Spirit in them.

In Acts 2:17, on the day of Pentecost, the Lord gave his Holy Spirit to all 120 followers of Jesus. Peter quotes this prophecy from Joel and affirms that it was fulfilled from that day on. And so, from that day on, God’s chosen instruments to work in this world are every single person who trusts in Jesus. It is no longer one or two people in a generation – it is all of God’s people. We are all given the anointing of the Holy Spirit to do God’s work here and now.

But in the time of Saul, this was still many centuries into the future. And so when Samuel anointed Saul, it was something very significant and very special. We can see this anointing at work almost immediately. Samuel predicts that the Spirit of God will fall on Saul, and change him:

The Spirit of the LORD will control you, you will prophesy with them, and you will be transformed into a different person. (1 Sam 10:6)

When Saul turned around to leave Samuel, God changed his heart, and all the signs came about that day.(1 Sam 10:9).

So the anointing was the outward sign of what was to take place spiritually with Saul. However, it was done in private, because Samuel wanted to make sure that Saul really was God’s choice. So he did this privately, and then also arranged a public ceremony (more on that later) where they asked God who should be king, and through the casting of lots, God again chose Saul.

Now, I want us to pause for a moment, and ask “Why Saul?” Saul himself asks basically the same thing in verse 21. Again, the only thing remarkable at all about him was that he was tall and handsome, and those had nothing to do with this character. I think God choosing Saul is all about God’s grace.

First, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. The patriarch Benjamin (son of Jacob) was the youngest of the twelve brothers who founded the twelve tribes. In those days, elders were honored above those who were born later. Even though we are talking about many centuries later, still, the tribe of Benjamin was descended from the youngest brother, which was not a place of honor.

Next, about two hundred years before the events we are looking at right now, one of the towns belonging to the tribe of Benjamin perpetuated a terrible atrocity. The story is in Judges 19-21. The other tribes demanded justice from the evil town, but the whole tribe of Benjamin made a terrible choice, and rose up to defend the evildoers. The result was war between Benjamin and the other eleven tribes, and the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out – everyone was killed except for six-hundred men who fled to the hills. The other Israelites eventually forgave them, and wives were found from the other tribes for those six hundred Benjamites. This is why, two hundred years later, Benjamin was still the smallest tribe in Israel. Even in the time of Samuel and Saul, the tribe of Benjamin was probably still under a cloud of shame for their history of fighting a war to defend something that was truly wicked and sinful.

The Lord had twelve tribes from which to choose a king. But he chose the tribe of the last-born patriarch, the smallest tribe, and the one that was still under the cloud of a shameful history, to bring forth the first king of Israel. It is as if he is saying, “Tribe of Benjamin, your shame is removed. Look – I am paying attention to you. You are as significant and important as any other part of my people.” It is sheer grace.

There is another reason God might have chosen Saul himself. In the very near future, the Philistines were going to challenge Israel with a huge warrior – a giant of a man named Goliath. Israel’s new king – Saul – was also a very large man. Saul was not as tall as Goliath (who was probably nine feet tall) but many commentators speculate that while the average height of a man was maybe five foot three, Saul must have been well over six feet. Regardless of what the actual heights were, the Bible is clear that everyone else only came up to Saul’s shoulders in height; which is to say he was almost a foot taller than the next tallest man. Israel wanted a king who would lead them in battle. They wanted someone who would bring them respect among the other nations. Saul is big and strong and impressive. He is exactly what the people of Israel asked for.

Once Samuel heard from the Lord, he gathered the people of Israel. They chose the king not by election, but by a process that was like rolling a special kind of “dice” that had been blessed by God. The “dice” might have been the Urim and Thummin – special stones first mentioned in Exodus 28:30. This process was called “casting lots.” They would pray, ask God a question, and then cast the lots, trusting that God would determine the result. So they went through, asking about each tribe until Benjamin was chosen by the casting of the lots. Then Saul’s father’s family was chosen, and then Saul himself. So the choice that Samuel privately felt God had made was now confirmed in this public process. But when he was chosen, Saul hid himself among the baggage.

At first this makes it seem like Saul is charmingly humble. However, in light of what we will see in Saul’s life later on, maybe it wasn’t actually humility. Maybe it was reluctance to let himself belong so fully to God, reluctance to give up his own agenda in order to be God’s instrument in this world. We know that Saul was not spiritually sensitive, or even interested in God to begin with. God gave him his anointing, but we don’t see Saul really embracing it. We don’t really know much about how Saul received these things. It looks like it was mostly external for him.

Think of the contrast between Saul and Samuel. When Samuel was called, he invited God to speak to him. He said “speak for your servant is listening.” he spent his life listening to the Lord, and not shrinking back from what God said, waiting when God said “wait” and acting when God said “act,” speaking when God said, “speak.” He was willing to let God be God even when he didn’t understand why God would, for instance, let the people have a king.

Saul, on the other hand, didn’t look for God. He looked for donkeys. He didn’t look for the responsibility of leadership, and God practically had to force it on him. There is no record of him saying to the Lord, “I am your servant, use me as you please.” These things in Saul’s character are warning signs. They are seeds of destruction that, if not rooted out and given to the Lord, will end up causing big problems later on.

It wasn’t that God was trying to mess with the Israelites because they had rejected Him as king. But he was trying to allow them their free will, and answer their prayers. They had certain parameters. They wanted a king to give them respect among the nations. They wanted him to be a fine figure, impressive, a war leader. They didn’t want a prophet – they had rejected the idea of someone who listened to God and then encouraged them to do God’s will.

Before the lots were cast, Samuel warned the people again about the folly of choosing a king. But they went ahead with it anyway. So the Lord gave them the best possible king he could, given their demands and choices. But those demands and choices meant that their king would have other deficiencies. We can see those deficiencies already.

Sometimes God is more gracious to us and gives us greater blessing when he does not answer our prayers the way we want him to. But the Israelites insisted, and he allowed them to make their own choices.

We can see that this might all end badly, even so, this incident in Saul’s life shows us a little bit of how gracious and caring God is. Saul was not looking for God, he was looking for donkeys. And yet God was still reaching out to Saul. Saul had no thought of becoming a king, but God gave him a kingdom. He was not special in any way, except perhaps physically, and of course, his physical characteristics were something given to him genetically, not earned. Ultimately, his physical appearance came from God as well. Yet, in spite of the fact that Saul did nothing to deserve it, God chose him. This is grace, all the more amazing because it is totally unexpected, and totally undeserved.

So where does this leave us? Are you making demands of God? Perhaps God will give you what you ask for, but maybe you should consider letting him have his way instead. He is gracious sometimes to give us our free choices, but His will is always best. Sometimes there is more grace in a prayer that is not answered the way we want it to be.

Maybe the Lord is making it clear to you that he wants you to be his instrument in this world, but you, like Saul, are reluctant. God did use Saul, but Saul would have been much better off if he had willingly given up his own will and desires. Maybe like Saul, you’ve been coasting along, doing your thing, and God has gone out of his way to get your attention. Don’t be like Saul, who remained insensitive to the Lord even afterward. This is grace, and I encourage you to respond in faith and surrender, and re-orient your life and priorities around listening to God and letting Him live his life through you.

I myself was like Saul in that way for about three years. In college, I became convinced I was called to ministry. I finished college, and then spent almost five years in graduate school, and jumping through hoops in order to become a pastor. But then, after I had been a pastor for a few years, I decided I didn’t have to do that anymore, and I walked away from ministry. It didn’t go particularly well for me. After many hard lessons, the Lord brought me around to his way of thinking, and I went back into ministry. I learned that accepting the Lord’s call is always best.

Perhaps you feel like the tribe of Benjamin. You feel insignificant. Maybe there is a cloud of shame or disgrace in your past. Think of God’s grace to this tribe. That grace is for us as well:

26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. (1 Corinthians 1:26-28, NLT)

Listen! God has chosen you. He chooses the foolish to shame the wise, the lowly to shame the great, the small to teach the grand. Your shame is removed and God wants you.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you now.

SAUL’S FINAL CHOICE

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Old Testament, Sermon, Uncategorized5 Comments

saul's death

The Lord is constantly there, always waiting for an opportunity to forgive us, be gracious to us and receive us into His Life and Joy. The tragedy of  Saul’s life is that to the bitter end he chose to go his own way instead. The Lord did not rejoice at the death of the self-absorbed, manipulative man. Instead, He grieved.

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1 Samuel #30. The Death of Saul

1 Samuel ends with the death of king Saul, recorded in chapter 31. While David was returning home, and then pursuing the Amalekites who had destroyed his town and taken his family, the Philistines and the Israelites began a great battle.

As I mentioned before, the Philistines were in the valley of Jezreel, which was the only relatively easy way to get from the Mediterranean coast into the Jordan Valley of Israel. Saul’s forces were on a mountain ridge to the south of the valley, a place called Mount Gilboa. When the Philistines began to move east toward the Jordan, Saul moved to attack them and block them.

The picture below is of the actual area (with present day roads, reservoirs and buildings that would not have been there at the time, of course). The Philistines were invading through the valley in the left of the picture, starting in the foreground and pushing toward the Jordan valley in the distance. The Israelites were positioned on the ridges to the right. The little hill labeled “Tell Jezreel” was probably not there.

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The massive Philistine army turned to destroy the Israelites. This was a good strategic move, because if they left them alone on the mountain, the Philistines couldn’t be secure in the valley. It was a rout. Israel’s army fell apart. Jonathan and his brothers were killed. I want us to consider some things in the following verses:

3 When the battle intensified against Saul, the archers caught up with him and severely wounded him. 4 Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through and torture me.” But his armor-bearer would not do it because he was terrified. Then Saul took his sword and fell on it. 5 When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his own sword and died with him. 6 So on that day, Saul died together with his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all his men. (1Sam 31:3-6, HCSB)

Verse 3 contains some ambiguous Hebrew expressions. Most English translations make it seem like Saul was severely wounded before he committed suicide. That is certainly one possible way of translating it, and probably a good one. But even so, it is quite possible that Saul was not wounded at all, but only in despair. An almost literal translation would be this:

“The battle became a great burden upon Saul. When the archers came within range of him, he was deeply traumatized.”

The “burden” of battle could be intense physical combat. However, that doesn’t make sense when we learn that the enemy archers have only just come into range. If he was fighting hand to hand, archers would be irrelevant. They would not shoot, for fear of hitting their own men. So Saul was not even involved in actual combat. Therefore the “intensity” of the battle, was purely psychological for Saul.

It says that Saul was deeply traumatized. We already know that the intensity of the battle is psychological for Saul, not physical. “Traumatized” can mean physically wounded of course, and it isn’t wrong to translate it that way. Even so, knowing that what is happening with Saul is already psychological, it is not wrong either to interpret the trauma as emotional distress, rather than a physical wound.

I believe that this is reinforced by his armor-bearer’s response, when Saul asked him to kill him. The armor-bearer would not kill Saul, “because he was terrified,” (verse 4). What was he afraid of? If Saul was mortally wounded, why would the armor bearer be afraid to finish what was inevitable anyway? No, I think Saul’s mood and his words are what scared the armor-bearer.

The night before the battle is when Saul went to the witch of Endor, and consulted with a demonic spirit who masqueraded as Samuel. If you remember, that spirit had spoken only words of condemnation and despair to Saul. Saul accepted this message and believed it as if it was truly Samuel speaking. So, here’s how I think it went down: You have a man who has his entire life been insecure, erratic and manipulative. He is a control freak in a situation where he does not have control. He has recently accepted and believed the words of a demon. He is deeply emotionally troubled by the battle long before it even comes near him. When he sees that the archers are finally in range, he suffers deep psychological trauma – and then takes his own life. In other words, he gave up even before all was truly lost. The words of the demon were a self-fulfilling prophecy, in large part because Saul believed them and acted accordingly.

Now, I want to write about something that most Christians don’t talk much about: Suicide. It’s right there in the text, so I think the Holy Spirit wants to deal with the subject. But before we get into it, let’s get one thing clear. You may have known someone who committed suicide. Sadly, I’ve known several. It doesn’t do anyone any good to wonder whether that person died in faith, or if he went to hell. That’s not the point of what we are about to consider. What’s done is done. I cling to the biblical truth that God is far more gracious and merciful than I can comprehend.

But right now, I want to talk to and about the living. If you are reading this, you are alive, and these words are for you, not for someone who has already died. Don’t waste your wondering how to apply these words to someone else – these are for you, for me, for the living.

Saul’s suicide was clearly an evil, demonically influenced act. It was his lack of faith that prompted him to take his own life. It was his lack of trust in the Lord, combined with the fact that he believed and agreed with demonic words. He acted as he believed. If you are ever tempted to suicide, please understand – you are being tempted by a demonic power. Do not listen to demons. Do not agree with them.

In the 1990’s Dr. Jack Kevorkian became famous for helping 120 people patients commit suicide. It opened up a national debate about a person’s “right” to deliberately take her own life. But G.K. Chesterton has some insightful thoughts about killing oneself. He says:

The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned, he wipes out the whole world.

His point is clear, but we don’t often think about it. The person who commits suicide does not merely kill herself. From her point of view, she is killing the whole world. Her intentions are as demonic as Hitler’s (who also committed suicide, by the way). Suicide looks at the world and says, “As far as I am concerned, there is nothing worthwhile in the entire universe. I would be just as well off if the whole world is destroyed.” If that doesn’t sound like Satan, I don’t know what does.

It is not a private decision that affects only yourself. It is a cruel and arrogant judgment against the entire world. Sometimes the suicidal person knows this. They are angry at loved ones, and they want to hurt those people as well as themselves. Suicide is not just self-destruction – it destroys everyone who knows you. If that doesn’t sound demonic, I don’t know what does.

Some Christians may say: “Well, I want to get to heaven. I’m tired of the struggles of this world – I want to be in the peace and rest of eternity with Jesus.” But that is so much like Saul’s attitude. Saul always insisted upon his own way. He manipulated, fumed and got depressed and sought help from demons – all to get his own way. Like the ultimate spoiled brat, when he realized that this time there is simply no way it is going to happen, he would rather die. We Christians are supposed to live in trust – not in control. We don’t get to determine how and when we die. To do that is to put yourself the place of God.

Now, Jonathan and his brothers died too. Their result was the same as Saul’s. And yet it was entirely different. They died fighting for their country and for each other. Chesterton writes about such people:

A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside of him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything.

He even mentions the battlefield. This is how Jonathan acted, and how Saul should have acted.

A solider surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange careless about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

Jonathan showed courage. Saul showed demonic self-centeredness. I don’t think Saul’s death was the result of God’s judgment. It was the result of a lifetime of Saul’s self-absorbed choices, culminating in the final ultimate act of selfishness. About Saul, you can say for certain, “he chose his own fate.”

Even so, Saul’s story ends with people who loved God mourning for him. I think this is because they were led by the Holy Spirit. God always wanted Saul to turn to Him and trust him. And so after he dies, the Spirit of God moved two groups of people to honor Saul in a special way.

After the battle, the Israelites in the nearby parts of Jordan valley fled. The Philistines took over their towns, among them a town named Beth-Shan, which has been the site of an archeological dig for many years in modern times. They found Saul’s body, cut off his head, and hung the corpse on the wall of Beth-Shan. There is a reason that we call brutal, ignorant cruel people “Philistines,” even today. They did the same with Saul’s sons.

The residents of town further south in the hills on the other side of the Jordan heard about this. That town was Jabesh-Gilead – the place of Saul’s very first battle, the town that had been shamed for centuries, but which Saul had rescued. They remembered how Saul had saved them and finally removed their shame. So they sent a commando-type unit through the night to Beth-Shan. They stole Saul’s body, and those of his sons, from the Philistines, and brought them back to Jabesh-Gilead. They burned the bodies and then buried the bones with honor. It was a bittersweet end to the reign of Saul, coming full circle to the beginning when he was younger, and did trust God. I think their actions were a reflection of the Lord’s sorrow at Saul’s choices. Saul chose his own way, and he suffered the consequences. But I do not believe that was God wanted. He gave the Saul the freedom to choose, and I believe he was sorrowful for what the king chose. The Lord reveals this same attitude in Ezekiel 33:11

11 Tell them: As I live” — the declaration of the Lord GOD — “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent, repent of your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel? (Ezek 33:11, HCSB)

A second person who reveals this attitude toward Saul is David. Remember, David had the Spirit of God in a way that was special in those days. Often, he is a type of Christ – he reveals the kinds of actions and attitudes that the true Messiah has. And so when he heard of Saul’s death, he wept in sorrow. Because he was human, I’m sure he was more upset about the loss of his friend Jonathan than the death of Saul. But he reveals the heart of God. The Lord was never against Saul. He always wanted him to turn back, repent and receive grace. Inspired by God, David wrote a beautiful lament, recorded in 2 Samuel 1:19-27

19 The splendor of Israel lies slain on your heights.

How the mighty have fallen!

20 Do not tell it in Gath,

don’t announce it in the marketplaces of Ashkelon,

or the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice,

and the daughters of the uncircumcised will gloat.

21 Mountains of Gilboa,

let no dew or rain be on you,

or fields of offerings,

for there the shield of the mighty was defiled —

the shield of Saul, no longer anointed with oil.

22 Jonathan’s bow never retreated,

Saul’s sword never returned unstained,

from the blood of the slain,

from the bodies of the mighty.

23 Saul and Jonathan,

loved and delightful,

they were not parted in life or in death.

They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions.

24 Daughters of Israel, weep for Saul,

who clothed you in scarlet, with luxurious things,

who decked your garments with gold ornaments.

25 How the mighty have fallen in the thick of battle!

Jonathan lies slain on your heights.

26 I grieve for you, Jonathan, my brother.

You were such a friend to me.

Your love for me was more wonderful

than the love of women.

27 How the mighty have fallen

and the weapons of war have perished!

The greatest tragedy of Saul’s life is that the Lord always loved him, continually reached out to him, never stopped offering his grace – and yet Saul refused it, preferring to try and control things himself. He did not surrender his own will to God. But God’s love and grace and forgiveness were never more than heartbeat away, if only he had turned to receive them. And so when Saul died, the heart of God was to lament his loss.