Today we complete our `leadership training` from watching the leaders in 1 Samuel. Today’s is a dramatic, powerful story, and it ends in tragedy.
Christian faith always has a gloriously joyous ending, and grasping that will be (Heb 6:19) an anchor to our lives. But the gospel only has a happy ending for those who choose to live under God’s reign; and sometimes Scripture tells us about those who didn’t. Saul started so well – both impressive and humble. But he disobeyed God: when God said wait, he didn’t; when God said take action, he didn’t. And the result in his character of his growing distance from God was growing jealousy and hate. Today we’ll see how history records the climax. How did he end up there?
There are three steps down in the last chapters. Saul has hated and hunted David, and in ch27 David’s nerve cracks; exhausted by Saul’s hatred, he flees Israel to live among the Philistines. Saul’s been trying to hurt David, and now he’s succeeded. Let’s not be too hard on David; this exhaustion is very human, plus maybe he needed stability now that he has two wives… (However you can’t help wondering as David heads for Philistia whether his godly wife Abigail (v3) wasn’t thinking, Great, I married what I thought was a man of faith, yet here I am with a second dud husband.) Still, we see nothing here of David seeking God’s will, rather he’s looking at the circumstances, and they make him forget his faith. And this faith-free step leads to disaster; as ch26 shows, away in Philistia the thug- and liar-side of his nature will come to dominate, and in ch30 God has to create a crisis to sort that out.
But Saul’s apparent success will cost him dearly. In ch31 Saul dies in battle, and his sons too; and you wonder how different things might have been had David been there, with all his ability and all his remarkable men (1 Chron 12:22); that is, if David had still been Saul’s armour bearer (16:21), instead of the unfortunate guy we read about who took David’s place (31:4-6). But David’s not there. Saul’s hate has driven him away to where he’s actually become the bodyguard of the Philistine king. And so Saul’s repeated disobedience to God, and his repeated obedience to his own hate and jealousy, bring him into a last fatal battle, without God and without David, and there he dies…… The point for us is clear: what Saul does is easy to do; unChristlike, but easy. We need to watch what hate we allow to fester in our own hearts. We may get what we want; and if we do it may very well be us who gets hurt. We need to repent and pray to God to pull it out before it’s too late…
But chapter 28 is more serious still. Saul has lost David’s partnership through his jealousy and hate, and he’s lost God’s anointing through his disobedience. Now he desperately needs (28:3-6) the guidance of God that he ignored earlier; but now `the LORD did not answer him by dreams, or Urim, or prophets.’ God does speak; and if He speaks to us (eg about a specific sin), it’s stupid to turn away and expect Him to come back and guide us when we want Him. We can’t demand that our Creator just speak when we deign to listen. `Consider carefully how you listen`, says Jesus (Lk 8:18): `Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.` Is God speaking to me and I’m ignoring it? This can lead to tragedy; it did for Saul.
Indeed from 1 Chronicles 10 it seems that even now, if Saul had truly repented, and waited, God might well have spoken. Instead, Saul turns to the occult (1 Sam 28:6-11). It’s incredible that he wants Samuel raised up, hoping to hear that God had changed his mind; but that’s the kind of thing we do. But occult involvement is never justified. Leviticus 19, Leviticus 20, Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 18 make clear that all involvement with the occult, spiritism or witchcraft is not only highly dangerous, it is deeply sinful. Seances, tarot, traditional healers or witches or shamans, ouija boards: these are not `alternative forms of spirituality’, these are channels for the demonic, forbidden by God, and we should never touch them. If we have, the consequences can emerge even many years later, and we may need to talk to our church leaders about prayer to shut the windows we opened. Disobeying God by seeking to contact the dead was Saul’s final catastrophic sin.
But even in that place, staggeringly, Almighty God breaks through; and Saul – to his horror – again gets what he wanted (28:11-14). Satan cannot send back the lost (`spirits in prison`, 1 Peter 3), and he certainly can’t drag the saved out of heaven. All he can do is send a `lying spirit` that seems to be the person we wanted but is a dangerous deception, just as the knowledge offered by the occult will be a deception. So what happens here is something quite exceptional, and that’s clear from the witch’s shock and terror in v12: she `cried out at the top of her voice` because what she saw was not the usual deceptive demon, but Samuel himself. But even though it is Samuel and no deception, the news for Saul is terrible: `The Lord has become your enemy… The Lord will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me` (vv16-19). (Saul’s deepest concern has been for his family, his sons (20:31, 24:21), but the result of him disobeying God is the squandering of his sons’ lives and potential.) And the chapter’s final verse is staggering and moving (`That same night they got up and left`): the tough old warrior king walks out into the dark with the mark of death on him now, knowing that next day, he and each of his sons will die.
It’s so tragic. God never wants anyone to go this way; but like Pharoah in Exodus, Saul has kept hardening his heart till there is no other possibility.
This doesn’t seem to be about heaven & hell. (Samuel tells Saul, `Tomorrow you will be with me.`) But his destiny should have been so very different. What happened? Saul’s tragedy is that he had so much talent but was not obedient to God and not under His kingly reign. Saul simply didn’t care too much about obeying the word of the Lord; at bottom he always felt he knew better, and that led to disaster. Saul’s acts of disobedience mattered precisely because he was indeed God’s own anointed, but didn’t take seriously what God had said; and then he compounded that by refusing to accept God’s discipline through the anointing of David. When God is calling us to bring our lives under His reign, we must hear Him; when He’s calling us to bring some particular aspect under His reign, we must hear that and obey. Otherwise shipwreck beckons in the long run. If we want to experience the kingdom of heaven, where things ultimately go right, we must cherish the Word of its King, protect our time to feed on it, and obey it; and if we’ve been playing around too near the border and not bothering about God’s Word, then repent, surrender, receive Christ’s forgiveness, recommit to seeking and obeying His Word, make Him King again. This is the only way to life in God’s Kingdom. So this dramatic story is a history that fills me with the `fear`, the awe, of the Lord: Lord, let me never fail to take Your words and commands very very seriously…
One final point: we see again here how Bible books are constructed to show us that nothing short of a Leader from heaven will ultimately be enough. (Something else to turn into worship!) God seems to have designed the shape of several OT books to teach this lesson. In Genesis, Joseph rescues Israel from famine; but in the book’s final verse he’s dead, and the Bible’s next book begins with him forgotten and Israel in slavery as a result. Moses rescues Israel even more effectively, but when Deuteronomy ends Moses has failed to bring the people into the promised land. In 1 Samuel we have a different approach, guidance by a king, and Saul is apparently an ideal candidate; but Saul turns into a disaster, & in this last chapter he’s killed and Israel are driven out of their land by the godless Philistines. David is an even better king; but again 2 Samuel’s last chapter shows him having lapsed into conceited folly highly destructive of the nation. All human leaders (including pastors and elders) will fail sometimes; ultimately nothing short of a Leader from heaven will meet our needs. And we have one! But only Jesus can always be the Leader we so badly need, only Jesus will carry us right through…
So even as we seek to grow here in what godly leadership is, and how it works, we can each thank God, and especially if we’re leaders (or parents!): there is Someone around now, Someone in charge, who does this far better than me! (I am so grateful for that!!)
