Let's look at the story about King Saul:
1 Samuel 15:1-35
To Saul, the son of Kish, belongs the honor of becoming the first king of the nation of Israel. There is always glory in being first. His grandfather Aphiah was a man of power (1 Samuel 9:1), but of his father Kish nothing is known. I give Kish the honor of being the father of a very handsome young man. The Bible says that Saul’s handsomeness finds no comparison in all Israel (1 Samuel 9:2).
Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin. Who was Benjamin? His older brother was Joseph, the guy who was kidnapped and sold by his own brethren, at the time when kidnapping and man-selling had not yet gained importance as cottage industries. Joseph and Benjamin were the only sons of the woman their father Jacob had ever loved. Benjamin, the younger of the two, was born at the point that Rachel his mother was departing from the land of the living. When the tribes of Israel settled in Canaan, Benjamin was given his own inheritance among the tribes.
Can anything good be said of the tribe of Benjamin? As a clan in Jacob’s great family, they were rebellious. They had abetted the sins of sexual abuse and immorality committed by some in their clan. They even went to war to defend those culprits. That war almost wiped them off the face of the earth. Read this story in Judges 19, 20, and 21.
But the tribe that was almost decimated was given the honor of having one of their own appointed as the first king of Israel. Historians may call this an accident in history; I call it a part of God’s scheme of things as revealed in history. God
was seeing things the way man was not. He saw what was good in Saul, something about this Benjamite that goes beyond handsome features.
Saul, however, was a king God gave out of reluctance. Israel wanted a king because they desired to be like the other nations around them. They desired a king because the judges they had were not worthy. Israel thought that that desire was legitimate.
Actually, asking for a king was tantamount to rejecting God as governor over the nation that He had formed, nurtured and cherished. When Israel clamored for a king, God reluctantly gave them Saul to rule over them. The story in 1 Samuel 15 says that the king God gave Israel in his reluctance did not prove to be ideal at all.
I. Saul came (verses 1-6).
A. He came with the memory of having been appointed as king over God’s people (v. 1a), and the mission of obeying God’s precepts to the letter (v. 1b).
B. He came with the memory of what Amalek did to Israel (v. 2), and the mission to destroy Amalek (v. 3).
C. He came with the fond memory of the kindness of the Kenites (v. 6), and mission to repay that kindness.
II. Saul saw (verse 7-9).
A. Saul saw the Amalekites and destroyed them (v. 7)
B. Saul saw the king of the Amalekites and saved him (v. 8).
C. Saul saw the values of the property and gathered them (v. 9).
In all these, Saul saw with the eyes of the man of the world, not with the eyes of the man of God.
III. Saul fell (verses 10-35).
A. Saul fell because of his sins.
1. He was disobedient (v. 11).
2. He was hypocritical (v. 13).
3. His error of presuming God would accept his alibis (v. 15).
4. His error of flying over the spoils (v. 19).
5. His error of blaming others (he must have forgotten the meaning of command responsibility) (v. 21).
6. His sin of rebellion (v. 23).
7. His stubbornness (v. 23).
B. The consequences of his fall:
1. His being rejected as king (vv. 23, 26).
2. His kingdom was rent from him and given to another (v. 28).
3. His spiritual separation from God (v. 25).
A man like king Saul comes only once in a lifetime. There was no one like him in all of Israel’s history as a kingdom. His tribe did not amount to much but he came to prove that something good could come out of it. He came with memories of how the Amalekites made life hard for his people, and how the Kenites did them good. He came with a mission, and this mission was to be obeyed to the letter, and its goal was to destroy what God commanded to be destroyed, and to save what God commanded to be spared.
While Saul saw the Amalekites and destroyed them, he also saw their king but spared him, contrary to what God had commanded him. He saw the values of property, yet he saw them with worldly eyes, not the spiritual one.
As a result, Saul fell out of God’s grace. He was a liar; he was presumptuous; he loved the spoils of war; he blamed others; he showed himself to be rebellious; he became disobedient; and he was separated from the fellowship of God.
The great lesson of this is the lesson on accountability. We must all be accountable to God for our actions, for our thoughts, and for our blessings.
Let us not be like Saul.
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I found this article and I really like the way he presented the story about King Saul. The story reveals much about what the people want verses what God wants for the people.
Now what is important here is how we see that God wants us to be "governed" by a leader. He understands the importance of leadership for the people and this is why in I Timothy 2:1-4 it says this:
" First of all, then, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth."
We must pray for those who are going to be our leaders, even before they come into office. We must ask God for a leader after His own heart, because verse 4 of this same chapter says this "who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." The plan that God has for leaders are for them to lead man to Him! (He didn't just give that mandate to pastors and ministers of the Gospel) That's the plan folks, for the leaders of these here United States of America!
Do we have leaders that do this? Maybe we have in the past somewhat and although there are those who profess their faith in Jesus Christ, are they doing what the scripture says to do as leaders? We can say no to that, but why aren't they doing it? Well, I believe its because we the Church, must be in One Accord when it comes to praying for those to be leaders over us, so that we don't have to be in situations like we are in right now, and since the Church is not on one accord, then we will continue to experience the things we see in government and more.
My prayer is that we all come to the Throne Room together, praying in One Accord for the right leader to be here in America. This is our home...this is where we live and as christians, we must be obedient to pray and ask God for His help in this. If we don't do this together, trust me...we will have someone that will be worse than the last two presidents for sure, and if anyone doesn't think so....just watch and see.
Blessings to all!
