Category Archives: 1 Samuel

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A Cautionary Tale

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

Saul could have had it all—and so can you. But it requires a heart after God. That is what he was looking for in Saul, and ultimately found in David. What does that mean, a heart after God? Perfection? Sinlessness? Inherent loveliness? No, it simply means that from a humble heart you offer to God ruthless trust, sincere obedience and a willingness to come clean when you blow it.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 28:4-8

The Philistines set up their camp at Shunem, and Saul gathered all the army of Israel and camped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear. He asked the Lord what he should do, but the Lord refused to answer him, either by dreams or by sacred lots or by the prophets. Saul then said to his advisers, “Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do.” His advisers replied, “There is a medium at Endor.” So Saul disguised himself by wearing ordinary clothing instead of his royal robes. Then he went to the woman’s home at night, accompanied by two of his men. “I have to talk to a man who has died,” he said. “Will you call up his spirit for me?

In my mind, Saul is the most enigmatic figure in the Bible—his great start but disastrous finish will baffle me until the day I die. One of the last places we see Saul alive is I Samuel 28 where he is so desperate for spiritual guidance in his train-wreck of a life that he actually visits a witch in the village of Endor.

Contrast that with one of the first times we meet Saul, and Samuel has anointed him as king: “Samuel said to all the people, ‘Do you see the man the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.’” (1 Samuel 10:24) That description is unusual in Scripture as if to acknowledge that out of all the people God could have chosen, he intentionally choose Saul.

Obviously something went terrible wrong between 1 Samuel 10 and 1 Samuel 28. In fact, some scholars suggest that between Saul’s anointing and Samuel’s first rebuke of Saul in chapter 13 for his failure to follow God’s word may only have been a couple of years into his reign.

Not only enigmatic, Saul is also one of the saddest characters in scripture. Had Saul just wholeheartedly obeyed God as David did, he could have the same enormous promises that the Lord made to David:

Samuel said. “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.” (1 Samuel 13:13-14)

“The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.” Those are powerful words in light of the promise of an everlasting kingdom that God made and has fulfilled through David. What might have been had Saul just wholehearted obeyed! “What might have been” have to be the saddest words in the human language!

Enigmatic and instructive, Saul is also one of the most instructive characters in the Bible. His downfall is a cautionary tale for the rest of us. Let all who pass by Saul pause and reflect on their own life. In fact, Saul’s tragic end brings to mind I Corinthians 10:11-12,

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!

Saul is an example to us. Paul says, “Look, if you think that can’t happen to you, let me give you a heads up: yes it can!” If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! Now that might be a little unnerving, but in hindsight, the wrong turns in Saul’s life are pretty obvious:

  • Saul tolerated subtle sin. He made excuses, he justified wrong actions, and he presumed God would excuse his “little” indiscretions.
  • Saul tolerated distance from God. He did everything else but repent to find relief from the misery in his life brought on by disobedience.
  • Saul tolerated poisoned relationships: With his spiritual mentor Samuel—he disobeyed. With his loving son Jonathan—he threw spears. With his loyal protégé David—he tried to murder him. Each of these men tried their best to restore relationship with Saul, but the hard-hearted king refused to make changes.

Saul could have had it all—and so can you. But that requires a heart after God. That is what God was looking for in Saul, and ultimately found in David. What does that mean, a heart after God? Perfection? Sinlessness? Inherent loveliness? No, it simply means that out of a humble heart you offer to God ruthless trust, sincere obedience and a willingness to come clean when you blow it.

And that is something I can definitely give to God—and you can too!

Going Deeper With God: Like me, you are far from perfect. That is okay, since Jesus was perfect for you. Take a moment to come before God with sincere gratitude for his grace that covers your flaws.

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A Good Idea or God’s Idea

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

To ensure that your choice is not merely a good idea, but God’s idea, run it through the five-fold filter of prayer, the Word, the alignment of circumstance, the inner prompting of the Holy Spirit, and the witness of the church. Learn to do that in matters great and small and you will not only avoid the sin of presumption, you will develop the all-important life-skill of wise decision making.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 27:1

But David kept thinking to himself, “Someday Saul is going to get me. The best thing I can do is escape to the Philistines. Then Saul will stop hunting for me in Israelite territory, and I will finally be safe.”

Notice that the text says, “David kept thinking to himself” rather than “God spoke to David.” Now to be certain, the writer offers no overt judgment against David’s actions in this story. He simply explains what David did; he neither denounces nor defends it. But it seems certain that David is trying to help God out a little by making this decision to live among Israel’s arch-enemy, the Philistines.

Of course, David is getting one over on the Philistines. While he tells the Philistine king that he is raiding the Israelites—misleading the king into believing that David is burning all his bridges with Israel—he is actually raiding villages subject to the king. And the king never finds out because David and his men lay waste to those villages and kill all the witnesses. Such is the brutality of the ancient world.

Since he is inflicting great damage surreptitiously on Israel’s enemies, it would be easy to justify David’s actions. But again, we find no indication that this is what the Lord led David to do. And herein lies the danger of faith versus presumption. Faith is to hear from God and act in obedience; presumption is to act upon the assumption of God’s blessing without directly hearing from him. David had become weary of being relentlessly hunted by King Saul’s forces. He was living as a fugitive, hiding in caves, separated from all that he knew. Perhaps his decision to live among the Philistines was influenced by depression, or anger, or fear. That would be understandable. And for all of the above reasons, it seemed like a good idea.

But was it God’s idea?

In matters great and small, the possibility always exists that the decision is either a good idea or God’s idea. If it is God’s idea, it is a good idea. But if it is a good idea without it being God’s idea, and we jump on the opportunity, we have fallen into the sin of presumption. The sin of presumption is to believe that something is true without having any proof, in this case, to presume that God has spoken or sanctioned a thing when he has not.

That was the sin of King Saul (1 Samuel 13:7-14)—and he did that with increasingly frequency as he drifted from full devotion to God.

Now as it relates to you and me, it is very unlikely that we will hear a direct and audible voice from God in the decisions of our lives. Obviously, God gave us a rational brain and the ability to think logically, and he expects us to partner with him in making good and godly choices. The question then, is how do we make God-pleasing decisions; how do we resist the pull of a good idea in favor of obedience to God’s idea? Here is a path:

  1. Inquire of the Lord. Simple as that: ask God what he thinks. Pray—and make sure you are not just throwing up the Hail Mary prayers when you are in a jam and need a quick answer. Pray consistently and your decision-making acuity will increase exponentially.
  2. Align your prayers with God’s Word. God does speak today, but it is just that he does so mostly through the Bible. As you are consistently in the Word, you will be amazed how much it keeps your praying tethered to God’s Will.
  3. Watch circumstances. Is it obvious that the Lord is aligning events to be favorable to the decision you are facing? Look for where God is working and join him there.
  4. Listen to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. After all, Jesus did promise us that the Counselor would be not only with us, but in us, to lead us in ways that please the Lord.
  5. Involve the community of Christ. God has given you Christian friends and mentors in the Body of Christ, the church, to help you discern the Lord’s will. Ask them to pray with you and listen to their wise counsel.

These are five filters, if you will, that God has blessed and calls you to run all of your decisions through. All five are integrated; don’t just rely on one exclusively. Learn to process your choices, great and small, through these five filters until the process becomes second nature to you.

Do that—it’s a good idea that will lead you to embrace God’s idea in all matters.

Going Deeper With God: Facing a decision today? Practice running that decision through those five filters. I am pretty certain you will begin to see God’s idea in the process.

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Beware of Scriptural Manipulators

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

People can use the Bible to justify pretty much anything they want to do, but that doesn’t mean what they want to do is biblical. Be wary of those people; they are scriptural manipulators. Know the whole counsel of God’s Word, continually invite the Holy Spirit to guide you into divine truth, stay accountable to a faith community for your biblical interpretations, and never try to squeeze what God ultimately wants to do in your life into your methodology and timing.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 26:8-11

Abishai said to David “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin King Saul to the ground with one thrust of my spear; I won’t need to strike him twice.” David responded to Abishai “Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the LORD lives, the LORD himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But the LORD forbid that I should lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed.”

You can justify pretty much anything you want to do from the Bible, but that doesn’t mean what you want to do is scripturally justifiable. People do it all the time, and they are dead wrong. Time always proves it.

And the scary thing is, all kinds of well-intentioned people will line up to give you the green light in such matters. They’ll quote scripture, point out how circumstances have aligned in just the right way, and convince you of just how reasonable and right a certain course of action might be. But the problem is, God is not in the thing you want to do. And to go ahead with your plan will move you out from under the blessing of God, at best, and at worst, lead to disaster down the road.

God’s people do this all the time. They convince themselves that what they want to do is God’s will when it is not, and get any number of well-wishers to justify their plans when those plans are not God’s plans. That is why we see so many believers divorcing their spouse, going into business with an unbeliever, investing Kingdom resources in uncertain adventures, and moving forward with any number of good and godly sounding actions when, in fact, those plans are nothing more than their own will being done.

David was discerning enough to spot this kind of spiritual justification when it came up. What his confidant, Abishai, suggested seemed as right as rain on its face, but David knew that no matter how many spiritually sounding justifications could make it seem like the obvious thing to do, it would never have passed the scriptural smell test, it would have violated the inner voice of the Spirit, and it would have rushed God’s sovereign timing for resolving this issue and bringing his perfect plan for David’s life to pass.

Be wary of spiritual justifiers, and likewise, be on alert for scriptural manipulators. Know the whole counsel of God’s Word, continually invite the Holy Spirit to guide you into divine truth, stay accountable to a faith community for your biblical interpretations, and never try to squeeze what God ultimately wants to do in your life into your methodology and timing.That, my friends, never turns out well.

Here is the much better approach; it’s the one found in the sage advice of Proverbs 3:5-8,

Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil!
Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life!

Going Deeper With God: Memorize Proverbs 3:5-8 today. Then quote early and often everyday this week.

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Let Cooler Heads Prevail

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

God created us with a high capacity for passion, and that’s a wonderful thing. Much of the good that has been accomplished in the world began in passion. But while passion is a powerful spring, it’s a horrible regulator, and when it’s untempered, can do much harm. So how do you temper your passion? Internal and external controls—develop the fruit of self-control, but also give cool-headed friends access to the kill switch of your passion for those moments when your self-control get wobbly.

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 25:10-13

“Who is this fellow David?” Nabal sneered to the young men. “Who does this son of Jesse think he is? There are lots of servants these days who run away from their masters. Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I’ve slaughtered for my shearers and give it to a band of outlaws who come from who knows where?” So David’s young men returned and told him what Nabal had said. “Get your swords!” was David’s reply as he strapped on his own. Then 400 men started off with David to kill Nabal.

David heart was on fire with passion for God—he was characteristically a man after God’s own heart. But at times, David’s heart was on fire with passion for other things, too. That got David into trouble on more than one occasion. 1 Samuel 25 is one of those occasions.

Nabal, a man whose name meant “fool,” foolishly refused to share provision with David and his men. David had politely requested it, and it would have been customary for Nabal to graciously grant such a request since David’s small army had afforded Nabal and his ranching operation protection from thieves and marauders that harassed the locals. Not only did Nabal refuse, he insulted David to the men who had made the request. When they reported back to David what this fool had said, David’s knee-jerk response was, “strap ‘em on boys, we going to make Nabal pay up—with his life.”

Now it just so happened that this brutish man, Nabal, had a lovely and wise wife, Abigail. Sensing the looming disaster, she skillfully intervenes—intercedes really—with David and averts the death of her husband and destruction of all that he owned. However, when Nabal found out what his wife had done, rather than react with gratitude, he went into such a rage that he had a stroke or a heart attack, or something really bad, and died!

Among the many streams of life application from which we might drink in this story, the one I want to call to you attention is David’s unregulated passion. Let it stand as a warning to us that when we let anger rule our emotions, we are in danger of allowing it to ruin our lives. Anger almost ruined David’s life on this occasion—had he followed through on it, he would have been guilty of murder.

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that passion is a powerful spring, but a bad regulator. It will get you motivated, but don’t depend on it to manage you. David’s passion got away from him—he let it regulate his emotions—and it led him to the brink of doing something really dumb.

Which, by the way, I think, is why we love David so much—he was so thoroughly human. In David, we don’t get the polished ideal to which we aspire but never attain, we get a rough-edged reality in a meandering journey of spiritual transformation. And we can relate to a guy like that. You’ve got to love a guy who’s capable of unmitigated dumbness. But you certainly don’t want to follow his dumb ways. In this moment, David was full of passion but empty of God—in an instant, he’s become a fool. He was on the verge of becoming Saul.

And that is where Abigail comes in. She steps in and puts David in touch again with the beauty of God as David had done for Saul in the cave (1 Samuel 24:16-21). Through Abigail, David realized who he was, he recognized what he was about to do, and he remembered what his life was destined for. Thankfully, on that day, cooler heads prevailed.

God created us with a high capacity for passion, and that is a wonderful thing. Much of the good that has been accomplished in the world began in passion. But, as Emerson noted, while passion is a powerful spring, it is a horrible regulator, and when it is untempered, can do much harm. How do we temper our passion? Internal and external controls—we must develop the fruit of self-control internally then empower cool-headed friends externally and give them access to the kill switch of passion.

Make sure to cultivate a cool head. But on the occasion when emotions get the best of you and you shift into hothead, make sure you check in with your Abigail.
Without exception and at all times, let cooler heads prevail.

Going Deeper With God: Who is your “Abigail?” Believe, you need one, and so do I!

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Bitter or Better, You Choose

ThanksLiving: 365 Days of Gratitude

When you are in the cave of difficulty and discouragement, you must decide whether your experience will make you bitter or better. David could have looked at Saul as the cause for his cave. Instead, he chose to see God. That’s why Saul neither defined nor dominated his experience, because for David, the cave was full of God, not Saul. If you allow Saul to dominate your cave—whatever your Saul is: disease, divorce, disappointment, or death—you will be disillusioned; you will grow bitter. If you choose to see your cave as the place where God is, you will be deepened; you will get better!

Going Deep // Focus: 1 Samuel 24:1-3

After Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the Desert of En Gedi.” So Saul took three thousand chosen men from all Israel and set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats. He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave.”

Once again, David finds himself in the cave. Once again, he is just a step ahead of death. Once gain, King Saul is hunting David down like a dog, determined to do away with what he insanely perceives as a threat to his monarchy. And once again, God delivers David from Saul, and from death.

This isn’t the first cave for David. Nor is it the first time he barely escapes death. As we saw in 1 Samuel 22:1, God had been preparing David for a later date with destiny when he would indeed serve as Israel’s king in Saul’s place—and the cave was the classroom for David. In many ways, this is where David learned to be king: he learned to hear from God and he learned to totally depend on him, even for his very life. Hiding in this cave of extreme adversity, David found that in God, there was no greater helper. Hearing from God and trusting in God—two qualities for a great and godly king that David would become, and two qualities for a great and godly life that God has destined you to live.

But that makes it sound too easy for David. It was not. Learning to hear and trust is hard work, it is a grind, it is a moment-by-moment battle with the flesh. And one of the things that David surely had to battle was a sense of abandonment and bitterness. God had thrust him into the limelight as a national hero and anointed him as future king by none other the great prophet-judge Samuel, so why had the Lord now abandoned him and failed on his promises? Certainly, David battled those thoughts, but at the end of the day, he gained victory over them. At the end of the day, he had determined to throw in with God rather than either his feelings or his circumstances. He decided to trust the promises of God.

When you are in the cave, you have got to decide whether your experience will make you bitter or better. You will either grow brittle, insecure, and disillusioned with God, or you’ll grow stronger, more confident and go deeper with God. We all know people who have either grown disillusioned or deeper in hard times; the cave is the place where they become bitter or better. What’s the difference? It boils down to the perspective they choose by which they interpret their cave of difficulty.

From a human perspective, David could have looked at Saul as the cause for his cave. Instead, he chose to see God. That’s why Saul neither defined nor dominated David’s experience. He didn’t kill Saul when he had the chance (1 Samuel 24:5-7) because for David, the cave was full of God, not Saul.

If you choose to see your cave as the place where God is—that is, you focus not on what is happening to you, but on what God is doing in you—you will be deepened; you will get better! If you allow Saul to dominate your cave—whatever your Saul is: disease, divorce, disappointment, or death—you will be disillusioned; you will grow bitter.

Who is filling your cave—God or Saul? Just remember, what dominates your cave will define your experience! You have got to decide what that will be. You are the only one who can make the choice. So choose God—it is the only good choice you have.

Going Deeper With God: Are you in a cave of discouragement and disillusionment? As hard as this might be to hear, choose to see God. Let him define your cave experience, not your Saul of circumstances.

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The Power Of Playing Second Fiddle

Reflect:
I Samuel 23:7-24:22

“And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.’” ~I Samuel 23:16-17

Though Jonathan was King Saul’s son and heir to the throne, he stripped himself of every symbol of royalty to show favor and friendship to one who was his rival—David. Instead of jealousy, which would have been natural, he gave David strength. Instead of protecting his own interests, Jonathan promoted David’s welfare. Instead of siding with his father, he defended David, even risking his own life. Instead of minimizing the damage his father was trying to inflict upon David, Jonathan openly and honestly admitted the king’s wrong. Instead of abandoning David, Jonathan became a source of encouragement.

David’s was at the point of breaking. I’m sure he thought about giving up. If he had, he would have ceased to be Jonathan’s rival, and Jonathan knew that. Yet Jonathan went to David and strengthened him in the Lord anyway. Jonathan was content to be second fiddle if he could help advance David to first chair. Was that because Jonathon viewed himself as unworthy or somehow lesser than David? Was there some self-loathing at play here? Not at all; Jonathan is simply responding to what he saw God doing in David’s life.

How rare does a friend put himself or herself in the background for the sake of another’s God-ordained advancement. Jonathan’s relationship with David was truly an altruistic friendship. It was not based on what he could get from his friend, but what he could give. That is truly a sacrificial friendship—and it is what God values, expects and blesses.

Which leads to a very important, and challenging application: Normally at this point we would think about how we might acquire a Jonathan-type friend in our lives. Perhaps the more important thing would be to ask ourselves how we could be a Jonathan-like friend to someone in our relational sphere.

The truth is, if you want to have the kind of friendship Jonathan offered David, you need to be that kind of friend. The best vitamin for that kind of loyal, life-giving friendship: B-1! Each of us desires someone like Jonathan in our lives—and it’s appropriate to pray that way. But more than that, each of us should pray that God will make us a Jonathan to some David.

“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” ~Aristotle

Reflect and Apply: Someone has said that Jonathan’s friendship bracketed and contained Saul’s evil, and his friendship entered David’s soul in a way Saul’s hatred never did. That’s the power of a Jonathan-like friendship. To whom can you offer that level of friendship? Why not start today?

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If Past Performance Is Any Indicator…

Essential 100—Read:
I Samuel 16:1-18:16

“The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” ~I Samuel 17:37

Do you ever wonder where David got his courage to fight Goliath? Was he just a naturally brave warrior, experienced in battle, confident in his hand-to-hand technique and just spoiling for a fight with an oversized blowhard, or was there something else?

There was something else! David, though he was just a young man, had walked with God in an unusually intimate way. Prior to facing the Philistine giant, David had spent countless hours in the quiet and solitude of the wilderness watching over his father’s sheep. Hour after monotonous hour of herding sheep, passing the time by plinking Coke bottles with his slingshot—well, maybe he had other targets—writing songs of worship and talking to God, were interspersed with moments of sheer danger when wild animals would attack the flock. In those heart-pounding moments, the only thing standing between the vicious animals and the decimation of his father’s livelihood was David—and God!

David’s time as a shepherd turned out to be a critical period of preparation for what was to come, because it was then that David had come to experience the continual presence and faithfulness of God. In those moments of distress and danger, the strong help of the Almighty had never failed; time and again, God stood by David, helped him, saved him, and the young shepherd had come to know in the depth of his being that the One who walked with him was a covenantly faithful God.

So why was David so courageous when he stood before Goliath? He was simply drawing upon the reservoir of God-confidence that had piled up in his heart. He just knew that he knew that the same God who delivered him from every past danger would deliver him from this present and present one. God’s past performance was a surefire indicator of what was about to happen. How could it be any other way?

So, have you got a Goliath in your life? I’ll bet you do—a big, hairy, intimidating problem breathing down you neck! You see, Goliath is still around, though he comes in a variety of forms: an impossible financial situation, a nasty boss or a threatening co-worker, a rebellious child and or belligerent spouse, a physical problem or a helpless sick loved one. All of us face Goliaths, and the natural thing to do is what the Israelites did: shrink back in depression, cower in fear and run from the battle.

But that would be to live way beneath the level of confidence, joy and victory that God has willed for his people. So learn a lesson from David—Goliath may still be around, but so is God. He hasn’t changed. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. And he is still a covenantly faithful God—he can’t help himself.

Has he helped you in the past? Has he provided for you? Healed you? Protected and delivered you? Has he brought you this far? Why would he not do today, and tomorrow, what he has done in the past?

He will! So put your confidence in him. Get your eye off Goliath and on to God, because the One who delivered you from the paw of the lion and the bear will deliver you from that nasty old Philistine. It’s just what God does!

“He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.” ~Matthew Henry

Reflect and Apply: What is your current Goliath? Spend a moment reflecting how God has taken care of your past giants. Then…go find five smooth stones!