The Rise and Fall of King Saul

Sorry it has been awhile since I posted anything, but I actually started working on this entry about 3 weeks ago! It's just taken me a while to find the time to finish it.

So in January, I started leading a Bible study on the life of David. Now I have read these stories before, but only in a casual way. So it really has been rewarding to take a closer look at the Life of King David. Since Saul the first king of Israel plays such an important part in David's story, it only seemed right to start by taking a quick look at him.

And what we see is that Saul started out as a good king. After his anointing as king in 1 Samuel 10, we read about Saul's first challenge to his authority and subsequent victory. In 1 Samuel 11, Nahash the Ammonite lays seige to Jabesh Gilead. When Saul hears of this, he rallies his army and defeats the Ammonites.

Now two things stand out to me about this event. The first is what Saul was doing when he received the word of the attack on Jabesh Gilead. 1 Samuel 11:5 tells us that Saul was returning home with his oxen after working in his field. Wow! The King of Israel doing the work of a common laborer. At this point Saul was still grounded with his people.

The second is Saul's response in victory. 1 Samuel 11:12-15 some of the people wanted to kill those who had opposed Saul in becoming king. And with his popularity due to his military victory, Saul could have easily ordered this. Instead, Saul told them, "No one shall be put to death today, for this day the LORD has rescued Israel." And then Samuel taking Saul's lead, leads the people in the worship of the LORD.

But what a drastic comparision can be made between the Saul of chapter 11 and chapter 15.

Of course by chapter 15, we already know things are not going to end well for Saul. In 1 Samuel 13, his impatients in waitning on Samuel and preforming a sacrifice on his own has already led to the foretelling that the kingdom will not remain with his family. And in 1 Samuel 14 we see that Saul is not a man who can keep an oath before God (even though if he had, it would have meant the death of Jonathan).

However I believe the greatest break from God occurs in 1 Samuel 15. Here we see that Saul is given strick instructions on how to fight the Amalekites, but doesn't follow them. Instead, he spares the king's life and he takes plunder in livestock.

But notice that when Samuel hears of what Saul has done, where is Saul to be found? Verse 12 says that Saul has gone to Carmel to set up a monument (do we dare say idol?) to himself because of his victory! Where is the man that insisted of giving God the credit for victory in chapter 13?

And then to make his rebellion against God complete, he lies twice about why he allowed livestock to be taken. First in verse 21 he says the best were kept in order to sacrafice them to God. To which Samuel gives the famous line, "to obey is better than sacrafice." The second lie occurs in verse 24 when he says he allowed his men to take the animals as plunder because he was afraid of them. Saul, a man who stood literally a head and shoulders above everyone else in Israel, is more afriad of his own men than he is of God? Now you see why I call this the second lie.

So is it any wonder that in the next chapter, God has Samuel select the sheperd boy David as a new anointed one. It will be another 40 years before Saul's rebellion against God leads to his own suicide in 1 Samuel 31 and David takes the throne, but the seperation is complete here in chapter 15.

The story of Saul is the story of a man who started off right with the Lord, but allowed the power of his position to lead him astray.

Darkness and Light

The people walking in darkness

have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.

Isaiah 9:2

A week ago today I was sitting in the dark quite literally. We lost electrical power as an ice storm covered Northeast Oklahoma. By Tuesday last week, nearly 500,000 households were without power across the state. They are calling it the biggest power outage in Oklahoma history.

Being without electricity to light or heat my house for over four days has given me the opportunity to more deeply reflect on the above words from Isaiah.

The first thing I realized was that I had only thought I had known what darkness was until this past week. The fact is that many of us have never really experienced true darkness. Sure we go outside at night, but with the street lights and lighted business signs there is so much "light pollution" in our towns and cities that we have trouble seeing even three stars in the sky at night. Well last Monday night, after going out to eat at a local Chic-Fil-A that was lucky enough to still have power, my wife and I were coming down what is usually a busy four lane road. We were the only car on it, and although we knew we were in the middle of our city, it felt like we were in the middle of now where. And as we came to stop at an intersection, my wife asked "where are we?"

The answer - we were less than a 1/2 mile from our home. But with no traffic signal light, street lights, or retail business lights, the intersection was unrecognizable. I told my wife that there should be a gas station on this corner and over there across the street should be our favorite ice cream store. And yet it was too dark to see either business and so we felt lost even at one of the most familiar of all places to us.

Things only got worst when we made it to our house. We entered without any flashlights. So we began stumbling around the furniture in the living room hoping to run our hand across one of the three we had left somewhere in the room. Only then could we find the matches to light the candles so that light could shine once again in the darkness and bring some degree of comfort to us. (By the way, after this experience, we always took flashlights with us when we left the house.)

Of course Isaiah had no idea about light bulbs and electricity. He did know about darkness. He knew all too well the disorienting effects of darkness when trying to walk on a cloud covered moonless night. He also knew the comfort that even the smallest of lights could bring as it shown brightly in the darkness.

So is it any wonder that he chose to use the images of darkness and light to write this message of hope to the people of God. Isaiah wrote these words during the time of King Ahaz of Judah. It was a time of spiritual and political darkness in the land of Judah.

Spiritually Ahaz was one of the detestable kings of Judah turning away from the worship of the LORD and adopting pagan practices which included the sacrificing of at least one of his own sons..

Politically Judah was in a war with the northern kingdom of Israel (also called Ephraim) and Israel's strong ally Syria (Aram). The war wasn't going well for Judah. Isaiah tries to tell King Ahaz to not be afraid and to trust in the LORD. Rather than listen to Isaiah, King Ahaz allies himself with Assyria, a growing power to the northeast of Syria. The immediate result of this alliance is that Assyria defeats Syria and Israel. The long term effect is that Judah has now become a vassal state and when they no longer want to pay their yearly tribute to Assyria during the reign of King Ahaz's son Hezekiah, Assyria attacks and conquers all the fortified cities of Judah. (You can read King Ahaz's story in 2 Kings 16, 2 Chronicles 28, and Isaiah 7:1-8:4.)

It was in the midst of these dark times that Isaiah says that a great light has dawned for the people walking and living in the shadow of the valley of death.

What was the light that Isaiah saw? It was a child - more specifically a son. (Isaiah 9:6) But who is the child that Isaiah refers too? Some argue that it was Hezekiah Ahaz's son. Hezekiah did reopen the temple and knocked down the idols that his father had built and is considered a good king.

But others say no it was Josiah, Ahaz's grandson. Because under Josiah, the temple is cleaned up and remodeled. During this process a book of the law is found. When Josiah hears it read, he immediately calls for a national repentance and orders that Passover once again be observed.
But perhaps both arguments are wrong. Look at the titles that Isaiah gives to this child: Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace, Almighty God, Everlasting Father.

Now maybe one could argue giving the title of Wonderful Counselor and Prince of Peace to Hezekiah or Josiah. But would Isaiah call either of them Almighty God or Everlasting Father? I doubt it. It's as if Isaiah is writing beyond himself. He is writing about something that he himself cannot imagine or even fully understand.

It was the early church who first saw that the child born to bring a great light to the people walking in darkness was born not to Ahaz or Hezekiah in Jerusalem, but to Mary and Joseph in a stable in Bethlehem.

The second thing I learned from my ice storm experience is the great joy that occurs when light does return to your home. When the lights came back on in my house, I couldn't help but call my parents and some of my friends and share with them the good news. After 4 1/2 days of no lights, I really wanted to do the happy dance right there in my living room.

This makes me think how much more is the good news that the light of the world has stepped into the darkness of my heart. And how much more should I be willing to share that good news with people who are walking in the land of darkness.