Feeling Some Passion

1 Samuel 11.

God created a situation that ignited Saul’s passion for God’s cause. [Lack of godly passion is the underlying cause of our boredom, slackness, fear and defeat.]

The Ammonites picked on Jabesh-Gilead, laying siege to that town in Israel.

The people’s first response was to try and negotiate their way out of trouble—but the Ammonites’ demands were too humiliating: the blinding of one eye of every person. It is a sign of the times that these Israelites first thought of compromise when threatened by their enemies. It seems that God was not their first refuge. They had come to think only in terms of material and physical resources. Also, they had no thoughts about God’s honour. It never occurred to them to plead with God on the grounds that HE was being dishonoured by the attacks of the Ammonites. It was all about them and their petty little world.

[We can become so spiritually cold that we only think of our troubles in terms of our personal discomfort and whether we have the natural resources to overcome them. We do the maths…but leave out God. We scheme and figure ways to minimise the damage caused by our troubles…but we don’t fall on our face before God.  We weigh up the shame we are prepared to endure…but we don’t consider the shame our situation brings to God’s name.  We don’t plead that God will correct us and defeat our enemies for the sake of HIS glory.]

When the news about Jabesh-Gilead’s predicament reached other places, people wept—but they neither prayed to God nor acted.  A defeated mindset had settled over Isreal.  They didn’t like the attacks of their enemies, but they couldn’t see any way out of them.

[Right now, the Church is under siege (like the town of Jabesh-Gilead). The world is demanding that the Church admit that the Bible is a bigoted, hate-filled book that has nothing relevant to say to 21^st Century people. Some Christians are wavering and prepared to water down Bible truths--prepared to become one-eyed—in hope that the world will leave them alone.]

But this disaster was the moment God had orchestrated for Saul and Israel’s benefit.  Saul started to feel something at last! Indignation gripped Saul.  The Holy Spirit rushed on him so that he burned with anger against the shame that was being visited upon God’s people. He took strong action. He demanded that Israel arise and resist the Ammonites. The butchered oxen emphasised the seriousness of the call to arms—oxen were costly—and this was a costly call.

God put a serious attitude upon the people and the men of Israel armed themselves and stepped up—330,000 of them. The Ammonites were caught completely by surprise and their force was decimated.

God used this situation to establish Saul’s credibility as a leader in the eyes of Israel (and her enemies).  He also used the situation to establish Saul’s belief that God could work in and through him for the sake of His name.

[Look around you—listen—observe what havoc the enemy is working. Stir the ashes of your spiritual passion for God. Feel pity for the oppressed. Feel indignant that Christ is slandered and portrayed as feeble. Look for a fight that he will prepare for you—something you can pray against, speak his word into and pull others in to struggle against.  Will you let the enemy poke your eye out? Will you draw a line and say, ‘NO, I won’t sacrifice the truth for an expensive truce with evil’?  Saul was not strong or confident in himself—but when the Spirit of God rushed on him, he became a man.] 

If you ask for the Holy Spirit, your Heavenly Father will give him to you. (Luke 11.13).