1 Samuel 13
Saul quickly slipped away into defensive
mode as king of Israel. He was interested in preserving what he had—he had no
vision to expand to regain territory lost to the enemy. He didn't possess the
kind of faith that moved him to push back enemies. He kept a relatively small
army divided between himself and his son, Jonathan, because he wasn't planning
on fighting anytime soon! Jonathan was
much more eager to engage the enemy.
When Jonathan attacked a Philistine
outpost, it stirred a response from the Philistine army. Saul took credit for his son’s action and
called up all the men of Israel to resist the Philistines.
The Philistine army far out-‘gunned’ the
Israelites. Once Israel saw the extent of Philistine superiority, they melted
away and took cover wherever they could find it—so Saul was left with a severely
reduced force. Clearly Saul and Israel figured that the only way to beat the
Philistines was to have a superior force—but it didn't seem to occur to them to
rely on God.
Samuel had told Saul to wait for him to
come and make sacrifices to God on behalf of Israel and to seek God’s victory.
But every day that went by saw more and more of Saul’s army desert him.
At that point, with still no sign of Samuel,
Saul took matters into his own hand. He
took on the priest’s role and offered the sacrifices. Just as he was doing so, Samuel
arrived—shocked that Saul should be so presumptuous as to offer sacrifices he
had no business handling.
Saul makes the excuses that he was losing
his men and Samuel was late, and the Philistines were growing in strength with
each passing day.
Samuel rebukes Saul because he ignored God’s command to wait. If he had waited on God in
faith, God would have established his kingship to the following generations. As it was, he had punched a hole in the
bottom of his own boat and his kingship was sinking fast. God was already preparing the next man to be
king—a man who cared about God’s ways and would be obedient.
Saul was left with 600 nervous
soldiers—there was no way he could fight the Philistines. It seems that the
Philistines didn't even bother fighting with Saul—they just exerted some more
pressure on Israel—sending out raiding parties to scare the Israelite
towns. One of their strategies was to
confiscate weapons from Israel and to capture or kill Israel’s iron and
bronze-workers (blacksmiths) so that there was no one who could make swords and
spears—or even to sharpen their plows and other farming equipment. In this way they made Israel militarily and
economically weak. Saul and his son were
the only ones with weapons!
Things to consider:
·
Why did Saul’s faith evaporate?
·
Why did Jonathan’s initial attack fizzle out?
·
Why was it important that Saul did not act as a priest, but
waited for Samuel?
·
How was Saul responding to Samuel’s mentoring?
·
Why was Saul’s decision to force himself to make the
sacrifice, the one that sunk his kingship?
·
What happened to Israel when they gave ground to the enemy?
·
In what ways does Saul’s failure warn us about failing as a
man of God?
·
What might it mean for a Christian or a Church to have Saul’s
policy of ‘maintenance’ rather than ‘expansion’.
·
What weapons is the Enemy keen to take away from
Christians?
·
What does this episode teach us about how to resist the
Devil effectively?
·
How would a ‘man after God’s heart’ have responded to this
challenge?
·
Jesus is the ultimate ‘man after God’s heart’, how should
we engage with him in fighting the enemy?
