I enjoy the Old Testament and find wonderful testimonies of those who followed God and those who chose not to follow Him. In one is this of King Saul.
1 Samuel 15: 10-35 NKJV 10 Now the word of the LORD
came to Samuel, saying, 11 “ I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king,
for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My
commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the LORD all night.
12 So
when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying,
“Saul went t Carmel and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has
gone on around, passed by and gone down to Gilgal.” 13 Then Samuel went to
Saul, & Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the LORD! I have performed
the commandment of the LORD.” 14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating
of the sheep in my ears, & the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” 15 And
Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared
the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the LORD your God; and th
rest we have utterly destroyed.”
16 Then
Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet!” And I will tell you what the LORD said to me
last night.” And he said to him, “Speak on.” 17 so Samuel said, “When you were
little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not
the LORD anoint you king over Israel? 18”Now the LORD sent you on a mission, and
said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites & fight against
them until they are consumed.’ 19 ‘Why then did you not obey the voice of the
LORD? Why did yo swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the
LORD?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the LORD,
and gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me & brought back Agag king
of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.” 21
“But the people took of the plunder, sheep & oxen , the best of the things
which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice to the LORD your God in
Gilgal.”
Yes, Saul has his answers ready. He accuses the people he was to serve as the ones who chose to take the plunder when Saul was told differently!
22 So
Samuel said: ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
& to heed better than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of
witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have
rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king.”
24 Then
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of
the LORD & your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin, & return with me, that I may
worship the LORD.“ 26 But Samuel said to
Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD,
and the LORD has rejected you from being
king over Israel.”
From verse 24, Saul is revealing he had sinned and on top of that he did it because he feared the people! Many leaders end up in that destructive place when they rather follow man than God. In verse 25 he asking Samuel to pardon his sin and return with him so that he Saul may worship the LORD. Would that be collusion? Terrible!
Then Samuel spoke that he would not return with Saul for he Saul had rejected the word of the LORD and the LORD had rejected Saul from being king over Israel.
Yeah, not a good place to be when it was God who placed Saul in the position!
27 And
as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, & it
tore. 28 So Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from
you today & has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29
“and also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man,
that He should relent.
The kingdom in an instant was torn from Saul!
30 Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now,
please before the elders of my people and before Israel, & return with me,
that I may worship the LORD your God.” 31 So Samuel turned back after Saul,
& Saul worshiped the LORD. 32 Then Samuel said, “ Bring Agag king of the Amalekites
here to me.” So Agag came to him cautiously. And Agag said, “Surely the
bitterness of death is past.” 33 But Samuel said, “As our sword has made women
childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked
Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. 34 Then Samuel went up to Ramah &
Saul went up to his house at Gibeah of Saul. 35 And Samuel went no more to see
Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul & for
the LORD regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.
Still within his whining Saul is desiring to keep this good standard with the people not fearing God. Saul wanted to look good among his peers. Samuel goes with Saul only to do the thing that Saul was to do. He was to kill Agag so that he would not bring disasters on the Jewish people.
Samuel did not see Saul again till Saul had died.
This gives details of the mournful heart Samuel held for Saul. Every true believer in God will carry his heart for the lost. Those failing to see or hear God's heed for safety through salvation brings them at the end of their days in utter ruin and death.
If Saul had had a godly sorrow and not wanting to move from following God, his life might have been different. Still God desires a man after His own heart. And that is one who will worship Him in the darkest hour, will pray when no words come, and continue to seek when He seems not to be present. Still God is with us. He will never leave us nor abandon us. Ours is to seek with a whole heart to fervently see with the light of His word truths that set us free and keep us free never to be entangled in the snares of wrong words.
For Saul was snared by his words and it was those to please man and he thought he could use them on Samuel. No, that did not work for him and it will not work for us!
May we truly hold a godly sorrow that we will not want to hurt our Father's heart by continuing to seek our plans instead of obeying His plans.
2 Corinthians 7:10 For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death.
For that wall that was built to keep God out is to come down when we truly have a godly sorrow of repentance. It is turning away from bad behavior that keeps the wall up between us. God desires us to come to Him and tell the sorrows of our heart and repent for the mistakes we have made that has separated us from Him.
Receiving Jesus as Lord turns us away from our past not to do the past again. OUR lives are new in God with the heart conversion. Those who desire to dwell in their past, desire to live in those past sins , and to revisit those "old haunts" will find the wrong road to travel. If you or I sorrow for lost goods, lost friends, the death of relatives, then our heart is in that place. Choosing to have friends over God is sad. I would rather have God for He is my life. But I am certain He has godly friends for me just like He has them for you.
Reveling in that past thing can cause disease and increases the risk of more complaints in that thing. We are to put away evil thinking and evil speaking! Saul blamed the people but truly Saul's heart was to please the people of his kingdom and not God!
A true godly sorrow will produce reform in our thinking and our action.
Pleasing God is looking toward tomorrow and relishing the pain of yesterday. We have all lost someone but I would hope that the best that Jesus gave is not forgotten or hidden of all the past hurts, the past losses, or the past homes we might have had. Our best day is to live in today, be thankful and expect tomorrow to be better by the hand of a great God who is for us and not against us!
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