Saul, Recognized for His Ability

Every parent works without rest for the sake of the family. It is because of a parent’s labor that a home stays warm and rings with happy laughter. Hard as the work is, parents think of their children and are glad. They resolve to live their best for the sake of their children’s future, and they want to pass on what they have, however little, so that the next generation is spared hardship. Knowing how harsh life is, they spare no effort to equip their sons and daughters to find their place in society and make something of their lives.

Of course, some parents buy their children everything so that they never go without. But it is also wisdom to open a way for children to meet the rough world head-on, so that they learn that the life ahead of them is not an easy one. When young people work to earn their own pocket money and meet all kinds of people, they discover where they fall short; they cry over unfairness and take their share of scolding, and through it all they will learn a great deal and grow. The more hardship they meet, the more they will realize how much they have to be thankful for in living under their parents’ protection.

Someone who has learned about the world only from books is lacking when it comes to relationships, winning another person’s heart, or handling the unexpected. Those skills, dealing with people and getting things done, have to be learned on the ground, which is why someone with no experience of society can never know them. Unless we learn life firsthand by passing through hardship and the trials that refine us, we cannot read people’s hearts; and without the ability to weigh matters broadly, we lack the wisdom to persevere for the sake of the future. So rather than keeping children from going out into the world, it will do them far more good if, while they are still under our wing, we help them come through hardship and refining well.

How are you raising your children? Do you rush to take care of everything the moment they ask, and feel uneasy unless you do even the things they could do for themselves? That turns a child into a helpless fool who can do nothing, and it keeps them from seeing the world in its breadth. You may do it out of love, but you must realize that you are making your children unfit for life in society.

God chose Saul and made him king, but because he knew Saul could not rule with confidence unless the people recognized his ability, he helped him gain recognition as king.

In 1 Samuel 10:26-27, when Saul went home to Gibeah, those whose hearts God had touched acknowledged him as king and went with him. But among the worthless fellows there were some who despised and mocked him, asking how this man could save them. Saul had never shown the people what he could do as king, and so he had no choice but to hold his peace while these troublemakers jeered and laughed at him.

To have their parents acknowledge how hard they are studying, children have to bring home a report card with high marks. Without some fruit to show, they cannot win recognition. Why did Jesus take up the cross? He is God the Son and the Savior, that is true; yet by showing people the power of the resurrection he was acknowledged as having the power that belongs to God alone, and he brought his saints to an absolute faith. Saul had indeed been anointed as king, but because he had shown the people nothing, he had to endure their mockery.

For Saul’s sake God made use of a single event. Just then the Ammonites invaded Jabesh Gilead, the home of the half-tribe of Manasseh east of the Jordan. Nahash the Ammonite was hard of heart: even when the men of Jabesh offered to surrender, he would not accept it, and he threatened that he would take their surrender only if every Israelite’s right eye was gouged out. This crisis became the occasion that won Saul recognition as king.

Long before, when Moses went down to Egypt and told Pharaoh he would lead the people out, Pharaoh hardened his heart, and in the end he suffered the agony of the death of the firstborn. But through that event the Israelites came out of Egypt. Just as God used Pharaoh’s disobedient heart to establish Moses as the leader of Israel, he used the hardened heart of Nahash to work so that Saul would be recognized as king.

The Ammonites were descended from Lot, Abraham’s nephew, born of Lot and his younger daughter after he escaped from Sodom. God did not give their land to Israel as an inheritance, since they came from Lot. Even so, they never grasped the depth of God’s love; after Israel settled in Canaan they went on harassing them and picking fights, until at last David conquered them.

Just as God used hard-hearted Nahash as his instrument in setting up an earthly king, if you obstruct God’s work with a hardened heart, he will use you as the tool by which someone else is fully established as one of his people. God used Saul to establish David, and he used the greed of Nahash to set Saul on the throne. I hope you will examine your own faith and ask how this God is using you now. If you look at the life you are living, you will be able to tell whether you have become a tool for building up others, or whether you are being built up through them.

The elders of Jabesh obtained seven days’ respite from Nahash. In seven days, like it or not, they would have to fight the Ammonites. But they were making a choice that strayed from God’s will. When war broke out, they should have sought out Samuel or Saul, the men God had set over them, and asked for help. Instead they sent messengers throughout all Israel, looking for any deliverer who would help them on the spot. A man of prayer stood right in front of them and an anointed king was among them, and still the faith of the Israelites went no further.

When the people of Gibeah heard from the messengers about the war at Jabesh, far from helping, they wept all the louder in fear. Israel acted this way because they had no faith. They had forsaken the God who had led them all along, and so the nations terrified them; the almighty God was with them, yet they did not lean on him. They wept, thinking there was no one to help them. Samuel had proclaimed God’s word about setting a king over them and the rules of the kingdom, and they themselves had hailed the king; yet in their hearts they did not truly accept Saul as king. Why? Because they did not believe God, they would not accept Saul either.

Judges 19-20 tells how the Benjamites once suffered at the hands of their own kinsmen in Israel, until only six hundred of them were left alive. With the other tribes having all but wiped them out, they could not even marry. At that time the men of Jabesh Gilead and the women were put to death because they had not come to the assembly, and four hundred young virgins were taken from there and given as wives to the Benjamites at Gibeah. So the wives of the Benjamites all came from Jabesh Gilead. For those women, who had married into the tribe of Benjamin, the news that the Ammonites had attacked Jabesh Gilead must have been more pain than they could bear.

Just then Saul, coming in from the field behind the oxen, heard the news of the war. When he heard that the Ammonites had attacked, Saul realized that the time had come for him to step out in earnest for his nation and his people. We need this kind of wisdom, the wisdom to recognize the right moment. It is God who gives the wisdom to see an opportunity for what it is and act on it, so we should wait quietly and prepare well until our spiritual eyes are opened to see it.

In verses 6-7, Saul, greatly moved by God, took a yoke of oxen, cut them in pieces, and sent them to the Israelites, who were looking to men instead of depending on God. What Saul received was not human emotion but grace from God, and so it carried a fullness greater than any human being could contain.

When Saul told the people that whoever did not come out after him and Samuel would have their oxen treated the same way, the people were overawed by the king’s authority and all came out before him. Here we find God standing on Saul’s side, helping him in every way so that the people would recognize his ability as king. God was at work so that Saul could fully take up the role of king; but in the end it was for the sake of his own work that God made Saul a strong king and caused the people to serve him. Had Saul understood this work of God as David did, he would not have lived proudly for his own righteousness once he held the king’s power. In the end, we must know that gaining power as king and being rejected for sinning against God both lie within God’s authority.

When Saul heard the news of the war, the Spirit of God came on him mightily and his heart grew bold, so that he no longer feared the Ammonites or the Israelites who had mocked him. This is a boldness that only those who have received God’s grace can have. What this shows us is that Saul’s courage and the people’s fear were both permitted by God. So if you have come to know that the boldness and the fear you feel as you go through life are emotions God himself uses, you ought to hold a fuller faith all the more. Such fullness of faith will help you take up your calling and live a spiritual life.

Once Saul trusted God and grew bold, something astonishing happened: three hundred thousand of the children of Israel and thirty thousand men of Judah came out before Saul as one man and waited for his command. If Saul had not waited for the time God gave, and had instead gone around among the people trying to win recognition as king, he would not have earned their respect so easily. When God works to help, it is this easy. With a single event God set Saul over them, and by showing the boldness and valor a king should have, Saul gained authority. Only God can do this. If God turns his attention to you, he himself will do it all, raising you up and bringing you the respect and help of others. Whatever the matter, receiving God’s help is a far easier way than trying to solve it yourself. For God always grants his blessing very easily and simply, in ways no human being could ever manage.

Romans 1:3-4

3concerning his Son, who was born of the offspring of David according to the flesh, 4who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

That Jesus would come from the line of David was something God had promised beforehand through the prophets. Jesus came to this earth because the souls who must be saved were bound by sin; he came to lay down his life at God’s command and to conquer death. Since he is by nature the Son of God, Jesus had no need to display power to prove that he was the Son. But because he took on flesh, accomplished the work of atonement, and rose from among the dead, he claimed his place as the Son by power.

In Romans 8:34 the apostle Paul asks who is there to condemn, since it is Christ Jesus who died and, more than that, was raised again, who is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Jesus ascended and sits at the right hand of God, and because he fulfilled God’s covenant with nothing but obedience in his heart, he will one day be the Judge. Those who believe in his atonement and have been born again through faith have been wholly transformed by the Holy Spirit, and so the atonement and resurrection of Jesus bear directly on how the saints live. It is the fullness of the Holy Spirit that causes them to change their lives and to spread the gospel.

If Jesus had refused the cross or had not risen, the faith we now hold would be no different from the religions of the world. But because Jesus overcame death and rose again, those who live the resurrection life go on with hope and assurance of salvation. God stands wholly behind those who live with the hope of heaven and the assurance of eternal life.

If you are sure by faith that Jesus is at the right hand of God, you are no longer the person who lived according to the flesh. But if, after receiving the Lord, you still cannot leave the life of the flesh behind, you will not be able to expect the blessings of heaven. The world has not changed at all, even though Jesus died and rose again for it. But one who lives in union with Christ is not afraid of the world in the least, and will always be living in victory over it.

Now those who live victoriously in faith have been given the privilege of asking God for help. Whoever prays to God knows that, whatever trouble they meet, God is at work to help them. If you live a life that rejoices in the resurrection of Jesus, God will pour out his grace without holding back, and he will give you a bold heart and lead you to proclaim the gospel. Neither angel nor Satan nor any human being would presume to open their mouth against the Lord, because God caused Jesus to be acknowledged as his Son through the power of the cross and the resurrection.

With God’s help King Saul led the people into the middle of the enemy camp at dawn and utterly destroyed the Ammonites. Saul was no longer the weak man who hid behind others. Those who believe in the living God and act on that faith do not fail. The grace God pours out is power more than enough to overcome the world, so if we only obey his word, we will have nothing to fear.

As long as you do not collapse in fear of the world’s power, God will never forsake you. We know this because he helped Saul win a great victory even though he knew Saul would betray him in the end. If you live with the hope and assurance of heaven, he will give you the great joy of victory in every battle of life.

May you always look to God alone in faith, and so be recognized. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.