Saul, Recognized for His Ability

Every parent works without rest for the family. It is because of parents’ toil that a home can stay warm and be full of happy laughter. Even while working hard, parents think of their children and are happy. They resolve to live their very best for their children’s future, and they want to pass on what little they have so that their children will not have to struggle. Because they know how hard the world is, they do their best to build up their children’s abilities so that they can fit into society well and make something of their lives.

Of course, parents sometimes buy their children everything so they will not have to struggle, but it is also wisdom to open the way for children to knock up against the rough world, to teach them that the world they must live in is not easy. When they work to earn their own pocket money and meet all kinds of people, they will realize where they fall short, cry at being treated unfairly, and get scolded, and so they will learn a great deal and grow. The more hardship they go through in the world, the more they will realize how much there is to be thankful for in living under their parents’ protection.

People who have learned the world only from knowledge lack the ability to handle relationships, to win another person’s heart, or to deal with the unexpected. Skill with people and with getting things done has to be learned on the ground, so someone without experience of society can never know it. Unless people learn the world firsthand, passing through hardship and the fire of testing, they cannot read others’ hearts; and without the ability to judge broadly, they lack the wisdom to endure patiently for the future. That is why, rather than keeping children from going out into the world, helping them while they are still in their parents’ arms to pass well through hardship and the fire of testing will be a great help to them.

How are you raising your children? Do you take care of everything the moment your children say a word, and are you not satisfied unless you do even the things they could do themselves? That makes children foolish people who cannot do anything, and keeps them from seeing the world broadly. You may do such things out of love for your children, but you must know that you are making them misfits in society.

God chose Saul and made him king, but God knew that unless the people recognized Saul’s ability, Saul could not work with confidence. So God helped him to be recognized as king.

In 1 Samuel 10:26-27, when Saul went back to his home in 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 his ability as king, so even when the troublemakers mocked and laughed at him, he could only hold his peace.

For children to have their parents recognize that they are studying hard, they have to bring home a report card with high marks. Without some fruit to show, they cannot be recognized. As for the reason Jesus bore the cross, it is true that he is God the Son and the Savior, but by showing people the power of the resurrection he was recognized as having absolute power, and he led believers to have an absolute faith. Saul had indeed been anointed king, but he had shown the people nothing, so even when he was mocked he could only endure it.

For Saul’s sake God made use of an event. Just then the Ammonites invaded Jabesh Gilead, where the half-tribe of Manasseh lived, east of the Jordan. Nahash the Ammonite had a hardened heart. He would not accept the surrender of the men of Jabesh, and he threatened that he would accept it only if every right eye of the Israelites was gouged out. This emergency became the occasion that got Saul recognized as king.

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

The Ammonites are descendants born to Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and his younger daughter after Lot escaped the city of Sodom. Because they were Lot’s descendants, God did not give the land of the Ammonites to Israel as an inheritance. Even so, the Ammonites did not understand God’s deep love. Even after Israel settled in Canaan they kept harassing Israel and picking fights, and later they were finally conquered by David.

Just as God uses hard-hearted Nahash as a tool to set up a king of the world, if you hinder God’s work with a hardened heart, God will use you as a tool to establish someone else fully as one of his people. God used Saul to raise up David, and he uses Nahash’s greed to make Saul king. Look back on your own faith and see how that God is using you now. If you look back at how you are living, you will be able to tell whether you have become a tool for building up others, or whether you yourself are being built up through others.

The elders of Jabesh were given seven days by Nahash. After seven days they would have to fight the Ammonites whether they wanted to or not. Yet the elders of Jabesh were making a choice outside God’s will. With war upon them, they should have gone to Samuel or Saul, whom God had set up, and asked for help; instead they sent messengers to all the borders of Israel, looking for a savior who would help them right away. A man of prayer stood before them and there was an anointed king, and still the faith of the people of Israel had stopped right there.

When the people of Gibeah heard from the messengers about the war at Jabesh, far from helping Jabesh, they wept all the louder in fear. Israel acted like this out of a lack of faith. They had forsaken the God who had led this people, so they feared the foreign nations; the almighty God was there, yet they did not rely on him. They wept because they thought no one would help them. Samuel had proclaimed God’s word and law about setting up a king, and they themselves had cheered the king, yet they did not truly accept Saul as king. The reason was that they did not believe God, and so they did not accept Saul either.

In Judges 19-20, the Benjamites had once suffered a war with their own kin, the rest of Israel, in which only six hundred of them survived. Because they had been wiped out by the other tribes, they could not even marry. At that time, because the people of Jabesh Gilead had not come to the assembly, Israel put their men and married women to death, took four hundred virgins, and gave them as wives to the Benjamites at Gibeah. So the wives of the Benjamites all came from Jabesh Gilead. The news that the Ammonites had now attacked Jabesh Gilead must have been a pain hard to bear for those wives who had married into the tribe of Benjamin.

Just then Saul, coming in from the field behind the oxen, heard the news of the war. When he heard that Ammon had attacked, Saul realized that the time had come for him to act in earnest for his nation and his people. A person needs this kind of wisdom, to see the right moment. It is God who gives the wisdom to know an opportunity as an opportunity and to act on it. So we must wait quietly and prepare well until the spiritual eyes that can see opportunity are opened.

In verses 6-7 God’s Spirit came mightily on Saul, and he took a yoke of oxen, cut them in pieces, and sent them to the people of Israel, who were looking for people instead of relying on God. What stirred Saul was not human feeling but grace from God, and so there was in it a fullness beyond anything a person could bear.

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, overawed by the king’s authority, all came out before Saul. Here we see God standing on Saul’s side and helping him in everything, so that the people would recognize his ability as king. God worked so that Saul could fully take up the role of king, but in the end it was to do God’s own work that he made Saul a powerful king and had the people serve him. If Saul had understood this work of God as David did, he would not have lived proudly for his own righteousness when he held a king’s power. In the end, we must know that both gaining power by becoming king and being rejected for sinning against God lie within God’s authority.

When Saul heard the news of the war, the Spirit of God came mightily on him and his heart grew bold, so he was not afraid of the Ammonites or of the Israelites who had mocked him. This is a boldness only those who have received God’s grace can have. What this shows us is that Saul’s boldness 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 live in the world are both feelings God uses, you should have an even fuller faith. A full faith will help you carry out your mission and live spiritually.

When Saul trusted God and grew bold, an astonishing thing 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 orders. If Saul had not waited for the time God gave, and had gone around looking for people so as to be recognized as king, he would not have won respect as easily as he did. When God works to help, it is this easy. With a single event God set Saul over them, and Saul gained authority by showing the boldness and courage a king should have. Only God can do this. If only God takes an interest in you, he will do it all himself, both raising you up and bringing you respect and help from people. Whatever the matter, getting God’s help is a far easier way than solving it yourself. For God always grants blessing very easily and simply, in ways no person could 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,

God promised in advance through the prophets that Jesus would come of the offspring of David. Souls that needed to be saved were bound by sin, so Jesus came to this earth to lay down his life as God commanded and to overcome death. Jesus was the Son of God from the beginning, so he did not need to show power to prove that he was the Son of God. But because he took on flesh, accomplished the work of atonement, and rose from among the dead, he won his place as the Son with power.

In Romans 8:34 the apostle Paul said, “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Jesus ascended and sits at the right hand of God, and because he fulfilled God’s covenant with a heart of obedience alone, he will one day be the Judge. Believers who believe in Jesus’ atonement and have been born again through faith have been wholly changed through the Holy Spirit, so Jesus’ atonement and resurrection have a direct effect on believers’ lives. It is the fullness of the Holy Spirit that leads believers to change their lives and to spread the gospel.

If Jesus had refused the cross or had not risen, the faith we hold now would be no different from the religions of the world. But Jesus overcame death and rose again. That is why believers who live the resurrection life live with hope and assurance of salvation. God is wholly helping believers who live with the hope of heaven and assurance of eternal life.

If you are sure by faith that Jesus is at the right hand, you are no longer the person who lived in the flesh. But if you have received the Lord and still cannot get free of being a person of the flesh, you cannot expect heaven’s blessing. The world has not changed at all, even though Jesus died for it and rose again; but those who live as one with Christ are not afraid of the world at all, and they will always be living lives of victory over the world.

Now believers who live victorious lives in faith have been given the privilege of asking God for help. Believers who pray to God know that whatever hardship they face, God is at work to help them. If we live lives that rejoice in Jesus’ resurrection, God will pour out grace on us without holding back, and he will give us bold hearts and lead us to proclaim the gospel. God caused Jesus to be recognized as his Son by the power of the cross and the resurrection, and so neither angels nor Satan nor human beings dare to open their mouths against the Lord.

With God’s help King Saul led the people into the middle of the enemy camp in the morning watch and destroyed the Ammonites. Saul was no longer the weak man who hid behind other people. There is no failure for those who believe in the living God and act on it. The grace God pours out is power enough to overcome the world and more. So if only we obey the Word, we will have nothing to fear.

As long as you do not collapse on your own out of fear of the world’s power, God will never forsake you. For he is the one who helped Saul win a great victory, even knowing that Saul would in the end betray him. If you live with the hope and assurance of heaven, God will grant you the great joy of winning every battle in the world.

May you always rely on God alone by faith and so win recognition. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.