So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14.
This is such a sad segment of biblical history. Saul had been given so many opportunities from the Lord to be in a position of spiritual influence, to contribute to the work God was doing, and to “go down in history” with a very different narrative. The one statement that is very unnerving – “… he broke faith with the Lord…”.
Saul’s legacy is that he broke faith with the Lord. In this text his unfaithfulness was not just one thing but several. He died because of this overall problem of this breach or to be disloyal with God. This was his basic struggle; he could not remain faithful to the Lord regardless of the situation.
He broke faith because he did not keep / obey the command of the Lord. His problem is that he allowed fear, not faith, to shape his decisions. He struggled with having confidence that God would do what he said he would do. Ultimately, Saul would take matters into his own hands and not rely on the LORD to follow through on what he promised, and his “knee-jerk” reaction to his fear landed him in all kinds of problems.
He also consulted with a medium. He was looking for answers in all the wrong places. If we do not believe that God has our best in mind, we will panic and try to handle things ourselves. Our desperation shows up when we start doing things we know are not right, but we do it anyway because we panic. We need something to console the desperation in our own heart, so we try and find answers in the strangest places. We even might seek answers from sources that we know would not meet God’s approval.
Not only did Saul seek answers in all the wrong places, but he also did not seek guidance from the Lord. Saul “broke faith” by seeking answers from sources he had no right to pursue. He simply did not seek the Lord. It is extraordinary when we have the opportunity to seek the God who created all things, who possesses all wisdom and knowledge, and we refuse to seek his wisdom about any kind of letter in life. Of course, Saul’s problem is often our problem, impatience. Saul panicked when things were getting tight and he concluded that Samuel, God’s representative, was not coming in a timely manner and he went somewhere else to get a solution. His proclivity for fear derailed him a number of times as king of Israel. Nevertheless, he refused to hear and obey what wisdom God gave to him and impatience about when God would respond drove him to tackle things on his own.
The Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David. We do not see this kind of statement very often; in fact we wince at it. This seems severe for God to take his life because he did not listen. God did not always take the life of others when they did not listen. But our mistake is that we think God has to treat everyone the same. God has to be “fair”. But those thoughts often betray us because we tend to think more highly of ourselves than we should. Saul was in a position of leadership, a role of influence to provide a context for people to obey God. It would appear that God is more stringent with those entrusted with servant roles that impact others. If you remember he did the same thing in Acts 5 when Ananias and his wife Sapphira lied about how much they had given to the Lord. None of us is above breaking faith with God. When our fear kicks in, we are capable of many foolish things. We need to remember that keeping faith with God may not sound very “life-changing”, but it will change our life.
Pastor Brad.
