2 Samuel 1: How the Mighty Have Fallen

"Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!
“Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines be glad, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice.
"O mountains of Gilboa, may you have neither dew nor rain, nor fields that yield offerings of grain. For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul—no longer rubbed with oil.
From the blood of the slain, from the flesh of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, the sword of Saul did not return unsatisfied.
“Saul and Jonathan—in life they were loved and gracious, and in death they were not parted. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.
"O daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you in scarlet and finery, who adorned your garments with ornaments of gold.
"How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights.
I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.
"How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!” - 2 Sam. 1:19:27 NIV

Where are the David's of today?  Where are the men who cry for those who have been destroyed, for those who have been brought down in defeat?  What kind of king would David have been if he did not grieve for Saul as he did?  Was his grieving a reflection of God's own heart?

We need to understand what it means to have the heart of God.  It means that rather than being ecstatic over our our enemy's defeat, we grieve for them.  It means we look at our enemies with God's eyes rather than our own.  It means, as Jesus said, that we love our enemies, that we do good to those that 'despitefully' use us.   "You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. -Matt. 5:43-48 NIV

In order to be like our Father in heaven, we must have perfect love, love that casts out all fear.  Rather than gloating over the demise of our enemies, we should be grieving and crying as David did, 'How the mighty have fallen!'

1 Samuel 26: The Lords Annointed

So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there was Saul, lying asleep inside the camp with his spear stuck in the ground near his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying around him.
Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of my spear; I won’t strike him twice.”
But David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed and be guiltless? As surely as the LORD lives,” he said, “the LORD himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish. But the LORD forbid that I should lay a hand on the LORD’s anointed. Now get the spear and water jug that are near his head, and let’s go.”
So David took the spear and water jug near Saul’s head, and they left. No one saw or knew about it, nor did anyone wake up. They were all sleeping, because the LORD had put them into a deep sleep. 1 Sam. 26:7-12 NIV

Why did God choose Saul rather than David to be the first king of Israel.  The people asked or a king and that's what they got, one that was chosen and anointed by God, but who curiously, let power go to his head.  Is that the end of all power?  It always goes to the ruler's head.  Even, David succumbed to the power of the position.  It turns out that those that God chooses to be the anointed ones are not necessarily the ones that follow the most closely after him.  A lot of times, God chooses the worst possible person to be the anointed one for two reasons:  to give the people what they want and give them what they deserve.  Ungodly kings for ungodly people. 

Instead of railing against the king, David chose to let events run their course.  He was confident that God was in control and God's timing and nothing else would be the end of Saul.  He was the Lord's anointed.

1 Samuel 12: For Want of a King

The people all said to Samuel, “Pray to the LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.”

“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own. As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away.” - 1 Sam. 12:19-25 NIV

It's so much easier to have a king, someone to make all the decisions for us.  Of course, when men run after a king, they seldom consider the consequences, the price of giving someone ultimate authority.  Having a king is as useless as worshipping idols.  Neither can save.  There is only one king that can preserve and protect us, not just in this life, but in the world to come, yet we continue to chase after poor substitutes and are always disappointed when our chosen object of worship fails to provide for us as we would like.  The people were disappointed with Saul.  When David became king, some of them were disappointed with him.  Each king, after all, was only human.  they still looked after nimber one.  How much better to surrender to the king who loves his creation above anything else, the one who only wants good things for us, the one who would go to the most extreme lengths to rescue us.

1 Samuel 8: A Change of Heart

“After that you will go to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, tambourines, flutes and harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying. The Spirit of the LORD will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.
“Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.”
As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day.-1 Sam. 10:5-9 NIV

It is only the spirit of God that can change a man's heart; that can take him from an unassuming person, from the, as Saul would put it, "from the smallest tribe in Israel" to being a strong courageous king.   We have a tendency to look on the outward appearance.  We look for confidence, for strength, for appearance, but that is never what God has used to build his kingdom.  I fear that we women are the most gullible.  We run after those with charisma, the pretty face, the lying tongue.  Is it any wonder that so many of the televangelists are supported primarily by widows and lonely women who think if they send their offering to the current god of the airwaves, they will be rewarded?  Both Saul and later David, his successor,  were not what one would look for as the leader of God's people.  When Saul was to be anointed, he was so fearful that he hid among the stuff.   And David was the least of his brothers when one considered who would be fit to be king.  It was God that changed Saul's heart, it was the spirit of God that rested on David.  We need to follow the the ones with the heart, not the ones with the appearance.

1 Samuel 2: Time for a Prophet

"There is no one holy like the LORD; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.
"Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.
"The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.
"The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.
The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor. “For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s; upon them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his saints, but the wicked will be silenced in darkness. “It is not by strength that one prevails;  -1 Sam. 2:2-9 NIV

If there was ever a time for a prophet, it was during the time of Eli the priest and his sons.  Not only were the people wicked, but Eli's sons were even more so.  Their sacrilege of the offerings brought by the people to God was reprehensible.  Onto this scene comes Hannah, a barren, tormented woman who trusted God as the above prayer shows.  'The Lord humbles and exalts',  she cries, 'It is not by strength that one prevails.'

God honors Hannah's cries and gives her, her hearts desire in the form of Samuel, who will become as righteous as Eli's sons are unrighteousness.  Samuel's paths are guided by God all his life.  When the people  cry for a king, he is there to anoint both Saul and David.  He lives a long prosperous life while both of Eli's sons meet their fate on the same day that the Ark is stolen, resulting in the death of their father,  Eli, as well.  As Hannah prayed, there is a God who knows.  He knows the hearts of men.  He knows when the hearts of the priests have turned away from him and he knows when it is time for a prophet.

Ruth 1-4: Kinsman-Redeemer

“Don’t call me Naomi, ” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter–in–law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. -Ruth 1:20-22 NIV

The story of Ruth is our story.  We wander off to foreign lands, looking for sustenance.  What looks like our provision, turns out to be our downfall.  We lose everything that we once had, all of our support, everything we trusted in.  We find ourselves in desperate straits, widowed and without any resources.  Our only hope is to throw ourselves at the feet of our kinsman-redeemer.  Just as with Ruth and Boaz, we will not be disappointed.  Christ, our redeemer, spreads his covering over us and pays the price, the ultimate price, to redeem us.  He gives us a future and a hope.  Although we were foreigners, we become part of the family.  We become his bride.

Judges 21: Every Man for Himself

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.-Judges 21:25 NIV.

Judges ends with perhaps the most telling verse in the Old Testament.  Everyone did as they saw fit, and the description in the preceding chapters details just how lawless the people had become under the judges.  When the men of Gibeah saw that a stranger had stopped in their town to spend the night, they besieged the house where he had taken refuge, demanding that he come out to have sex with them.  When that advance was refused, they took his concubines instead, raped her all night long and left her for dead on the doorstop where he had taken shelter.

It's not difficult to see a correlation between those events and the lawlessness to which any and all great civilizations and societies have succumbed.  It is our natural desire to have to have a king.  We have to have a ruler over us or we succumb the 'every man for himself' mindset that allows us to drift towards the depths of depravity.   As Bob Dylan says, "you've got to serve somebody."

Some of us recognize that we are part of a kingdom already, that we have a king who has established the only order that works.  When men cry out that society has gotten so depraved that the second coming is imminent, we only need look to history to see that isn't so.  Mankind left to it's own devices will always sink to the lowest depths.  Throughout history the only thing that has changed those circumstances is God's intervention.  Only God can pull us back from the brink.  How he chooses to do that is his alone to know.

Judges 2-6: Deliverance

Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. -Judges 2:18-19 NIV

We are no different now than the Israelites were in ancient times.  We always tend to follow after men rather than God.  If a righteous person is installed, we follow righteousness.  Otherwise, we copy the actions of whoever seems to be in charge.  The Israelites began to follow after the Baals and Asherahs and disaster ensured.  God gave them a godly judge, Othniel and they were at peace for forty years.  When the godly judge was gone,  they forgot all about God and lived under oppression until Ehud rescued them.  After that, they were saved by Shamgar, Deborah, and finally Gideon.  All of these judges arose during difficult times to lead God's people against the enemy that surrounded them.  We need to ask God for a righteous judge.  Not a righteous president, governor, senate or court.  We need a righteous judge in the midst of God's people.  One who will pursue the enemy, the true enemy, and put him to death.  We have been overcome by the enemy of God, he is the one that is bringing about the rapid descent into lawlessness and lasciviousness that we witness in our country today.  We need to cry out to God that he will raise up people who hear his voice and are not afraid to not just face, but chase after the enemy.  Only when God sees righteousness in the midst of his church, will we be delivered.

Joshua 24: Who Will You Serve?

But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” - Joshua 24:15 NIV

As always, we have a choice.  What the world does not understand is that God is not a demanding god.  Unlike the gods of this world such as money, fame, or drugs, God always gives us a choice.     Once people bow down to the god of money and it's power, once they become caught in the grip, once they succumb to it's draw, they are helpless to pursue anything but.  The same is true of fame, people will sacrifice their morality, their dignity, even their humanity for the thrill that fame provides.  And, even more sorrowfully, in the instance of drugs, once a person has chosen to worship at that altar, they have little chance of abandoning their god.  They will give up family, position, even their freedom to pursue the fix that their god provides.

Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Moses and Joshua does not have a lock on our adoration.  We can choose to love and serve him or we can walk away.  He does not hold us in a powerful grip.  He holds us in the arms of love.  With other gods, if and when one can loose themselves from their powerful grip, one finds freedom.  With God, the opposite is true, when we walk away from God, we abandon life as it is supposed to be.  What kind of god do you want to serve?  One that grips so tight that you can't get free, or one who gives you the freedom to choose.