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In Christ, Mark
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Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua. The fighting grew fierce around Saul and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me." But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it. When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day.
When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them.
The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped off his armor and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh and they fasted seven days.
1 Samuel 31
This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
As the Book of 1 Samuel comes to an end, we also see the story of Saul, the first king of Israel, come to a close.
Now, you may recall that Samuel’s spirit, summoned by the medium at Endor, had told Saul that he and his sons would soon die at the hand of the Philistines because he (Saul) had disobeyed the Lord and failed to “carry out His fierce wrath against the Amalekites” (1 Samuel 28:16-19). Because of this, Saul ended up making the Lord his enemy, not a place anyone should want to ever be.
Despite the prophecy from Samuel, we find Saul taking the Israelite army into battle. Perhaps he still believed that he could still triumph as we have seen his arrogance displayed in the past, especially when he decided to worship himself after erecting a monument in his own honor at Carmel (1 Samuel 15:12).
Time and time again, we saw Saul decide to do what he wanted to do, abusing the power God had given to either get what he desired or kill anyone who would get in the way of that. Point in case was the many times he tried to eliminate David as well as his attempts to kill his own son, Jonathan. And so now, Saul would face the consequences for his actions as he went up against the enemy.
For we read where “the Philistines fought against Israel” with some Israelites able to flee the onslaught while others “fell slain on Mount Gilboa”. The scriptures tell us that the “Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons”, first killing “Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua” before critically wounding Saul after “the archers overtook him”.
Sensing his end was near, we see where Saul ordered his armor bearer to kill him before the Philistines did, once again showing he would dictate how he died and went to the grave, bucking the prophetic words of Samuel and the will of the Lord. We read where the armor bearer was too terrified to do as the king requested and so , Saul “took his own sword and fell on it”, killing himself after which the armor bearer did the same.
And so when all was said and done, the Lord’s word as spoken by Samuel’s spirit came to be. “Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together that same day” on the battlefield against the Philistines…and Saul’s saga was over…a saga the made me stop and wonder what might have been if Saul would have just embraced the opportunity God had given him. This further had me pondering how many times people today miss their opportunity as well. For like Saul, the Lord is ready to call us to do great things in His name if we’re simply willing to surrender our lives to Him and submit everything to His will. The Bible shows us clearly that He can and will do this through anyone.
Going back to Saul, we need to remember when he first was chosen by God. He was from the smallest tribe (Benjamin) and his clan was the least of all the clans in that tribe. In fact, if someone would have been betting on which clan the first king of Israel would come from, Saul’s clan would have faced astronomical odds. Despite this, we know it was God’s will to select Saul to lead His people…a people who had insisted to have a king like all the other nations.
And so Saul rose up from the obscurity of the least clan in the smallest tribe of Benjamin to become the king of Israel and did so because he was chosen by God. What an awesome privilege and chance he had to serve the Lord at the highest possible level.
But unfortunately, Saul missed his opportunity, allowing the power of his position to get the best of him and change him from being a servant of God to a man who only serve himself. And so the Lord took away his privilege, taking away all He had given Saul while showing us that arrogant, self-fulfilling service only leads to self destruction in the end.
Friends, we can’t afford to repeat the mistakes of Saul, squandering the opportunities God gives us by choosing to be the lord of our own lives and, in doing so, walking down the road of self destruction.
We can avoid this by acknowledging and respecting His absolute sovereignty, turning our lives and all we have over to Him, and submitting ourselves totally to His will with the goal of glorifying Him in everything we do.
The world would also offer us things to do but there’s only one right path to follow…the path the Lord leads us on…and Saul walked off of it.
Let’s not do likewise.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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