Saul disobeyed God. God had told Saul to utterly destroy the Amalakites. God was done being patient with them. He told Saul to destroy everyone and everything. Saul killed most of the people and destroyed everything that he did not want to keep. When we look at it that way, it almost seems trivial. Apparently, Saul thought so too as we can infer from his response when Samuel showed up. (The account is in 1 Samuel 15.) However, disobedience is disobedience and when we cannot obey in the smallest things, we cannot be trusted to obey in larger things. God sends the little things along to teach us how to obey in the larger things.
God watched Saul keep the good things of the Amalakites and He sent Samuel to confront him about it. Saul had not the slightest inkling of shame. He greeted Samuel as he undoubtedly had many other times. When Samuel asked him why he had not obeyed God, his response was telling. I did...except I spared the king and we brought back the best of the animals to sacrifice. Word to the wise, never say to a prophet anything like, I did, but... That disobedience cost Saul his kingdom, his life, and the lives of his sons.The next mission we know of Samuel undertaking for God is the anointing of David to be the next king of Israel. Recall the story as David is anointed and soon is called into Saul's service as a musician to soothe Saul when he is troubled by an evil spirit. That spirit also, by the way, was a result of his disobedience. His disobedience opened a demonic gateway and allowed that spirit to trouble Saul.
Not long after that, we can almost hear the ring announcer saying something like, "In this corner, standing nine feet three inches tall and weighing 500 pounds, Gooooooollllliiiiiiaaaathhhhh." That was moments before one stone sent him tumbling to the ground. David took his head and his weapons. (I am not totally sure why that was important.)
And the rest of the story is that some years later, Saul did die in battle and David assumed the leadership of Israel. It is in that interim time period that David was on the run from Saul. God sent faithful men to be with David in the wilderness. He had 400 of the most frustrated, disheartened, disenfranchised men in Israel as his army. God was redeeming them all.
There was a very interesting twist to the situation at work a few weeks ago now. At least it was interesting my mind. (If you do not know about what is going on you may want to read the couple previous posts.) I doubt I can count all the times I have heard the story of David and and Saul, especially as an analogy for submitting to the powers that be in our lives. A few weeks ago, though, it came from someone up the chain of command from me. That was interesting because, as we have mentioned before, my name is David--and--Saul was up the chain of command from David. Of course my mind started working on that. It occurred to me that since I am David, if the story relates to me at all, the person up the chain would have to be in the place of Saul.
You get it, right? Saul is telling David to submit to Saul regardless of how wrong he is because Saul is the Lord's anointed. Yes, really. What kind of sense does that make? Let me rephrase it for you. You need to submit to me as the power over you even though you have been anointed to be king because the current king, evil as he is, has not relinquished the throne--yet. David is obliged to obey because it is the right thing for him to do. I should hasten to add, I do not think I have been anointed to be king.
Stick with me here while I process this. So Saul (the rejected, but still sitting king) is saying, "You have to be in submission to me because I am the king." What is bothering me has to do with the directive to obey coming from the person who was judged unworthy by God. I really mean to say was bothering me because, of course, as I wrote that, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a verse from the New Testament. Romans 11:29 says, "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." You do not have to be an attorney to understand irrevocable. It means once the gifts and calling of God come to a person, they will never be taken back. Saul certainly was called by God to be king. There can be no doubt of that. Therefore, that call continued until his death regardless of David being anointed.
Ok, so that is not really a very good analogy for what is going on here, but perhaps it can at least be a talking point for reference. In my opinion it would never be appropriate to equate being king over a kingdom with being an officer, director or manager in a company. I say that because a king answers to no one other than God. An employee, regardless of rank, answers to God first and his employer next (unless he is married, but we will not go there right now.) In this time, this dispensation if you like, all God's people answer to God--when there is a choice to be made. We are to be like Peter and John in front of the Sanhedrin. "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than God, you judge." (Acts 4:19)
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