Defection

1 Samuel 13:1-7

¹ Saul was … years old when he began to reign, and he reigned … and two years over Israel.

² Saul chose three thousand men of Israel. Two thousand were with Saul in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the people he sent home, every man to his tent.

³Jonathan defeated the garrison of the Philistines that was at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, “Let the Hebrews hear.”

⁴And all Israel heard it said that Saul had defeated the garrison of the Philistines, and also that Israel had become a stench to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal.

⁵And the Philistines mustered to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and troops like the sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped in Michmash, to the east of Beth-aven.

⁶When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were hard pressed), the people hid themselves in caves and in holes and in rocks and in tombs and in cisterns,

⁷and some Hebrews crossed the fords of the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. Saul was still at Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

You know how life sometimes feels like it is going along so very well? You feel close to the Lord, you’re eating right, getting a little exercise, enjoying good relationships with your family and friends; and then all of sudden, you make one wrong decision and everything just seems to slide downhill. Everything feels slightly out of joint. Your temper is quicker, little things that shouldn’t be important just really bug you and somehow, God seems distant. We’ve all been there; some to a greater extreme then others, but we’ve all been there.

Poor Saul. It seemed like he was doing so well. He was living as a servant leader, working in the fields and remaining a humble king for the people. Then, as Samuel bids the people farewell as their leader and turns the reigns over to Saul, he makes a wrong choice and everything begins a long, slow slide into defeat. What does he do wrong? He claims his son, Jonathan’s, victory as his own. Yes, it seems like a very small thing. But still, it isn’t quite true. Just a little lie; what can it hurt, right? Of course there are people (soldiers) who know better and it is most likely that the truth was made known. But in the meantime, Saul claims the victory for himself. We begin to see the humility falling away and the pride taking over. Ultimately, that pride become the foundation of his downfall as the king of Israel and he even loses the leadership of Israel from the lineage of his family and it is passed to David instead of Jonathan.

On a quick aside, the first verse of chapter 13 is rather vague. The exact number of years and at what age Saul began to serve is lost. Apparently it was not transcribed faithfully or it was never actually there. We don’t know. But, we can take a clue from the fact that Jonathan, Saul’s son, was old enough to be a commander over a battalion. With that in mind, we know that Saul had to be at least 40, and the length of his reign is established later in the text as about 40 years. The rest of the book of 1 Samuel deals with Saul’s leadership of Israel. As we will find, it is rather a tragic tale and does not end well for Saul.

Back to the tiny little lie. Here we have an example of what can happen when something that is evil is allowed to go unnoticed or unchallenged. A rot is now a part of our lives and can draw us ever deeper into a place that does not look toward God or hear His voice as He speaks into our lives. The path is downward and the slope is greased. We need someone who will call us up short on those little things so that they cannot grow into big things. That seems rather simple, as is most of the faith. But evil is like the flu – it spreads and it hurts. Had Saul surrounded himself with people who would demand the truth and demand that he be honest about himself, perhaps the story would have gone differently. That is our application point for today. Do you surround yourself with people who expect godly action on your part or do they turn a blind eye and let you get away with evil? Hopefully, you have at least one or two who demand the best from you.