The Real Test (Portrait of an Arrogant King (Part 3)

The Real Test (Portrait of an Arrogant King (Part 3)

     Verse 13 reveals the real leadership test God was giving Saul. Look how the last part reads:

…for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. (13:13)

     The sad news for Saul is, God has looked for a man after His own heart -- and God has found him -- and it’s not you, Saul. You have failed God’s final exam.
     I see at least three questions Saul was asked that day. Here’s one: Let’s ask ourselves how we do with each one.

1.  How do you react when your circumstances grow huge and your resources shrink?

     You can’t help but remember a similar situation with Gideon in Judges 7. Like Saul, Gideon had looked at a huge force across a valley. Gideon’s enemies were the Midianites. But after Gideon had a significant force together, the Lord came and said, “you’ve got too fighting men, Gideon!“ The reason was, if they’d been victorious, Israel would boasted of their great victory.

     God thinned them out -- anyone who was fearful was told to go home. 32,000 troops shrank to 10,000 by that means. But God came again and said, “Gideon, it’s still too many.” So Gideon was told, take them down to the water -- any soldier who bent down to lap water like a dog was sent home. Anyone who dipped a hand in water to drink while still looking alertly around, was kept. Gideon’s force dropped from 10,000 to 300. You can read the rest of the story -- Judges 7 -- but it’s just one more testimony of the Truth Saul never learned. God is your rescuer. He is your national security, your defender, your strength, your hope when the crisis strikes! His people and nation exist by His hand and He will continue to be its defense.

     A second question from Saul‘s test paper:

2.  How do you respond when God’s schedule conflicts with yours?

     Through Samuel God simply told Saul, “wait.” Don’t act on your own, don’t make your own decision, don’t jump ahead. Wait for Samuel. You wait for God to show up and for God to work in the way that only God can! Saul held out for most of the prescribed time, but then he caved at the last minute. In the spiritual life, that attitude is hidden arrogance. It’s when Saul -- and we, revert to, “I’m in charge, so I’m going to do what I want to do!“ Saul was arrogant, he was impatient and impulsive and he was in sin.
     The third test question: the most important of all:

3.  How do you respond, when God is all you have?

     We get so used to our resources, and quick-fixes, and tools and abilities and people at our disposal to help us out of tight situations. And those are well and good; but the time comes when God pushes our backs to the wall, he pushes us to the edge of the cliff, especially as leaders -- and He tests us by taking away what we are so used to having and depending on. Suddenly we’re at the brick wall. Maybe it’s when a job evaporates. Or there is simply no money, in spite of good spending habits. Maybe it’s the diagnosis that doesn‘t leave any wiggle room. Or, our spouse gets taken from us. As a leader, maybe, you’ve got a vision of what God wants to do, but you’ve got no partners to help accomplish it. When all the props get kicked out -- the ones we’ve relied so often -- then what? Saul just drove ahead in a very human way -- and the results were catastrophic.
     This test means two battles were brewing that day. See, for God’s leader the real battle isn’t the one with the Philistines, it is the one going on inside him. And it’s that battle and that battle alone which will settle some fundamental issues -- issues like, “who is really in control of all of life? -- Is it God, or is it me?” If you’re a leader at any level, that control issue is the one with which you’ll repeatedly have to wrestle. The other is the faith issue: “in what or in Whom am I trusting?”
     Now don’t think Saul turned in a blank test booklet that day. He had answers to those questions -- but they were the “way wrong” answers! That’s because his answers flowed from a world view and life view which were defective and deficient.

Think with me about Saul’s view of God.
     From our NT perspective we look at Saul offering the sacrifices and don’t quite get it. What’s so seriously wrong. From an OT perspective, Saul operating as if God was not absolutely holy. There was a God-prescribed way and there were God-prescribed people who could offer sacrifices. The king of all people was to understand God and His Law and hold them in reverence. For Saul to take up the offerings was to spurn God’s holiness. Our dumbed-down Americanized view of God has done the same for us -- we’ve treated God has good, but certainly not as holy.
     The way Saul offered the sacrifices also tells us He viewed God as a good-luck charm. Notice, he wasn’t going to God in prayer day by day as the situation would have warranted -- it was out of desperation that God became the accessory his life and leadership needed. It’s sort of like when we start asking God to work when our ideas and attempts have failed, or that we pray only when a situation becomes absolutely critical.
     Saul’s view of God also seems to be Someone to be obeyed if and when circumstances allow it. This was an emergency, a special case, so disregarding righteousness was permissible.
    This is the “I know what God says, but” theory of life and morality and behavior. God is not large to Saul, He’s small. God is not Holy, He overlooks sin. God is not serious, His commands are suggestions.
    Do you understand that your view of God determines how you approach every area of life. It certainly will determine your view of leadership. Because Saul’s view of God was defective, Saul’s view of leadership was also deficient.

• He believed that people’s actions should determine a leader’s course. His army was down to practically nothing, more people were taking off, so Saul simply took things into his own hands.
• He believed waiting on God would bring disaster. He learned that the opposite is true.
• Not waiting for God to transform his view and Israel’s situation that day brought disaster into his life that day. Disaster would mark him for the rest of his life and reign.
• He believed that doing something (even disobeying) was better than doing "nothing" (waiting on God).
• Saul was an activist, obviously. He’d waited long enough. But he hadn’t spent time in God’s presence, had not leadership from God. He’s a model of what it looks like to make up your own mind about your life and future and ask God to bless it.
• He believed God could be manipulated for the leader’s advantage.
• Saul’s greatest error that day was in how he treated God. Life and leadership and battle was all about Saul; he’d missed it completely. He didn’t understand that his relationship with God was the most critical element in his life and reign. He didn’t maintain accountability to God and his lack of leadership was the evidence.

Steps Any Leader or Politician Should Take

     If there is something we could take away from this day of testing in Saul’s life, I think it would be three profound Truths about God that we need to chew on and begin to grasp their ramifications for all we’re about. Both our self-centered culture and a self-oriented Christianity in the Church in America have helped us long deny their validity but they are True none the less and the sooner you grasp them and begin to live accordingly, the sooner you will live life under God and become His brand of leader.
     They are profound but they are quite simple.

Truth one: God is God.
     Doesn’t matter that we have sidelined Him. God has become like the field-goal kicker we call on when we’re in a pinch and we want Him to come save the day. God’s not interested in a bit part in your life, He will be God and King and Lord. Deal with it!

Truth two: God can be trusted.
     It does not matter what your situation and circumstance tell you; it does not matter that every possible wrong thing happen or that death itself comes to stalk you -- God can be trusted, because He is God. Grow in your trust. Learn His Character and determine to grow in your faith, especially if you want to grow in your leadership.

Truth three: God is to be obeyed.
     We have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to a soft squeezable, sweet God who doesn’t worry about sin anymore. Our view of Him has become a harmless sweet gentle God we can call upon from time to time. God requires our faithfulness to Him. The greater one grows in leadership, the higher the degree of accountability to God, not the less.