Respecting our Leaders: A Lenten Meditation on 1st Samuel 24

And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines,

 that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.

Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel,

and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats.

And he came to the sheepcotes by the way, where was a cave;

and Saul went in to cover his feet:

and David and his men remained in the sides of the cave.

 

And the men of David said unto him,

Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee,

Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand,

that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee.

Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe privily.

 

And it came to pass afterward, that David's heart smote him,

because he had cut off Saul's skirt.

And he said unto his men,

The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master,

the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him,

 seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.

So David stayed his servants with these words,

 and suffered them not to rise against Saul.

But Saul rose up out of the cave, and went on his way.

 

The humility, restraint, and mercy which David showed Saul would be remarkable on their own, but it is easy to forget the context in which this act of mercy was given.  Years before, God declared His withdrawal from Saul as king of Israel because he rebelled against the Word of the Lord through the Prophet Samuel; David was anointed by Samuel when he was still a young lad, to eventually ascend to the throne in Saul’s place, and the Spirit of the Lord was upon him; Saul was suffering from bouts of severe depression, hostility, and irrational rage, some of which came from demonic oppression due to his wandering away from God; David, once welcomed by Saul into his armies and as a champion against his enemies, was now on the run being unjustly hunted by Saul in the desert; David, with 400 men, lived the lives of refugees, having lost all the comforts of community life in the cities of Israel; Saul, in his quest to hunt David, murdered hundred of priests for the sake of one who showed him mercy by giving him bread and the sword of Goliath whom he killed years before; in the immediate context, David’s 400 desert warriors were being encircled by Saul’s 3000 choice troops, and the odds of his escape were almost nil.  In the context of all that evil and peril which Saul brought directly upon David and his men, David chose not to take Saul’s life when circumstances gave him the opportunity in that cave, because he knew it not to be his place to stretch out mine hand against the Lord’s anointed.

 

Oddly enough, the Prophet Samuel warned by the Word of the Lord that these kinds of things would happen to the people if they brought upon themselves a human king.  Samuel was the last of the Judges, a period of over 400 years where the people had no king but God alone, and their destiny was wrapped up in the Law and Mercy of God; when the people kept faith in the King of the Universe, God Almighty secured them against their enemies and prospered them in their land; when the people abandoned the King of the Universe, He allowed their enemies to triumph over them, and took away their prosperity; when the people repented and came back to the King of the Universe, He forgave, delivered, restored, and blessed them again.  And yet, in their collective rebellion to be more like the pagan kingdoms around them, they rejected the King of the Universe and demanded they be given a human king to rule over them.  God gave them what they wanted, but warned that human kings would become corrupt tyrants over them, and that regardless of their human king, their fate as a people was still bound to the Mosaic Covenant—grace by faith would save them, or judgement by unbelief would condemn them.  No human king could change the divine Covenant, any more than they could alter the Natural Law of the cosmos in which they were created.

 

Saul would not be the last king to turn evil in Israel, nor in the history of the world writ large.  Political power and wealth are alluring to fallen humanity’s cravenness, often drawing the worst out of those who achieve it, or drawing the worst kinds of people to seek it.  This was true in the ancient world for Israel and the nations around them, even as it was true of Babylon, Greece, Rome, the Huns, the Mongols, the Vandals, the French, the English, and the Americans… and every other place in which politics aggregate power and wealth into the hands of the few over the many.  This is no mystery to those who study history.  Only the most self-deluded, ignorant, or deceptive would argue for political utopia on earth produced by the hands of fallen men, if only people would give up their rights and property and power to the leaders who say they—unlike their predecessors—will take power and rule others well.  While it is certainly true that there have been better and worse leaders of countries over time, the experience of Israel is normative for all others:  the evil far outnumber the good, and even a good human politician will eventually hand over the reigns to someone who will do great wickedness with their power.  Some political structures attempt to slow this progression by separating powers and declaring constitutional boundaries, but to those who seek power and wealth through politics, such trifles rarely bind them for long.  Great power and great wealth draw great numbers of wicked hearts to pursue it, and often the strongest, most wicked of them all will seize it.

 

It is tempting to think that God has lost control of this process, and that the world which is so obviously under the sway of the devil and those who emulate him, is a lost mess of Darwinian evolutionary chaos and Nietzschean will to power.  But God is still the King of the Universe, and this little blue ball on which we live out our short lives is still part of His Kingdom, ruled by His Word regardless of who recognizes it.  No matter what political structures we build for ourselves, which wicked people will use, twist, and abuse in their pursuit of power and wealth, God’s Law and Gospel still frame the reality of the universe, from the farthest reaches of space to the deepest recesses of our own souls.  There is no other true King, as there is no other true Creator of the universe, and no other Judge before whom we shall all stand, be we mighty or weak, rich or poor, or any shade in between during our time in this world.  The truth is that God is still in control, His Word still reigns eternal, and the leaders we have are either a blessing of His grace which we receive by faith and repentance, or a curse of His Law based on our rebellion and unbelief.  Either way, they are the Lord’s anointed, be they good or evil, and they with us will stand before the Judge of the Universe to give an account of our lives.  God has not lost control of the world, and it will move toward its end, with each of us playing our small part in that great revelation.  While God calls all to eternal life through faith and repentance in His Son, crucified for the sins of the whole world, His Law remains for those who reject him and ultimately find their place imprisoned among the demons.  The devil makes his charade of earthly power, manipulating the evil inclinations of fallen men to do great harm in every age and place, but the devil is bound by the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of God Almighty, so that he flees before those who abide in the providence and grace of the King.

 

David saw this, with the Spirit of the Lord upon him.  He knew that Saul was not an accident, but a judgement upon him and the people of Israel for their unfaithfulness to God and His Word.  But he also knew that his deliverance was from God alone, and despite the suffering and persecution which he and his people had duly earned, he trusted in God’s grace to ultimately save them.  In that desert cave it was tempting to reach out and take by force what God had not yet given, but in David’s faith and repentance, Israel saw future times of refreshing and restoration.  Such faith rested in the promises of God, knowing that His Word was more sure and steadfast than any evil manipulation of men in any office of power or wealth.

 

So, too, we wait in faith through the season of Lent.  The adversaries of the Church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ are multiplied in our land, but it is not our place to deny either the Law or Gospel of God by dishonoring our leaders whom God has anointed for their times and places.  If our leaders are wicked, it is a just judgment upon us.  If we see restoration through faithful leaders, it is unmerited grace by faith and repentance in Jesus Christ.  And as it is in our families, our communities, our churches, our nations, and our world, so too it is in every human heart.  The answer to our tyranny under the devil and his minions, be it in our own soul or in our land, is not to rise up in our own fallen powers to be manipulated by him into ever greater evil, but to repent, to turn from our evil, to acknowledge our need for salvation, and to cling to the promises of God in Jesus.  We may have much yet to suffer as we walk with Christ toward Calvary, even as David had many more days and years to suffer in desert exile, but we know the Word of the Lord endures forever, and His goodness and His mercy are from everlasting to everlasting.  Let us strengthen our hearts in the promises of God, returning to Him by faith, that we may see times of refreshing after these times of sorrow are past.  And even though like David we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil, for the King of the Universe is with us, and we shall by His grace dwell in the House of the Lord forever.  Amen.