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| "Not my fault" |
This chapter begins the downfall of Saul. He has been king a year and war is now upon Israel. They started out right but Saul faltered when he saw his army start to disintegrate in front of him.
Saul had his faith been in the Lord would have waited on God's timing, but Saul's faith moved from God to his army. The army didn't know if God would defend them and Samuel the prophet of God was running late. Saul was probably counting on Samuel to offer sacrifice to God so the people wouldn't be afraid and to assure that God would help them. The issue was that Saul was not a priest and instead of waiting he offered the sacrifice that the priest was supposed to.
This might have been overlooked if Saul was truly wishing to please God. However, the text makes it very clear that the sacrifice was meant as a motivator for the people rather than a sacrifice to God. Saul used the things of God to try and manipulate the people.
The other issue that stands out here was he began to offer excuses. Here and as we will see later Saul will blame the Israelites for his choices. In modern wording, he said to Samuel, "I had to, they didn't give me a choice." Samuel didn't believe it and neither did God. We are responsible for our own actions, we can not blame them on anyone else.
John Maxwell says, "Everything falls and rises on leadership." Though I do not always agree with this, it is true 99% of the time. Today, that leadership may be the top leader or those in leadership in other areas, but when we look back to ancient Israel, it always seems to fall on the King. Saul was not willing to take responsibility. Yes, David in some ways did far worse than Saul, but no where do we see David blaming others for his sin. So at the end of the day what helped make David the leader God wanted and Saul a reject was a willingness to accept responsibility for their own actions.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
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