The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/1_samuel/14.htm

In Chapter 14, we start to read about many battles fought by Israel and by the various kings. Not only are these stories good to let us know our history and the struggles God’s people encountered, it also helps to show us the characters of the people in the Bible.

And speaking of history, play special attention to Saul’s son Jonathon, his daughter Michal, and the commander of his army, Abner, and they are mentioned quite frequently in the coming chapters as they have a big role in history.

In Chapter 15, we see that Saul still has a problem doing what he thinks is best rather than following God’s command. And once again, scripture is pretty blunt about God’s command of attacking the Amalekites and killing everyone, including women and infants, but I have a hard time believing that. That is certainly not the character of the God I worship, and it is certainly not the character of Jesus, who was just like God. The only answer I have is that there is no way for us to know the character and mindset of the Old Testament authors and how they perceived things. Yes, God despises sin. Yes, God doesn’t want his children to sin, to worship idols and sacrifice children to other gods. But does he hate sin so much he wants women and infants slaughtered? I don’t think so. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to stone Mary to death as she was guilty of prostitution, but Jesus wouldn’t do it. Jesus forgave her sins and instructed her to “go and sin no more”

Can you imagine what it would have been like to be following Jesus, to be like Peter or James or Matthew, and watching Him stone a woman to death for her sins? If you thought that was your Messiah and you just watched Him stone a woman to death. Stoning wasn’t a pleasant sight; you don’t just throw a rock at someone and kill them, you have to throw it over and over and over and over until you break the bones protecting the vital organs, the skull or the sternum or the ribs. And once they’re broken, you have continue throwing rocks until those life sustaining organs are damaged enough to cause death. It is a rather brutal way to die, even being shot or stabbed is a quicker and more humane death. Seeing that Jesus would never do that, I doubt God would do that either. But I don’t have a valid explanation, I’ll just have to wait and ind the answer when and if I make it to Heaven.

Anyway, Saul was instructed to wipe the Amalekites out, along with everything. But Saul took things upon his own, thinking he knew better, thinking he could please God. Not only did they capture the king of the Amalekites and kept him alive as a prisoner, they captured some of the animals as well to offer as a sacrifice. Being that he already made that mistake once, you would have thought he had learned his lesson, but some people, especially me, are so hard headed it takes us a while to learn.

Now Samuel came to visit Saul, and chastised him for saving some of the animal. And when he heard about the king of the Amalekites, Samuel killed the king himself. And he told Saul that God was finding a replacement for him.

Remember when this all started and Saul was somewhat of an introvert, that when it came time to anoint him king, he was hiding. I’m sure Saul didn’t not have a very high esteem, so he was probably working extra hard to prove himself, and went overboard to the point that he messed things up.

We can do the same thing. We can try so hard to please God that we rely on our own thinking instead of simply following God’s word. And it’s truly not that complex.

A good start is a thorough understanding of the Ten Commandments, because there are a lot of things that apply that we may not think about. For example, when we think of the Commandment “Thou shalt not steal”, I think about shoplifting, or taking something that belongs to my neighbor, or intentionally taking something that doesn’t belong to me. But have you ever brought home something from work, like a pen, and never thought anything about it? Or maybe you left work 5 minutes early, thinking that 5 minutes wasn’t a big deal. But if you took 5 minutes of work off everyday of the year, you would end up stealing almost three entire days of work from your employer.

If I may, here is an excellent video series on the Ten Commandments that goes into great detail on each one and what you need to do to follow them.

In future chapters, we will see what happens to Saul considering he is separating himself from God.