FALSELY ACCUSED

Chapter 7

I Samuel 13:11

 

You’ve waited long enough…we will be getting into David in Chapter 7!  But to add to our contrast of what not to do, how not to act, let’s glance at someone who makes David David and who would make any of us look pretty good by comparison, and that’s David’s arch rival, Saul:

 

BAD SAUL, BAD SAUL (What ya gonna do?):  Chapter 13 of I Samuel finds Saul looking like he has nowhere to run to, baby, no where to hide.  His son, Jonathan, had fought and won over a garrison of Philistines, and now the Israelites are terrified of retaliation.  And with good cause – the Philistines have already begun to gather their considerable forces:  thirty-thousand chariots, six-thousand horsemen and people which were so vast they seemed to the Hebrew children as the sand on the sea. (I Samuel 13:11)

Fearful and disorganized, the armies of Saul begin to flee and to hide themselves any place other than where the attack was sure to take place:  wherever their king was.  Samuel was to come after a seven-day wait and offer sacrifices unto the Lord.  Saul is chewing his fingernails.  Impatience takes over, so the king does what I have done far too many times—he relies on his own reasoning power:  I had better take things into my hands and do something!  It’s all up to ME.

 

I believe that it is here God is ready to show them the utter senselessness of putting their confidence in man by demanding to have a king.  They needed God’s help when they had no king…now they have one and nothing has changed.  The seven days was not completely over…because what transpires now happens on the seventh day.  Saul did not wait long enough.  Worry had set in.  Faith was not in this picture.

 

So Saul, rather than tarrying one more hour, which would have given Samuel time to get there, goes ahead and does a very presumptuous thing:  he himself offers the sacrifice that is Samuel’s and only Samuel’s to offer.  This is done more out of fear than out of pride.  The people are trembling, hopeless, and looking to him.  Instead of pointing them to their God, who has forever been faithful, he takes matters upon his own shoulders.

 

As soon as he is done with the sacraments, Samuel shows up.  Saul is quick to salute him with respect and genuine courtesy (I Samuel 13:10).  Samuel, no doubt full of discernment, sees the guilt and anxiety on the king’s face.  Next he asks the question of accusation, “What hast thou done?” (I Samuel 13:11 KJV).  Somethings when we are accused it’s only because we are so very obviously guilty!  Try as we may, our faces give us away, particularly when we are in the company of spiritual giants that can read us like a book.

 

Once his guilt is established, he begins, much as we so often do, to point the finger.  First, it’s the people who were scattering from him…this has forced his hand.  Then, as long as he’s naming names, he tells Samuel, “You weren’t here!  What do you expect when you can’t be counted on?”  Next it’s the Philistines.  “They have gathered themselves and will be here any tie now.”  His fourth and last place of blame is himself.  But he does it, not in sincerity, but in a manipulative way.  “I forced myself…” (I Samuel 13:12 KJV).  Which translates that, “Hey, I knew better, I tried not to…but what else could I do?  I had to…there was no other choice left.”  How it must grieve the Lord when He is not a choice!

 

Samuel is having none of it.  Had Saul repented in earnest, perhaps his judgement would not have been as severe.  Now along with finger-pointing, Saul shows himself to have not the fear of God, but the far of man, requesting that Samuel not embarrass him in front of the people.  Seeing nothing but excuses, Samuel knows that the nation will not survive for long with this man as king and takes Saul’s office away from him.

 

Many times when we are accused, we are guilty.  This book is about when that is not the case, but perhaps we need to always remember that it’s quiet easy to see another’s guilt and very, very difficult to see our own.  What is precious to the Lord is a humble and meet spirit.  We need this kind of spirit so that we can and will ask ourselves when we are accused, “Is this true?”  Without humility and gentleness, we will only step up to defend ourselves.  It is the Lord who makes the best defender of this children.  Let’s look at someone in II Samuel who showed this kind of spirit.  No more waiting; it’s the someone we’ve all been wanting to hear from for the past two chapters, the man of the hour:  David.

 

We all know about Bathsheba, the woman whose name fits her perfectly.  But now let’s try to erase the scene from her housetop bath to later in life.  In this scenario, she is old, as is David.  In fact, David  is so old (how old is he?) that he no longer has any bodily warmth and is confined to bed.  His servants, worried about him, conclude that a good source of body warmth is from another body.  But they don’t’ stop there.  No!  They imagine what would really do the trick to perk things up a bit is to find a beautiful and young virgin to slip into bed with the king and get his blood flowing again.  Probably these attributes are simply what they themselves desired.

 

The scripture is clear that David did not engage in any hanky-panky with this woman (I Kings 1:4).  She was, however, good for the heat he needed to keep him alive.  So there he lay, in his last days, with the most gorgeous young woman they could find in all the land of Israel.  And the Word says that she loved him and ministered unto him faithfully.

 

But back to Bathsheba, his wife.  Back in her prime, she had had a courageous and faithful husband.  David had sent this man, Uriah, away into battle.  After the bath scene, David sent for her in order to spend a night of sexual pleasure, a request that could not be opposed.  He impregnated her and had Uriah killed.  He married Bathsheba only because of the pregnancy which had resulted.  All these facts could have easily made her resentful, bitter, and vengeful.  He had disgraced her and disrupted her life, the life she had always imagined as a young girl growing up in the land of Israel—being married, having your husband’s children, growing old together.  That was destroyed in a moment only due to the lust of a man who was not in battle himself, but had stayed home and had time on his hands.  Perhaps he missed the battle.  Nothing to make a man feel more masculine than a fierce, bloody fight.  So wandering onto the rooftop, it was easy to have this feeling aroused by the sight he saw.

 

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This chapter was originally chapter 3 but the end of it has been lost. I am going to try to reconstruct it.

So Sorry!!!!