THE BOOK OF SAMUEL PART I

SAUL

In the stories of the Old Testament we follow the lives of its protagonists, their character, their obedience or disobedience to God, their mistakes and their sins and the consequences they face. We see the Lord's judgment of sin and his blessings based on their righteousness and integrity. All these are examples for us the readers to correct our lives, and to know God and get closer to him.

The story of Israel, in the time of prophet Samuel, which continues with the stories of Saul and David, offer  two important messages on the symbolic level, which I will examine in this essay. Both messages are vital to the nations of the earth and the Church of Christ, today as never before. The appearance of the prophet Samuel symbolizes the reappearance of sound doctrine from God, after centuries of people being trapped in the snares of false Christianity and its false teachings.

The first message is the answer to the question, what a nation, any nation must do to free itself from the yoke of Rome. With Rome, I refer to the religious-political institution that had ruled the world for many centuries, and if the book of Daniel, the book of Job and the book of Revelation are considered, it seems that it continues to maintain substantial global control or influence. Much of what is known today as Christianity is under its control and is also the author of its perverted teachings. Revelation 18:3 reveals the political element of an institution that presents itself as a church. Babylon is a woman therefore a church, and is offered for comparison with the other woman of Revelation 12 and symbolic of the true church of Jesus Christ. The woman of Revelation 12 was persecuted, and it happened systematically for what it appears to be a period of 1260 years, that is a time, times, and half a time. Babylon includes people of God who are called to come out of her in Revelation 18:4. The predicted destruction of Babylon and the continuity of the fourth beast of the book of Daniel until the end of days is not a contradiction. A religious institution perishes and a political institution remains in its place, having the same geographical and spiritual center. Here is a brief overview of Rome’s historical significance. In the Middle Ages, Popes claimed spiritual supremacy over Christian rulers. The Roman Catholic Church has been subdued by the Gnostics for the second time since the 16th century, through the efforts of the French revolutionaries. The greatest catalysts in this effort were Napoleon Bonaparte and his stepson, who also subdued the monarchs of Europe. Prince Metternich finished the job at the Congress of Vienna, in front of a frightened crowd of diplomats and monarchs, seeing Napoleon coming back from exile to resume his campaign. That was the French Revolution all about, with the only legitimate part of the iconic slogan “liberty, equality, fraternity” being the fraternity. The first takeover of the Catholic Church is symbolically documented in the book Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. It seems that the period of systematic persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ as foretold in the book of Revelation, for a time, times and half a time, or 1260 years, is from 529 — the year the Justinian Code went into effect, to 1789 — the year the French Revolution began. Roman Emperor Justinian I was recorded as murdering people who did not accept his version of Christianity.

The second important message in the books of Samuel, is a parallel comparison of the activities of two kings of Israel, Saul and David who symbolize the two parts of the genuine church of Christ which is founded on the ground of correct teachings. One part of it, deviates from the way of the Lord, falling in serious apostasy, and the other part of it is kept in the way of God, and is in union with God. The common denominator in the story of the activities of the people of Israel, and particularly Saul and David, is that regardless of the differences that appear between them, they always have the same enemy, the Philistines.

The Philistines in the book of Samuel, conquer part of Israel and seize the ark of God from them. It was a formidable enemy, and not coincidentally, we are shown the Israelites repeatedly fearing the Philistines or even hiding at their sight (1 Samuel 7:7, 13:6,7, 17:11,24, 28:5). One of them, Goliath, is presented to us as a giant, about 3 meters tall (1 Samuel 17). He presented himself to the Israelites for 40 days, day and night. It is offered for comparison with the 40 years that Saul reigned (Acts 13:21) and the 40 years that David reigned (2 Samuel 5:4) showing us in type the temporal coexistence of the Church of Christ with the same enemies throughout her history. 1 Samuel 14:52 says “And there was sore war against the Philistines all the days of Saul: and when Saul saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto him.” In 2 Samuel 21:15-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8, other Philistine giants are mentioned in the war against Israel. In the same war against Israel they spread in the valley of Rephaim twice (2 Samuel 5:18,22, 1 Chronicles 14:9,13). Rephaim means giants. The Philistines are a type of the enemies of the church whose main feature is their great strength. We know it from the history of the last 20 centuries and also from the interpretation of the prophecies, and in particular the fourth beast or kingdom of the book of Daniel. The true Church of Jesus Christ had no other enemy than Rome. It is mostly evident from the persecutions of the Middle Ages as well as the three centuries that followed. Since Saul and David and their servants symbolize the Church of Christ as will be seen later, then the Philistines could not be anything but a type of Rome. 1 Samuel 5:2-7 says that the god of the Philistines was Dagon, the god of fertility, and some other gods. Dagon is a fish-god and it is interesting that the priest of Dagon is depicted in ancient carvings wearing on his head what looks like the mitre of the Pope of Rome, an image of the mouth of the fish god. The mitre resembles the head of a fish with its mouth open.

Even if I put this information aside and limit myself to the interpretation of the Bible, it is confirmed in other passages that the Philistines are a type of Rome. One of the two closing chapters of David's story, 2 Samuel 23 is devoted to the astonishing deeds of David's mighty men against the Philistines. With this chapter, emphasis is placed on the struggle of the Israelites against the Philistines, as if the author wants to draw attention to the student of the Bible, that the Philistines are not random passers-by in the history of Israel as described in the books of Samuel, but have a permanence as enemies, with some deeper meaning behind them. Further symbolic evidence pointing to enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ appears in the same chapter, which says that Bethlehem was under the control of the Philistines in the days of David. "The garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem" (2 Samuel 23:14-16). Bethlehem, which is the birthplace of David and Jesus, etymologically means "house of bread" which of course is the Church of Christ. The book of 1 Chronicles describes largely the struggle of the Israelites against the Philistines, excluding almost all other subjects mentioned in the books of Samuel, as if trying to convince the greatest skeptics that the examination of the Israelite-Philistine conflict is of vital importance (1 Chronicles 10, 11, 14, 18:1, 20).

In the books of Samuel, we follow three factions. The Philistines who are a type of Rome, and everything that is under her umbrella. Saul, who is a type of the part of the church that fell in apostasy by yielding to the temptation of power and glory, and finally, David who is a type of the part of the church that is obedient to God. As strange as it sounds, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and most of Protestantism are symbolically part of the Philistines and not Saul. It is not Christianity, except on the surface. To talk about Christianity, the defining criterion is the teachings. When the Church was established on the day Pentecost, Satan immediately began a work to destroy it, and it was not only by means of persecution.

We observe in the Acts of the Apostles, the false conversion of Simon the Magus to Christianity even before the gospel was spread from the Jews to the nations, and even before Saul, later apostle Paul, was converted to Christianity. We know from history that Simon the Magus was one of the pioneers of Gnosticism, and he seems to have been its founding father.

The Amalekites are a type of all those Gnostic organizations that declared a war against God, to destroy his Church, the Jewish people and all of God’s works on earth. Their goal is to throw the earth into absolute darkness and release Lucifer as the ruler of mankind. The result, by using their own terminology, would be the dawning of the New Age. As the Amalekites did in the past, the Gnostics are waging a war against the people of God, and in this particular case, against the Church of Christ, using the method of infiltration in the same way that the Amalekites acted against the Israelites. Revelation 2 confirms that a nominally Christian church does not necessarily equal a true church of Christ, and Revelation 3:9 shows that people are not always who they say they are. The Nicolaitanes, condemned in Revelation 2:6 and 2:15 were reportedly early Gnostics.

In 1 Samuel 4:2 the Philistines crush the Israelites in a battle. The amazing thing is that this happened despite the fact that the prophet Samuel was among the inhabitants of Israel and was widely accepted as a man of God. Samuel in a way, symbolizes the true church of God and more specifically he symbolizes the part of his Church that is in unity with God. As we see symbolically in other parts of the Old Testament, the strength of the Church is not in the number of its members but in the presence of people among the members who are in unity with God. In the difficult period of the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, Elijah made the difference and not the 7,000 who were hidden and had not worshiped the god Baal.

In 1 Samuel 7:8 Israel had requested Samuel to act as mediator with God and save them from the hands of the Philistines. In Ezekiel 22:30 God says “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” Prophet Daniel mediated for his people so that God would have mercy on them to return from Babylon where they were captive, to their land. In today's terms it does not mean that a people should seek to find a man they consider very spiritual to intercede for them, because then they fall into the trap of ritualistic religion rather than practical Christianity. The habit of believers to turn to a man whose supplication increases the probability for their request to be answered is a misunderstanding of the Bible, which they developed in a false doctrine. God doesn't work that way.

The existence of his people in a nation who are in unity with him is vital to the nation even if the nation is unaware of their existence and if the nation is unaware of who they are. There was no discernible sign that Elijah and Elisha were God's chosen prophets in their day. They had no flock, nor did they exercise authority over any flock. They were not public figures who were in the court of the king and they did not preach or talk about their relationship with God, as is evident in Elijah's stay with the widow of Zarephath. They lived normally among other people. The message that emerges from the presence of the prophet Samuel among the people of Israel is that the existence of a true Church, regardless of the number of the members who are in unity with God, is of paramount importance for God to be favorable to the particular nation. The decisive factor for the existence of a true Church that is obedient to God, is correct teaching. The beginning of Samuel's ministry is also the beginning of reappearance of correct doctrine in Israel. In the days of Eli, Samuel's predecessor, the word of the Lord was rare and there was no open vision (1 Samuel 3:1) because Eli and his children did not carry the will of God. Eli's children were in complete apostasy. The scene changed, and God was speaking in the days of Samuel, which is a sign of the existence of the Church whose members are in unity with God. 1 Samuel 3:20,21 and 4:1 says "And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh: for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord…And the word of Samuel came to all Israel.”

Under these circumstances one would suspect that Israel would defeat any enemy at will. But immediately afterwards in 1 Samuel 4:1,2 we are informed that the Israelites were crushed by the Philistines. It is a type of crushing (politically, economically, militarily, etc.) of a nation in the hands of Rome. We are watching the nation of Israel, a nation that is fully aware of who its enemies are and how they operate, which in today's terms is rare, since enemies of nations appear as friends or they are invisible. We see a nation in which there is a voice of truth, a man who is unanimously accepted as a prophet of God, and his work is an object of admiration. This again is not a given, the same nation rejected Jesus ministering among them a thousand years later. Also, Samuel's speech was so loud and unhindered that all the inhabitants of Israel heard it (1 Samuel 4:1).

The fact that a whole nation loves a man who speaks the truth and defends justice and righteousness does not mean that they put into practice in their lives what the prophet says. When everyone in a nation admires, worships and believes in Jesus Christ, frequently prays to the Father and claims that they are Christians, it does not mean that they are in obedience to his Word and it does not mean that they follow His example. Christianity is not a religion, it is not a label and it is not an identity. The criterion that determines whether someone is a Christian is not whether he says he is a Christian or whether he believes in Jesus Christ or whether he prays or goes to church without fail. Christianity is in the quality of someone’s soul. Christianity is in the soul and nowhere else. It is not in words or prayer or ceremony or fasting. Christianity is the righteousness and integrity of man, his sincerity, humility and graciousness, and his sense of justice.

Samuel was admired by all his nation but he was not an example to follow. Perhaps some loved him for the sense of security he gave them against their enemies the Philistines, with the wrong unbiblical logic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The nation of Israel was God's people. By the same reasoning, every nation that is called Christian on paper and in statistics is the people of God. This means nothing and is shown both by the fate of the nations today and the fate of Israel in the Old Testament and the centuries that followed. In the verses so far we have seen that the presence of the prophet Samuel, a man whose prayers God hears, and who prayed incessantly for Israel "God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you”(1 Samuel 12:23) couldn’t help the Israelites who were crushed by the Philistines.

In 1 Samuel 4:4-11, the Israelites, after their first defeat went to Shiloh and brought the ark of the covenant of God from there to their camp, believing that God would favor them in the next battle against the Philistines. When the Israelites saw the ark in their midst they took courage and confidence and when the Philistines heard it they were discouraged. In the ensuing battle the Philistines again defeated the Israelites and seized the ark of the covenant and took it home to the temple of Dagon.

The ark of the covenant where the law of God was kept represents the correct teaching, that is, not simply the Bible, but the Bible correctly interpreted. The Israelites had the truth at their disposal, they knew what the truth was, and they made it their banner to face their enemies, and yet they were defeated. Again we see a variation of the previous mentality that did not help them. Because of prophet Samuel, the Israelites were privileged to have at their disposal correct teaching that everyone heard, read and knew. But their knowledge was somehow the property of the truth and not its application in their life. They were confident that because they knew the true teaching that their enemies hated, it would give them the privilege to defeat their enemies. The well-known words of Jesus "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" do not apply in this case. If the soldiers of a nation fight a war against the enemy with a Bible in their pocket that they had previously read, this will not help them in anything.

The important message is that a nation will not be blessed by God if they believe in Him and admire His gospel, but when they take this gospel and put it into practice in their lives.

Obedience to God's Word will bear fruit, not faith in his Word and knowledge of the Word as a letter. The Philistines were smitten with plagues due to the possession of the ark of the covenant, so they abandoned it in Israeli territory. Rome can defeat and destroy men, but she cannot defeat God and hold him hostage. The effigy of the god Dagon fell face down in front of the ark and his head and hands were cut off. He is a type of Satan who is humbled and defeated before God. The head of Dagon symbolizes the schemes of the devil and the hands their execution. The devil cannot do anything against the works of God and God’s elect unless the Lord allows it. God has the last word.

When the Israelites took the ark of the covenant again, they brought it to Bethshemesh. There, the inhabitants made sacrifices to the Lord, but those who looked into the ark were put to death by God. The Bethshemites paid for their curiosity, and what they did was essentially repeating the action of Adam and Eve who ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, even though God warned them that if they ate or touch its fruit they would die. When you are not satisfied with the things of God, meaning with true knowledge, and want to experiment with more knowledge outside the realm of belief in God, then you sin by falling into the devil's trap.

At a later stage in 2 Samuel 6:11 “And the ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months: and the Lord blessed Obededom, and all his household.” Here it is shown that the ark of the covenant in today's terms is not a book of the Bible. No one is blessed because he has a Bible in his house, even when he reads it. Obededom and his family are a type of people who allowed the truth to enter their souls and came to the awareness of the Lord. They knew real teaching and walked according to it. They did not limit themselves to the declaration of being followers and admirers of the truth, as the Israelites did in Samuel's time. For this reason, God blessed them.

Instead the Philistines worked the other way around. They brought the truth into their house with the goal of suppressing it and destroying it on the altar of Dagon. They had no intention to walk in the truth. But no man and no power in the world can suppress the truth and extinguish the light in the darkness of the world, because the truth and the light are God himself (John 8:12,14:6). Going back to the story of the first book of Samuel, the Israelites lamented “and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord” (1 Samuel 7:2).

I note that all the Israelites believed in the Lord and lamented for their fate for 20 years (1 Samuel 7:2) since they were under the yoke of the Philistines. 20 years is not little time for a people who say they believe in God, have the truth at their disposal, know their enemies and have a chosen prophet of the Lord who when he prayed, God listened. The cry of the Israelites to the Lord can easily be translated into a prayer to God for deliverance from the Philistines. They all lamented to God. Their tragedy that could melt a man's heart did not move God, he did not hear their prayers and their pain nor was He willing to bless them for the sake of his chosen prophet Samuel. The Israelites simply did not take the necessary step toward the right direction.

Samuel told them what they had to do, right afterwards in 1 Samuel 7:3 “And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines“. Samuel did not suggest an unheard of solution for the Lord to bless them and deliver them from their enemies. The same thing is said to the Israelites in many passages of the Old Testament, since the time God gave the law to them. The same is true of every nation on earth. It is confirmed that until now the relationship of the Israelites with God was superficial, they were God's people in name only.

In Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 the results of obedience or disobedience to the Lord are stated not only for the Israelites but for all the nations and all people individually. The Israelites as shown in 1 Samuel 7:3,4, 12:10 worshiped demonic gods Baal and Ashtaroth. As we see from 1 Samuel 31:10 the Philistines worshiped the same god, Ashtaroth. In what sense should God judge the Philistines and help and bless the Israelites, since deep down they were no different from each other? Why should God help a nation that is not much better in character than its enemies?

Samuel instructed the Israelites to serve only the Lord. This does not mean that they should live a religious life, but that they should serve justice and truth and love their neighbor. When Samuel grew old, he gave an account of his many years of service to the nation before God. He did not speak at all of the Word of God that he spread to Israel, of the prophecies that he uttered, of lost souls that he turned to the Lord, of the burnt offerings that he had made and of the lepers he healed. He said “Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man's hand.” (1 Samuel 12:3,4).

These things determine a person's salvation and this is what Jesus consistently taught in his ministry. In 1 Samuel 12:20,21,24,25 we read “And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness: yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart; And turn ye not aside: for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain… Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.”

In 12:20 he uses the verb following the Lord, which removes the possibility of ritual service and refers to obedience to his commandments. God himself says in 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” What wickedness of people is he talking about in 1 Samuel 12:20 and 2 Chronicles 7:14?

Centuries of propaganda by the enemies of God has convinced people that the wickedness and corruption on earth that provokes the Lord's wrath and judgment is fornication, prostitution, homosexuality, abortions and abstinence from ritual activities or “mysteries” and church services, effectively casting a dark veil over the most serious evils that provoke the wrath and judgment of the Lord. In particular, homosexuality was not among the sins for which God destroyed the city of Sodom and all its inhabitants. Ezekiel 16:49-50 “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.”

The wickedness and corruption that most often angers God is lying, fraud, disrespect, usurpation, exploitation and oppression, injustice, hatred, violence, murder, deceit, theft, arrogance and pride and all that described in Proverbs, Psalms and the book of Job. Individuals and nations are called to refrain from these kind of things more than anything else so that God may have mercy on them and deliver them from their misery and their enemies. These things Samuel spoke of when giving an account of his life, and this was his true service to God. God said of his chosen David "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.“ (Acts 13:22, 1 Samuel 13:14). Solomon says what was special about David in 1 Kings 3:6 “And Solomon said, Thou hast shewed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth, and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee; and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day.” God further confirms in 1 Kings 3:6 “And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments”. In 1 Kings 3:14 God says “And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days.”

The Israelites, after Samuel's invitation to return to God, repented and fasted on the same day (1 Samuel 7:6) and since then God listened to their prayers and completely freed them from the Philistines. But it is shown how important Samuel's presence was in Israel "and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel” (1 Samuel 7:13). The peculiarity that made Samuel a prophet, just like all the other prophets of the Lord is not the gift of God speaking to him as is generally believed. He himself describes what his prophetic ministry was to the nation of Israel "... but I will teach you the good and the right way" (1 Samuel 12:23).

A notable example of a nation's repentance for its sins, followed by a reversal of the Lord's decision not to destroy it, was the repentance of the people of Nineveh after Jonah’s preaching. It’s interesting that Jonah did not speak of God in his message “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them” (Jonah 3:4,5). The people of Nineveh understood instinctively that this was a judgment of God for their sins. Perhaps the most discouraging part of the story for the present day’s States of the earth is that the first to repent with genuine repentance, and to fast, putting sackcloth on themselves, were the king and his nobles. They issued a decree and made all the inhabitants of the city repent and fast and “let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.” The most amazing thing is that the radical change in Nineveh society took place in less than 40 days "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not” (Jonah 3:10).

In both cases the two nations, Israelites and Assyrians, fasted alongside their repentance. Fasting is not a necessary condition for God to take pity on a nation and reverse its judgment, from a curse to a blessing. But this is one of the few reasonable uses of fasting, then and now. The two nations, did not fast to please God more or to increase the likelihood that God would answer their prayer. This is a wrong mindset and common practice. In Isaiah 58 it is described that God does not consider such fasts but sees the soul of man. If the person's character is good, then God hears prayers because the believer has a heart that pleases him. Let us recall not only Isaiah 58, but also the parable of the judgment of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46.

The two nations fasted to show God that they have taken the issue of their sin seriously and their repentance is not empty words. In both cases they did not pause at the words of repentance, but turned away from their sins. I emphasize in the case of the Ninevites that God saw their works and not their words, so He repented of his original decision and didn’t destroy them. God immediately forgave David for the sin of committing adultery, and murder to cover up the adultery. Repentance does not presuppose that he should distance himself from the woman with whom he committed adultery and fornication. Then he married her, and God chose this woman Bathsheba to continue David's genealogical tree with her son Solomon, from whom Jesus would be born. God immediately forgave David because he saw in his heart that his repentance was genuine and did not want to see proof. On the other hand, David, despite being forgiven, had to suffer serious consequences for the rest of his life because of his actions (2 Samuel 12:10-12).

God does not go to the other extreme, waiting to see that a nation has become a nation of saints in order to bless. In 1 Samuel 7:4 we see that the Israelites did works worthy of repentance, exactly what God was waiting to see in order to bless them. "Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth, and served the Lord only.” So it means that they entered the path of righteousness.

When God saw their repentance, he heard their prayer and freed them from the Philistines. What is somewhat surprising is the Israelites retained a dark side of their character that God did not consider in his judgment in their favor. The Israelites did not want God to reign over them and asked Samuel to anoint them king. Thanks to the existence of prophets in Israel, the Israelites constantly felt God's eyes upon them. This they did not like, they wanted to sin without God having an oversight of their lives and they saw the existence of a king as a dark veil between God and the nation. In this respect, they do not differ at all from the citizens in the parable of Jesus with the ten pounds who hated the ruler, a type of Jesus Christ. I quote Luke 19:14, 27 “But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us… But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” They earned everlasting punishment.

The Israelites tried to justify their request telling Samuel “And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” They were just excuses, it was a pretext to ask for a king. They would not in any case want Samuel to be young and his children to walk in his ways. Samuel answered them that they rejected their God who saved them out of all their adversities and their tribulations (1 Samuel 10:19). The Israelites knew what they were doing, and that was what he told them. God had previously confirmed this to Samuel in 1 Samuel 8:7 “they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.”

It seems strange that God previously helped the Israelites and saved them from their enemies the Philistines, knowing that they did not really love him and then would openly reject him. How is it possible for people to repent, for God to hear their repentance and deliver them, and then the same people seem determined to follow their own paths that lead to perdition? It wasn't the first time or the last time it happened. Moses gives the explanation to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 9, that he would not destroy the nations before them to give them the promised land because of their righteousness, because they were a stiffnecked people. He would destroy those nations for their wickedness (Deuteronomy 9:4-6). “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you (Deuteronomy 9:24 and also 9:7). We see in 1 Samuel 15:23 that “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

The Israelites were not only guilty of the first sin but also of the second. They astonish us by their insistence on having a king, even when Samuel warned them that God would forsake them, and they would be at the mercy of an evil oppressive king (1 Samuel 8:11-18). They preferred a tyrant in their lives, along with the feeling that God does not see them, instead of devoting their lives to a righteous, merciful and all-seeing Savior God. It seems that their repentance, which should be noted, did not remain in words but was accompanied by a return from sins, was not caused by the awareness of sin and the love of the Lord, but was the result of their desperate situation from the oppression of their enemies, the Philistines. Since they made the sacrifice of refraining from evil in order for God to save them and bless them, they would proceed to the next step described in Deuteronomy 30:6-10. 

If after their deliverance from the enemy, they allowed God to work in their hearts, to give them a new heart of flesh, then the Israelites would love God with all their heart and all their soul. Then obedience to his commandments would not require an effort but would come naturally because that would be their character. They would be partakers of divine nature. Unfortunately, the Israelites were a stiffnecked people and they lived by constantly repeating the same cycle without end, that is, oppression by enemies, despair, repentance and abstinence from evil, salvation and blessing from God, forgetting God because of blessings and returning to sins, oppression by enemies, despair, etc.

An example of repentance that was the result of fear of God's judgment and not God's love, but was heard by God was of Israel's king Ahab. Ahab was an evil man and not just someone carried away by his wife Jezebel to sin. “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up” (1 Kings 21:25). When prophet Elijah told him that God was going to bring disaster on him and would wipe out his descendants, Ahab’s reaction was “rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.“ (1 Kings 21:17-29). God told Elijah “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son” (1 Kings 21:29). If Ahab really repented, the first thing he would do would be to somehow get rid of Jezebel from his life. Later in the scene with Ahab and Jehoshaphat we see that God never stopped hating Ahab because he was always the same, and in the end he met an ignominious death. Ahab previously, with the recognition of God as Lord and the fast and sackclothes, only humbled himself, but did not really repent. His humility counted for God.

When Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar boasted to God, God immediately took away his kingdom and cast him in the fields to live like a wild beast. When Nebuchadnezzar praised and honoured God, acknowledging that He does whatever He wills, then God restored him (Daniel 4:34-37). If we take into account the previous actions of Nebuchadnezzar and his position as the ruler of Babylon, it would be rather unlikely that his humility before God was accompanied by a change of heart and abstinence from sins. As we see in the previous examples, if repentance is temporary, the fruit of despair, then its effects will be only temporary and limited. If the repentance is superficial words, without fruit worthy of repentance then God will not listen and nothing will change in the fate of the nation or individual.

The story of Saul and David is very interesting for Christians because it offers a comparison between two versions of Christianity. The first is Christianity in apostasy, that is, the church that did away with her head Jesus Christ and operates with human wisdom. The second is true Christianity, the right church that is in unity with Jesus, and operates with the wisdom of God. Saul and his circle symbolize the true Church of Christ that deviates from the way, but even then, her members are given the opportunity, not to minister, but to save their souls and be accepted by the Lord.

What we read about Saul's character and behavior is not only true of the church in apostasy, but also of the imitation Christian church, Babylon. Babylon of the book of Revelation is the Catholic church, the Orthodox church, and most of Protestantism. As I mentioned before, the factions are three and not two. They are, the part of the true church on the right path (David), the part of the true church that deviates from God’s way (Saul), and the imitation Christian church (Philistines). Saul and David’s church so to speak owe their existence to the prophet Samuel who is a type of a man of God who brings forth the truth, true Christian doctrine and true interpretation of the Bible.

Previously, Eli and his sons ministered in Israel. Eli is a type of true Christian, member of the church of Christ who had the gift of ministry from God but was not in unity with God. His fruit is the absence of God from the life of the church and complete apostasy in just one generation, exemplified by the sons of Eli. The fruit of Eli's ministry was religion and the fruit of Samuel's ministry was truth. There is a warning that knowing the truth is no guarantee of obedience of the church, meaning its members. The sons of Samuel were tempted, going after financial gain, and did not walk in the way of the Lord (1 Samuel 8:3). This was earlier the fate of priest and judge Eli. His two sons, Hophni and Phinehas served the Lord as priests. They served in the Lord's house in Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:9,24), the place where God set his name (Jeremiah 7:12) and where the tabernacle was set up, immediately after the conquest of the the promised land (Joshua 18:1). But Shiloh was forgotten for centuries and we see it again for the second time in the first book of Samuel.

We see typologically the history of the church. The glory of God’s name was lost after the establishment of his church, only to reappear in the last days. Eli most probably means high or elevated. The name Hophni means pugilist and the name Phinehas means brazen mouth. They symbolize a church whose main features are audacity, shamelessness and resorting to polemics to deal with dissent. Eli knows the sin of his sons, but seems unable to correct them. The house of Eli is very much reminiscent of the church of Laodicea in the book of Revelation. Complacency (Revelation 3:15-17) and absence of sanctification by the Spirit of the Lord (Revelation 3:18) are the main features of Laodicea. Laodicea is a combination of two Greek words diki and laos and means trial, judgement of the people. On the other hand, as we see later, Samuel has the characteristics of the church of Philadelphia and he pleases God. Philadelphia is another combination of two Greek words philos and adelphos and means brotherly love.

Eli's children steal from offerings (1 Samuel 2:12-17,29) and commit fornication (1 Samuel 2:22). The result is the people moving away from God (1 Samuel 2:17).

In the days of Eli, another family is described. The man of the family is Elkanah, whose name in Hebrew means God has purchased. He had two wives Hannah and Peninnah “and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children” (1 Samuel 2). The name Hannah means grace. Hannah is barren and prays eagerly to God to give her a son. God answers her prayer, and she gives birth to Samuel.

Samuel possesses all the characteristics of the believer who walks in the way of God, and through his ministry, represents God’s true Church. The next verses can be interpreted symbolically or seen literally. He was weaned, meaning he left the spiritual stage of infancy and into maturity (1 Samuel 1:24). A sacrifice was made for him, meaning redemption through blood (1 Samuel 1:25). He entered Shiloh as a small child “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (1 Samuel 1:24, Matthew 18:3). The Lord revealed himself to him through his Word (1 Samuel 3:21, John 10:27). Samuel was growing up and ministering to the Lord (1 Samuel 3:1,19, 2:18). The Lord was pleased with Samuel (1 Samuel 3:19, 2:35) but not with the house of Eli (1 Samuel 2:29-36, 3:12-14). The word of the Lord was rare in the days of Eli as a result of the disobedience of Eli (1 Samuel 3:1). Eli's eyes were dim. He could not see, as a symbol of spiritual blindness (1 Samuel 3:2). Finally the house of Eli bows before Samuel (1 Samuel 2:36).

We see symbolically in Hannah’s prayer that the church of Christ will be lifted up and the righteous will inherit the throne of glory (1 Samuel 2:4-9). The wicked ones will be judged and destroyed (1 Samuel 2:9,10). The prayer makes an indirect reference to the last days and the future judgment. It also describes symbolically the fate of the church that dishonors God. Finally Eli and his sons were judged (1 Samuel 4:17,18). It’s interesting that even though both Eli and Samuel were priests and judges, Samuel has made a name of himself as a prophet, a ministry gifted to him by the Lord. Samuel was also the last judge of Israel.

The books of Samuel warn us about the fall and tragedy of Saul. The same man whom God chose and gave him a new heart to love and obey him, during his life became unrecognizable and identified himself in character with the enemies of the Lord. The work of the apostles had the same almost absurd course in less than a generation. Their Christianity declined fast and a dead religion rose in its place.

Up to chapter 12 in the first book of Samuel and from chapter 13 onwards, we see two different Sauls. The first Saul is a man of God and the second has no difference in character from wicked people. The corruption of his soul seems to have been the result of victories against enemies, such as the one described in 1 Samuel 11 against the Ammonites, and his excessive glory and admiration by his people.

We see the same examples repeated later in two kings of Judah, Amaziah and Uzziah, who were father and son. Amaziah "… did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.” (2 Chronicles 25:2). The same man who, before the battle with the Edomites obeyed God, after the victory became unrecognizable and worshiped the gods of the Edomites, defying the Lord's chastisement through his prophet (2 Chronicles 25:5-16).

His successor, Uzziah was obedient to the Lord and had an impressive activity. He fought and defeated his enemies. It was the Philistines, and we are also told about “Arabians that dwelt in Gurbaal, and the Mehunims. (2 Chronicles 26:7). Enemies of Israel in the book of Nehemiah are brought to mind, Tobiah and Geshem the Arabian. I note here that the etymology of the Hebrew name Tobiah is Yahweh is good, or, goodness of Yahweh. Baal, the god worshiped by the false prophets during Ahab’s reign, means “Lord”. The message here is that the enemies of God on a mission to destroy the true Christian church are enemies from the inside, superficially indistinguishable from devoted believers in Jesus Christ. This has been the scheme of Satan since the days of the apostles until now. The Church of Christ is not facing a group of unbelievers, but a lethal enemy that is called Christianity, the devil’s version of it.

Uzziah's achievements are summarized in just 10 verses. Uzziah defeated the Philistines and destroyed their walls, building cities among the Philistines. It is the victory of the Church against her enemies, which is accompanied by the collapse of their fortifications/walls. Fortifications are a symbol of strong properties of the enemy. This enabled people who were enslaved under their rule to turn to the Lord and find their place in his Church. It is symbolized with the building of cities, meaning, a multitude of new members are added (2 Chronicles 26:6,7).

“Moreover Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the corner gate, and at the valley gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them” (2 Chronicles 26:9). A man of God lays the foundations of the church of Christ. Jerusalem is a type of the church, regardless of its spiritual condition. From the moment someone raises towers, it means that God who is the tower of the church is present. It means the church is not only genuine, but does the will of God. A tower is built at the corner gate which refers to the cornerstone of the Church, Jesus Christ. Another tower is built at the valley gate. The valley is fertile and provides food for the sheep, so there is real teaching, the Word of God in the Church. The members are spiritually nourished with the teachings.

The fortification of Jerusalem is a work also done by Nehemiah, and is the raising of the church's defenses against demonic teachings. This defense presupposes knowledge of the truth, the Word of God. Uzziah also built towers in the desert and dug many wells (2 Chronicles 26:10). In the desert nothing grows, there is no food for the sheep so it is a church where God is absent. Uzziah brings life to the church, raising towers, as we said a symbol of God’s presence, and digging wells that provide the water of life. Life is Jesus, and He is eternal life. The vinedressers in the same verse are an indirect reference to the vine, Jesus (John 15:1).

Uzziah had strong men (2 Chronicles 26:12) who are types of ministers, fully grown in the Word of God. Under them were thousands of warriors, who are the other members of the church, prepared in the knowledge of the Word of God. In 2 Chronicles 26:14 Uzziah “prepared for them throughout all the host shields, and spears, and helmets, and habergeons, and bows, and slings to cast stones” (2 Chronicles 26:14). The slings and stones are reminiscent of David's equipment with which he defeated the Philistine giant Goliath. Uzziah is the type of man who gives knowledge of God, God’s Word to all people, the members of the church. He does not keep the knowledge for himself.

Uzziah is a type of man for all jobs who basically lays the foundations of the church of Christ all by himself. Uzziah paid for this success. "But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.” The same thing happened to Saul. These activities are motivated by lust for power, and it frequently happens in the world of the churches. The man of God wants to stop being a servant of the flock and wants instead to be the leader of the flock. As we see with Saul, his decision to make burnt offerings and peace offerings was not his downfall, but the first sign of his wrong spiritual condition.

When Uzziah was checked for his sin by the priest Hagar and 80 priests, Uzziah instead of repenting, was angry. It was a sign that he lost his sense of right and wrong, and his soul now was in the possession of the devil and not of God. The same thing had happened to Saul and Amaziah, and in the case of Saul it is described to us in detail. Pride opens doors to the devil and leads to the fall. It is a warning to Christians that the man of God of today, doing great things in the service of his Lord, may become the Saul and the Uzziah of tomorrow if he is not careful.

The Christian has a personal responsibility not to lose his mind and fall. Nevertheless, the fate of the man of God is not at the mercy of chance. God has the last word. God has many ways to keep his people away from the trap of pride. He did that to Paul "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” I will also quote the NIV translation: “or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.” (2 Corinthians 12:7). The thorn in the flesh appears to be a problem with his sight, as God’s way to keep him humble and sane. This is not what Paul asked for. Instead he asked God to remove his malady, without success. Nonetheless, Paul became conceited toward the end of his ministry and started doing the wrong things. The first one was his effort to succeed in Jerusalem where the rest of the disciples failed. He shouldn’t go to Jerusalem (Matthew 10:14, Mark 6:11, Luke 9:5).

In a few cases the man himself can do something to keep his feet on the ground, without going to extremes. Daniel refused to eat the portion of the king's food and drink his wine. Nebuchadnezzar used techniques on selected Israelites that would work for him, to make them forget who they were, teaching them the Chaldean culture and language, giving them Chaldean names and offering them his food and wine (Daniel 1).

God can offer total protection from pride if He wants, as seen in God’s words to David about his son Solomon (2 Samuel 7:15, 1 Chronicles 17:13). “But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.” God foretold through Samuel that Saul would end up a bad king (1 Samuel 8:11-18).

Jesus in his ministry said that if the Father wills he will guard not only the soul of his child but also the body “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father “ (Matthew 10:29). Solomon never lost his mind because of his excessive wisdom, apparently because he knew all along that it was not his own but was given to him by God when he visited him in his sleep.

Let us look at the original character of Saul. Saul has a natural and not feigned humility when he first speaks to Samuel “And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?“ (1 Samuel 9:21) Gideon's response was similar when God spoke to him (Judges 6:15).

In Samuel 10:24, Samuel surprises us when he tells the Israelites that there was no one like Saul whom the Lord had chosen, among all men. God gave him another heart earlier, and it was certainly a heart that loved his Lord and obeyed him (1 Samuel 10:9). When Samuel would anoint Saul before his people, Saul felt embarrassed and hid himself (1 Samuel 10:17-27). In 1 Samuel 10:11 Saul prophesied among the prophets. If one is not anointed by the Lord, he has no hope of prophesying from the Lord. In chapter 9 Saul was obedient to his father, which is not a given. In chapter 11 Saul was in obedience to God. He showed his grace, especially after the victory of the Ammonites, when his people urged him to kill the portion of the Israelites who challenged his kingship. (1 Samuel 11:12,13). Then Saul showed magnanimity, he did what Jesus taught centuries later “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you…” Saul answered “There shall not a man be put to death this day: for to day the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel” (1 Samuel 11:13).

From the end of chapter 12 to the beginning of chapter 13, there is an interval of time that is probably many years. 1 Samuel 13:1 does not help us to know how many, because of the numerical problems of the old Hebrew Scriptures that were written in the old language without vowels. Regardless of what modern Bible translations present, the original Hebrew text translated, doesn’t enlighten us. “Saul was years old when he began to reign”. We can be certain however that there was a considerable lapse of time in the reign of Saul, between chapters 12 and 13. If we judge by other indications, then, chapter 13 and the following chapter fall comfortably in the second half of Saul's reign. He had a son, Jonathan, who was of an age to be a warrior. David appears then for the first time and we know that David began to reign at the age of 30 when Saul died. When David fought Goliath, he was young but of the age of a warrior. It means he could have been approximately 20 years old, minus or plus just a few years. Since the tall Saul gave him his armour to wear, surely David was not a child.

From chapter 13 onwards we see another character in Saul. In 1 Samuel 13:3,4 Saul glorifies himself before the people for a victory against the Philistines achieved by another man, namely his son Jonathan. Soon afterwards, the Israelites were facing the Philistines for a battle, but they were afraid of them. Saul was at Gilgal with some of the Israelites. His men were scattered in fear and Samuel, who told Saul that he would appear in 7 days, was nowhere to be seen. On the 7th day Saul made a burnt offering and a peace offering violating the Lord's commandment. He was not a high priest, the man who should perform those duties according to the law of Moses. Then Samuel appeared at the last moment. Saul's excuse was correct, the Philistines were nearby, Saul's men were scattered and Samuel was nowhere to be seen (1 Samuel 13:11). Samuel replied that God had decided not to continue his reign because of his sin and He would put in his place the man of his heart (1 Samuel 13:4). That man would be David.

On the surface, God seems to have been very harsh on Saul, when he gave him an unlikely combination of three horrific circumstances that drained him of all hope, to the extent that he would sacrifice himself, assuming Samuel's duties. Jesus' disciples fared no better concerning faith. They were on the boat with Jesus and they were afraid that the boat would sink in the storm. The interpretation of the incident with Saul is not this. Saul, the man who in 1 Samuel 10:17-27 was ashamed to be a king, was now longing for more power than was given to him by God. What happened was not a matter of lack of faith. Saul waited for the opportunity of his lifetime to sacrifice himself before God, a ministry that belonged to Samuel, and when the opportunity presented itself, Saul seized it.

Chapter 13 symbolically shows the decline of the Lord's church, whose members begin to pursue glory (1 Samuel 13:3,4) and power (1 Samuel 13:5-14). The church member no longer wants to work for the Lord but to appear to everyone that he is working for the Lord, and he doesn’t want to serve but to dominate with as much authority as possible. In this way he turns Christianity and the congregation into a one-man show, which is the most common phenomenon of false Christianity, or a church that follows the road of apostasy.

One of the classic methods used by the pastor of the flock to keep his authority from being threatened by the flock, is to keep the knowledge to himself so that others don’t grow on it. In Protestantism we often observe the sad phenomenon, the pastors of the churches will offer their knowledge every week in 1500 doses of one hour for 30 years with the hope that at the end of the 30 years they will still be the pastors, and the rest will still be the flock. Whether their knowledge is correct or false is another matter. Only Saul and Jonathan had a sword and a spear among the Israelites. The sword symbolizes the Word of God according to Ephesians 6:17. Saul kept the knowledge of God's Word to himself and his son only! Perhaps he did not see Jonathan as a son, but as a successor, which would satisfy his vanity more, so he gave him the sword and the spear.

Even more outrageous is the fact that if the Israelites, all of them, wanted to sharpen their inferior weapons, they had to go to the Philistines. It happened because the Philistines themselves saw to it that there was no smith throughout all land of Israel, who made swords and spears. “But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock” (1 Samuel 13:20). The position of the Philistines is understandable. The Israelites couldn’t manufacture weapons to be used against them. The Philistines are a type of Rome, the enemy of the church and the Jews. Their intention is to suppress the Word of God, the truth (swords and spears), whose existence not only leads the Church of Christ to prosperity, but is also the weapon of destruction of the works of Rome.

The same attempt to suppress the truth with a different image is presented to us when the Philistines seized the ark of the covenant and placed it before their god Dagon. But the Philistines suppressed the manufacture of swords and spears to the extent that Saul permitted them, and it was to an absolute degree. Saul, a type of the Church of Christ, could have ensured that there was a smith in Israel, but he made certain that there was none.

When the elders of the church avoid giving their knowledge to the members of the church so that they never reach their spiritual level, these members of the true Church of Jesus Christ are forced to seek knowledge elsewhere. They could seek the knowledge even a false one in the only visible places it is available, churches under the umbrella of Rome. This action of the elders, keeping knowledge unto themselves, reveals an absence of God's love, placing their vanity above the Lord's work, the welfare of the church, and the nations that love the Lord. It is pure selfishness. When one puts his love of personal glory and power above God who is love, truth, righteousness and eternal life, then we realize the extent of the corruption of that soul. Saul was a man of God who has come to this despicable point, and not a wicked one from his youth, and that grieves us.

A seeming contradiction is that the Philistines have always been Saul's enemies and he never saw them as friends. He fought to destroy them during all the years of his reign even when he turned away from God, and yet he saw it in his best interest to disarm the Israelites of swords and spears, thus strengthening the Philistines. The contradiction is resolved by the fact that the motive of the war against the Philistines changed for Saul. Initially he was fighting them because he hated them as they were the enemies of the Lord and his nation, which were the people of God. From chapter 13 Saul was fighting the Philistines because it was one of the few activities of his life that earned him glory among his people. The honor of being a warrior king was probably the only nourishment of his soul, and he lived for it.

David was praised for his righteousness and his integrity, qualities Saul did not have. War against enemies was perhaps the only source of glory left, and maybe the only means to remain popular. So far, in chapter 13 we are presented with two of the most basic characteristics of Christianity in apostasy, vanity and lust for power. Jesus leaves the sheep to go seek the one lost and yet the so-called Christian ministers do not hesitate to sacrifice the sheep for the sake of power. Keeping the flock in a state of ignorance, enhances their goal. It is the beginning of evil, the foundation upon which the church is organized according to the standards of the world.

From the moment men turn away from God because of pride, in violation of the two great commandments of the Lord, then the devil gains ground in their minds, reason gradually recedes, and Christianity becomes an empty ritualistic religion. If people who crave spiritual power do not resist the devil and return to the Lord, and continue to delight in their sin, and the worst of sins, pride, then demonic influence turns into demonic possession. It is soul and body possession. The Christian ceases to have the distinction of right and wrong and goes insane. We will see these characteristics in the following chapters whose analysis reveals to us many features of Christianity in apostasy.

In chapter 14, Jonathan's faith, expressed in a move he attempted alone with his armourbearer, brought a great victory for the Israelites against the Philistines. The victory motivated Hebrews that were with the Philistines, to go and join the rest of the Israelites under Saul and Jonathan. The victory of the church over Babylon, even when there are elders in a bad spiritual condition in the true church, urges true Bible-believing Christians who have hitherto participated in Babylon to leave her and enter the true church of Christ. “So the Lord saved Israel that day: and the battle passed over unto Bethaven” (1 Samuel 14:23).

In the next verse Saul said: "Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies”. Saul made two mistakes. The first is that he uttered a curse. The curse is only the privilege of God. Curse by man is a dangerous deviation from the will of God with potentially disastrous results to its target, and  there is no rational use for it either. If God wants to curse people, he will do it himself from heaven. Then why should man become the mouth of God, especially when he is not absolutely certain that his curse is in accordance with the will of God? It’s not a matter of works, men carry out on earth with their hands, such as the Israelites building a city or going to war against their enemies, Noah building an ark etc. The curse is a matter of words, God can pronounce himself. He is a Judge who knows much better than men. All those who cursed people in the Old Testament made a mistake, such as Elijah, Elisha, and Jacob, with his wife as a victim.

Even in the case of Noah, his curse seems not to have been God's will. Noah cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, because when Noah got drunk and lay naked in his tent, Ham instead of covering him, went to gossip about him to his brothers (Genesis 9:20-27). A closer look at the incident reveals that no one is innocent. Noah got drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Shem and Japheth, who covered their father and even turned their faces the other way so as not to see his nakedness, obviously did not hesitate to expose their brother Ham for his action to their father when he woke up. He couldn’t have learned exactly what happened from anyone else. All four were guilty of sins and not only Ham whose son received the curse, and because of it today much of mankind suffers, his descendants.

James in James 3:1-12 tells of the destructive effects of the tongue of men. One of the interpretations of the passage is curses. Three of the most notable men of God in the Old Testament, Abraham, David and Solomon have never cursed. Jesus as a man, only cursed a fig tree to set an example for his disciples.

Joshua pronounced a curse for Jericho in Joshua 6:26, and in 1 Chronicles 16:24 we learn that God has spoken the curse through Joshua. The curse was still not necessary to be uttered by man but it happened that way for educational reasons, for us to see the judgement of the Lord.

Saul’s other mistake was when he commanded fasting, manifesting the degradation of the truth into a meaningless religion. The burnt offerings and peace offerings he made could be classified in this category, although they were not done with religious motives. Saul believed that by fasting, God would favor them more and greatly increase their chances of victory against the Philistines. This is a wrong mindset. Whoever goes through a ceremony, in this particular case fasting, to be welcomed by God, means that he doesn’t know God, and he is at a distance from God. This was also true of Saul who while he knew God up until chapter 12, now there was a great distance between them because of Saul's sin. Saul thought he would bridge this gap with a fast. Man closes the gap with God when he is righteous and refrains from evil, and then God is with him, without the need of any ceremony that is unnecessary. If Saul returned from his sins he would not feel the need for any fasting, because he would realize that God is his Father and his Lord, ready to help him in difficult times.

Saul alienated himself from God, who was now in his eyes a God of a religion. When God through Moses dictated a multitude of ceremonies on certain occasions to his people, he did not do so in order for his people to close the gap that existed between them and Him. His goal was to educate them to know the seriousness of their sins and their consequences, and to mold their character, both individually and collectively as a nation as he wished. God wanted through the ceremonies to create a nation that fears God and stays away from evil.

He taught no methods of approaching him. Ceremonies symbolic of something, including the teaching that the redemption from sin could only be accomplished with the shedding of blood, were expected to be abandoned at some point. The exception would be some celebrations, reminding the Israelites who they are and where they came from. Saul failed to see the message behind ceremonies that were dictated to the Israelites in the time of Moses, and saw them as a method to draw closer to God, as is done in pagan religions with their false gods.

Men like Joshua, David, Jehoshaphat and other men of God, when they went to war against the enemies, they simply asked God whether they would go up against them or not, and God answered. Instead, Saul made a sacrifice in the 13th chapter and a fast in the 14th chapter to be favored by God. In the first case he followed the custom of the pagans and is more reminiscent of the Greeks preparing for their expedition to Troy, rather than the Israelites of the Old Testament.

Symbolically we see the entrance of what I call "recipes" in the church, stratagems including ceremonies to unlock blessings from God. God does not work in this manner of the pagan gods, which is also insulting to him. Men were created in the image and likeness of God, and God behaves in a natural way and does not respond to human requests in an automatic mechanical way.

Saul also caused a problem with fasting because he did away with rational thinking. The Israelites had to be full to have strength to fight the enemy, and Saul deprived them of food for the sake of a religious idea and made them faint. Saul's son Jonathan had a right understanding of God and that's why he was the voice of reason. He ate the honey he saw on the ground and his eyes were brightened. He then condemned his father's folly saying that if he had let the Israelites eat they would have received strength and there would have been much more slaughter among the Philistines. He also said of his father "my father caused trouble on earth"(1 Samuel 14:25-30). This shows that Jonathan was aware of who his father was, he had a clear mind free from sentimentalism. His independent thinking is a great asset in the church. 1 Samuel 14:31 says "the people were very faint”. Food is a blessing from God and man should not be deprived of it. Why should man deprive himself from one blessing to receive another? Also the Bible says twice that every man should eat and drink, because it is a gift from God (Ecclesiastes 2:24, 3:13). Jesus during his ministry declared fasting void as a means of expression of communion with him (Mark 2:19). He taught that He and his Father are in the believer and the believer in Jesus Christ and the Father. The righteous person couldn’t be any closer than that to God, especially after the redeeming act of Jesus on the cross. But still, fast has other purposes and the early Christians, including the apostles fasted on several occasions.

In 1 Samuel 14:35, Saul built an altar to the Lord. Both Samuel (1 Samuel 7:17) and David (2 Samuel 24:29) built altars to the Lord. This means that Saul outwardly was a man of God as were Samuel and David. One would have to look behind the surface to see his bad spiritual condition, that he was not walking in the way of the Lord. It’s a message to the members of the Church, not to let the surface deceive them about the elders and ministers of God.

In 1 Samuel 14:37, Saul, at the urging of the priest, asked the Lord if he would go up against the Philistines and the Lord did not answer. It is not clear whether Saul asked about it just to satisfy the priest or in actual expectation of an answer from God. In reality Saul asked the Lord about something that not only he already decided it himself in the previous verse (1 Samuel 14:36), but he also decided the outcome. 1 Samuel 14:36,37 describes an example of the wrong mentality of men of the Church that do planning and ask God to bless their plans as if it is for granted they are in accordance with the will of God. Saul removes "thy will be done" in the Lord’s prayer of the New Testament and replaces it with "bless my will".

When a minister does not consider Him during his ministry, then he can’t expect much if he suddenly asks for His guidance. Saul's only relationship with God was ceremonial because he had strayed from God’s way. What Saul did, never asking God if he would rise up against his enemies, and asking him only once at the urging of the priest, was an error. He did not learn from Joshua's suffering in Ai, and David always inquired of the Lord on this matter. Dealing with the enemies of Israel was perhaps the one matter about which Israel should always inquire of the Lord, and symbolically sets an example for the church of Christ. The Lord’s Prayer, a synopsis of what the believer would expect and ask from God, includes the phrase “deliver us from the evil one” (NIV).

The enemies of Israel were not as powerful then, as the enemies of the Church are powerful today. The power of the Church is in her Lord who has unlimited wisdom, is omnipotent, and most importantly, knows everything, both present and future.

Continuing the story of Saul, he discovers that his son Jonathan has disobeyed his order to fast and immediately decides that he should be killed according to his command and curse (1 Samuel 14:43,44). This time the voice of reason is the people who saved Jonathan, considering that he brought salvation to Israel. The fact that there’s an elder in the church does not mean that his opinion is always correct and flock should always judge if there is logic behind that opinion. Believers should never abandon their independent thinking upon entering the church of Christ because logic is the key to walking in the path of God. The devil tries to destroy reason, as is now the case with Saul, to lure the church into his snare.

It was not the only time the Israelites defied Saul's orders. Later in an infamous incident, they refused to kill the Lord's priests (1 Samuel 22:17).

Back in the case of Saul with Jonathan, we see the fall of an anointed of the Lord, who doesn’t take decisions based in wisdom and common sense, but relies on religious rules that have to be followed to the letter. Irrational religious rules enter the field of Christianity in the place of wisdom, prudence and logic (intellect) and turn Christianity into a dead religion that is not based on the reality of life, but is viewed as an addition to your life.

There are not two lives, the normal life of man with his profession or schooling, his leisure time and his family and his friends, and the life of the church. There is only one life, the normal life of man. What makes a person a member of the church is faith in God and not membership in a local church. The extra you do as a Christian is coming to knowledge of God mostly through Bible study and use that knowledge to become a better person (Psalm 119).

Christianity is not about modifying your life to include religious activities. The teaching of Jesus is not a religion. People over the centuries have turned it into a religion. Saul was losing his sanity in favor of a meaningless religion. He ordered a fast in the belief that God would favor them more against their enemies. He said that whoever did not fast would die, and when his son didn’t fast, he wanted to kill him. He wished to become an inquisitor, even of his own son. Saul, despite his spiritual fall, continued to have victories against his enemies (1 Samuel 14:47,48) and one reason is that among the Israelites there was Jonathan and many like Jonathan.

In 1 Samuel 14:52 we read “And there was sore war against the Philistines all the days of Saul: and when Saul saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto him”. He is a type of the Christian who sees the strength of the Church in its members and on their abilities and not on God. He relies on the strength of the members to defeat the Philistines, but it is wrong as shown in 2 Samuel 5:18-25 and 1 Chronicles 14:8-17. David defeated the Philistines by relying on two opposite instructions of God on two different occasions but seemingly under identical circumstances; the Philistines spread in the valley of Rephaim. If Saul hadn’t taken the mighty men with him, it does not mean that they would not be present in the battle. Saul wanted to take the glory when they were with him, defeating their enemies. It is a typical worldly mentality and not the mentality of a man of God.

In 1 Samuel 15:1, Samuel confirmed the anointing of Saul as king, which shows that when someone strays from God's way, God does not reject him or his ministry, and gives him opportunities to return from his sins. He also conveyed to him God’s command to slaughter all the Amalekites "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul slaughtered the Amalekites but kept their king Agag alive and the best of their oxen and sheep “but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly”. NIV translation has it “despised and weak” (1 Samuel 15:9). For this reason God rejected Saul from being king of Israel. God appears overly strict with his command in 1 Samuel 15:3 but he is not. If we try to understand who the Amalekites were even with the few verses of the Old Testament that refer to them, then we will understand the harshness of God and the magnitude of Saul's transgression.

From Exodus 17:8-16, Deuteronomy 25:17-19 and 2 Samuel 1:1-16 we conclude that the Amalekites were Israel's most dangerous enemy. In Exodus 17:8-16 the only way for the Israelites not to be defeated by the Amalekites was special care of Moses and the elders of Israel, full of symbolism. The Amalekites differed from Israel's other enemies in that they were sworn enemies against God, had no bounds in malice, and most importantly, were masters of hypocrisy. For an Amalekite, to the Israelites he was an Israelite, to the Philistines he was a Philistine, to David he was Saul's enemy and to Saul he was David's enemy. Unlike other enemies of Israel who fought conventional wars, the Amalekites' specialty was secret warfare. They infiltrated, spied and undermined their enemies in order to destroy them completely. What the Old Testament says about Philistines and Amalekites against Israel, is symbolic of the enemies of the Church today, but also the enemies of Israel and the Jews. The Philistines symbolize the visible part of the enemies of the Church and the Amalekites the secret enemies.

In 1 Samuel 30:1-3 the Amalekites are presented again in action and we learn more about them and their way of operating. They invaded Ziklag, took the wives, sons and daughters of the Israelites captive and "they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way” (1 Samuel 30:2). They burned Ziklag with fire (1 Samuel 30:1,3).

Let’s see the symbolism of the Amalekites’ vices. The burning of the city is the destruction of God's work. The wheat, the food of the believers is burned, the Word of the Lord disappears, to be replaced with false teachings. The captivity of women, sons and daughters without physical harm being done to them, manifests how the agents of Satan on earth operate. They don’t make a war against the Church of Christ by appearing as her enemies. They subvert the genuine gospel of Christ by destroying it in a crafty manner and replacing it with an imitation gospel that does not save. They turn the members of the Church to captives of Satan and his imitation Church, that is, of Babylon. They subtly derail the Church and bring it from the path of God to their own path which on the surface looks Christian.

In reality their nice and innocent-looking gospel is demonic teachings and leads to perdition. In other words, the Amalekites are a type of organized enemies of God that undermine the Church by transferring it from the true gospel to a false gospel. It is shown how cunningly, quietly and opportunistically the Amalekites acted when the Israelites were busy with the war against the Philistines. We see how specific were the actions that David had to take in order to defeat them.

First was the instruction from God (1 Samuel 30:7,8) and then was the obedience of David and his servants to the ten commandments of the Lord. God sent them an opportunity in disguise, and if David did not become a good Samaritan to help a distressed stranger on the road, the opportunity would be lost. The stranger helped them beat the Amalekites.

The same applies to church members who want to deal effectively with their enemies, they need God's direction, and they need to be in a state of obedience to the Lord.

Later in 1 Samuel 30:18,19 “David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives. Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. David brought everything back.” Nothing was missing. In symbolic terms, the believers are in a place having everything they need, Holy Bibles, assemblies in the name of Jesus, Christian sermons, worship, communion, Bible studies, fellowship to one another, but behind the facade of Christianity there is nothing but earthly wisdom and lies, a false representation of the gospel of Christ. They gave them a version of Christianity based on false teachings. It was simply a migration of people of God from Ziklag to the territory of the Amalekites. The captives received such care, that no sense of captivity and insecurity would be felt. “Nothing was missing: young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken.”

Based on the above, Saul's disobedience to God is shocking. Saul's excuses for his action were all lies. He claimed that he did as told by the Lord, that he kept the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, and that he feared the people, and obeyed their voice (1 Samuel 15:20,21,24). Saul saved the king of the Amalekites Agag and the good from the sheep and oxen because he liked what Agag represented. He liked the image of a leader under whose authority, the subjects obeyed him blindly. He had rejected the idea of ​​the shepherd taking care of the sheep, as it is God's will.

The reader can see the parallels with Christianity in apostasy where the duty of the flock is to serve the shepherd and not the Biblical opposite. Saul's action of slaughtering the defective, weak and despised sheep and keeping the good ones is interpreted symbolically. He is the "pastor" leader of the church who envisions under his authority a flock with no sick, wounded, and lost sheep among them to distract his glorious ministry (Ezekiel 34). He doesn’t want the sheep to blemish his ministry with their tiresome problems. There should be no weak and defective sheep that trouble the shepherd with their personal issues. He has better things to do and glory and power to enjoy. This was the mentality of Saul and this is the prevailing mentality in false Christianity.

In 1 Samuel 15:16 Samuel told Saul, “Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night” and in the ensuing conversation between them, Saul not only tries to make excuses by justifying himself, but also shows an audacity, constantly lying before God, making Ananias and Sapphira look like saints compared to him. Saul's reaction in chapter 15 shows a disappearance of the fear of God. He has no regrets putting all the blame on his people, and indeed this was the closing statement of his supposed repentance to God "because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.”

How is it possible that he was afraid to command the people to follow the instruction of the universally acknowledged prophet Samuel to kill the animals of the Amalekites, and did not fear his people in his command to kill their savior Jonathan that also happened to be his son? Later he did not fear his people when he ordered his servants to kill 85 priests of the Lord (1 Samuel 22:17,18).

When Saul replied that the people wanted the sheep and oxen of the Amalekites to sacrifice to the Lord, Samuel pointed out Saul's wrong direction in the things of God, which is also the wrong direction of Christianity. "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” Samuel follows with these harsh words “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1 Samuel 15:22,23).

I repeat that Saul failed to see the essence of life with God, or forgot it, and saw the sacrifices that God dictated to Moses as a permanent method of approaching God and not as a temporary training of the Israelites in the time of Moses. David himself commented on sacrifices in Psalm 51, verses 16,17: “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

God asks man to obey his commandments. The sanctification of the soul makes obedience more attainable and the circumcision of the heart disintegrates the last barriers between man and God. Then man loves God with all his heart and all his mind and does God’s will without effort because it is also his own will. God's work in Saul's heart was lost because of the path of sin that Saul chose (1 Samuel 10:9). The same is true in the so called Christianity that lost the meaning of the gospel and turned a blind eye to the entire teaching of Jesus in the gospels. Assemblies in the churches became sacrifices. The believers fail to see the real purpose a church meeting should have. God does not ask for the presence of believers in the meeting, but he wants their souls. The believer fulfills his goal when he presents to God a beautiful soul, a character of a righteous man who fears God and refrains from evil. The soul will not be built by group prayer and worship, the taking of bread, songs to the Lord, evangelism, and sermons. The soul of man pleases God when man repents and turns away from his sins, and this is true faith in God and faith in Jesus.

The gathering aims to help the believer in this journey of knowledge of the Lord, so that he can walk alone toward his kingdom. Also the gathering aims at the ministry of the sheep on a personal level. You could say that Job and his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, are a type of the Church of Jesus Christ, characterized by the knowledge and obedience of its members, and you could also say that the dialogue that took place between them, ending with God’s Word on the particular topic and the prayer of Job, is a type of a single service that takes place in the assembly. I note here the only person who spoke correctly according to God’s instruction was Elihu, who opened his statement with these words “I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine opinion. I said, Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said, Hearken to me; I also will shew mine opinion” (Job 32:6-10). That’s the true meaning of the body of Christ, every member has a role to play, and the Lord can speak through anyone (1 Corinthians 12). God had spoken after Elihu because He was allowed to speak, and Job seeked the explanation to his tragedy straight from Him. Elihu himself was allowed to speak as well, and his opinion proved to be valuable.

If the congregation is not the primary place for the sheep to identify the sources of their problems and receive encouragement and real solutions, what would be the point? It doesn’t mean that a member should make his issues public, and everyone should listen and discuss his or her problems, this would be wrong. The Bible doesn’t suggest there has to be a pulpit and hundreds of chairs facing the pulpit in a building called church to begin with, never mind the assembly being a one-man show, as if the rest of the believers are not qualified for anything.

The church is not a place to approach and please God. True Christianity is in the soul that loves God and loves his neighbor. It is in the obedience to the commandments of the Lord. God asks of man an upright, honest, righteous character, a pure soul. Character was the focus of the teaching of Jesus Christ when he ministered on earth. On the contrary, man has the illusion that his fellowship with God and his duty in the eyes of God is found in prayers, ceremonies, meetings, worships, praises, and all the activities the Christian is accustomed to. The result is the degradation of the truth to a religion of men.

The contrast between ritual Christianity and Christianity of real life is well illustrated in the first chapter of Isaiah. Notable verses include, Isaiah 1:4,7,9,11-17,21-23. In Isaiah 1 we see a nation oppressed by its enemies and destroyed because of the sin of the Israelites. The reason that God had not utterly destroyed them was the presence of a very small remnant of righteous people among them, and this was the key factor that differentiated Israel from Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9,10).

The surprising thing, but not unknown to us today, is that all the inhabitants of Israel believed in God and did not fail to make gatherings before him with sacrifices and festivals that God himself dictated to Moses. But they failed to see the meaning behind the sacrifices and feasts that Moses presented to them, and which were not supposed to last forever. with the exception of some celebrations. They saw them as a method of appeasing God and fulfilling their duty on earth according to the will of God. God, on the contrary, asks for truth and righteousness, abstinence from evil and mercy to one's neighbor. This is the meaning of the two great commandments of God as presented in the New Testament by Jesus, and not some sentimental love of God and neighbor. This does not mean meetings and celebrations in Christianity should be abolished. The gathering when done correctly assists the spiritual journey of the believer and is a place to get answers and find consolation or a real solution to his problems.

Let’s return to Saul’s story. Saul in chapter 15 showed no love or fear for the Lord, and no love to his people. He projected on them his own sins, treating the people he was supposed to serve as scapegoats. Samuel announced to Saul that God had taken the kingdom away from him and given it to someone better than him, adding "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent” (1 Samuel 15:26-29). Here we see the mercy of God. He could have taken the kingdom from Saul much earlier and despite his constant unacceptable behavior and disobedience to His commandments, the Lord gave him a lot of time to repent. 1 Samuel 13:14 served as a warning "but now thy kingdom shall not continue." Saul continued living in iniquity and the Lord's decision became final. Even then, Saul showed contempt for Samuel's word and repeated his false repentance. God rejected Saul from being a king but now he was giving him a chance to save his soul. He continued to give him a chance until the end of his life.

Samuel in the conversation, showed that God knows everything about Saul and that Saul couldn’t hide behind excuses. He showed him his sins by talking to him about rebellion, stubbornness and disobedience to the Lord's commandments. The reproval coming from God through the word of Samuel, was a call to repentance. But Saul did not respond. God seems very patient with Saul, waiting for him to repent and return to him, even if many years had passed since Saul's apostasy. He waited for him to repent even if he committed the worst of sins including his hypocrisy before God, his decision to spare the life of the king of the Amalekites and his ultimate goal to kill the Lord's chosen one David, a man that did nothing wrong to him. The proof that God had never rejected Saul, but was waiting for him to return to him is in 1 Chronicles 10:13,14. It says that God killed Saul because he consulted a woman with a spirit of divination "And enquired not of the Lord."

Saul, in one of the last incidents of his life was expected to ask the Lord for guidance. It means he had not been rejected by the Lord. The attitude of the Lord seems absurd, because Saul’s behavior from chapter 13 to the end of his life in chapter 31, is no different from that of a wicked man. What distinguished Saul from the evil people the Lord blots out from the book of life, is that it wasn’t his true nature. Saul was righteous in his youth and God made him even better by giving him a new heart (1 Samuel 10:9). Saul fell in the trap of pride allowing demons to take over his thought, and in the end he was troubled physically by demonization as well (1 Samuel 16:14, 18:10) We are told of an evil spirit that troubled him. It doesn't mean it was the only one. His outbursts of rage at home, to the point of throwing spears to kill David and his son Jonathan, were symptoms of his mental state. In 1 Samuel 11:6 the Spirit of God kindled Saul’s anger when he heard news about Israel's enemies but later his anger was the result of demons and was about people and things that pleased God. Later on, Saul loses his mind. When David saved his life twice when Saul wanted to kill him, Saul gave a response with sound judgment (1 Samuel 24:17-22, 26:22,25). One could suppose that Saul was pretending and did not believe what he was saying, waiting for the next opportunity to kill David. But in 1 Samuel 24:20,21 Saul said “And now, behold, I know well that thou shalt surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in thine hand. Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house.”

If Saul was pretending, knowing at some point that he would kill David, then he wouldn't go so as far as to tell him to show mercy to his family when he became a king after his death. Saul had glimpses of truth and reality and was not disingenuous. The glimpses came after the mercy shown to him by David (Proverbs 15:1). Saul never took advantage of such moments of clear thinking, to ask for help from the Lord. If he did it with a sincere desire to return to the Lord, God would help him.

After Samuel checked Saul and announced the Lord's decision to take the kingdom away from him, Saul begged Samuel to honor him before the elders and the people of Israel and return with him so that Saul would worship the Lord. It happened as he wished (1 Samuel 15:30,31). When God takes away or rejects someone's ministry in the church because he is in apostasy, then it is common for the deacon or elder to continue his duties as before as if nothing had happened, deceiving the flock. This attitude will be costly, not so much for him as for the ignorant flock. The people of Israel would have a hard time recognizing that Saul was out of favor with the Lord, never mind that Saul’s behavior was erratic for a long period of time. Saul worshiped the Lord, but people were witnessing just an act. He was engaged in a religious activity devoid of meaning because Saul did not love God and violated his commandments. This spectacle could have easily deceive the people Israel who might have thought that Saul was still a man of God, as he has always been. Saul, if he really repented, he should have announced to the people of Israel that God has given his kingdom to someone else, and then go to his house to pray to the Lord and not worship the Lord before his people.

In 1 Samuel 16 we see Samuel anointing David as king and in 1 Samuel 16:13,14 the Spirit of God, that is the Holy Spirit, came upon David from that day and God’s Spirit left Saul. This expression does not mean that David up to that day did not have the Holy Spirit in him and Saul since then did not have the Holy Spirit in him. The verses refer to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in the same sense that Jesus told his disciples that he would pray to the Father to send another Comforter, the Spirit of truth to guide them into all truth (John 16:13). The Holy Spirit was always present. A revelation that Peter had in Matthew 16:16 “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” was from the Holy Spirit, and more specifically from the Father through his Spirit. In the Old Testament in Nehemiah 9:20 we read “Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.” From the day of Pentecost onwards the Holy Spirit began to guide the disciples more actively during their ministry.

In 1 Samuel 16:14 an evil spirit from the Lord began to afflict Saul and in 1 Samuel 16:15,16 his servants assessed the situation correctly. They understood that an evil spirit was sent by the Lord. They told Saul that they would look for a man of God who plays the harp before Saul, and Saul would be well. A servant suggested David who played the harp well, and I stress the final phrase of his description of David "the Lord is with him” (1 Samuel 16:18). Saul accepted. 1 Samuel 16:23 says "And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”

Here we see an example of how "recipes" slip in Christianity and become well-established teachings, There is a problem with Saul which is correctly identified as demonization. Some of Saul's servants conceive the idea that if a man of God is playing the harp before Saul, the evil spirit will depart from him. The idea is applied, and a new teaching appears; when a man of God plays music to one who is afflicted with a demon, then the demon departs from him. Saul's servants may have been inspired by the pagan practices of the enchanters and charmers, but in true Christianity, things don’t work that way. Demons seem to respond to a practice that is clearly inspired from the occult. This practice may become the basis for new false teachings. I will cite a real present-day example related to the topic, the idea that some of the Lord's so-called elect have "anointing". In this way God tests the believers if they have the right understanding who He is. On the other hand the devil, the master of deception, tempts the believers, luring them into a new gospel that is not the truth. The Bible was not given to us by God interpreted. The search for truth should precede knowledge of it (Matthew 7:7,8) and additionally, God expects the believer to discern right from wrong through the right Spirit (Luke 9:54,55).

In the case of Saul, although the verse says "and the evil spirit departed from him”, the scene presents to us a pretense and not reality. The demon did not respond to David's music but pretended to respond to David's music. The same is true of the exorcisms of the ancient “Christian” denominations and the expulsion of demons in the churches of Protestantism. No deliverance from evil spirits takes place, and in the cases where something seems to be happening, it is because the evil spirits pretend to respond. This is precisely why the effort of the seven sons of Sceva to cast out evil spirits from someone, ended in disaster (Acts 19:13-16). They were lacking authority over evil spirits.

The only way for someone to cast out demons is to walk in the right gospel, and enter the kingdom of God, and then he will have authority from God. “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you”(Matthew 12:28). It’s the only time evil spirits respond to someone’s authority. It is about authority, not anointing. As we see in the New Testament in the case of Jesus and Paul, authority is exercised with commands, and effortlessly. The seventy disciples were given authority by God at a certain time without first entering the kingdom of God, but this was an exception “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name” (Luke 10:17). The ministry of Jesus and the apostles was a peculiar period of time where all those who believed, would receive healing or deliverance from demons. It was a sign of confirmation of the gospel of Christ by Jesus himself and his apostles.

In 1 Samuel 17, when David asked the Israelite men questions about Goliath, the Philistine who was terrorizing Israel, his brother Eliab angrily told him “Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle” (1 Samuel 17:28). Previously in 1 Samuel 17:14 Eliab is presented to us being among the three eldest brothers of David who followed Saul. In 1 Samuel 16:7 God told Samuel he rejected Eliab “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”

In this passage, wrong worldly ideas about ministering the flock in the churches are presented to us. I refer to Christianity in apostasy. Jesus Christ is rejected by men as head of the Church, and ministries are distributed according to the standards of the world, in the same way that the director of an organization or company hires employees to positions of his choice. Eliab is a type of an elder in a church that does not follow Jesus. It was decided by Eliab that his brother David should shepherd some sheep in the wilderness. Eliab in his turn was a senior servant of Saul, who had previously followed him. Perhaps he liked the wrong turning Saul took as a ruler king rather than a servant king of his people. The picture of the secular organization of the church is completed by Saul in 1 Samuel 17:33. “And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.”

In this particular example, ministries are not just distributed, but they are distributed according to age. The entire story of Saul presents to us in a masterful way the characteristics of Christianity in apostasy. All the rest that Eliab said to David are a theater of the absurd "I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle” (1 Samuel 17:28). He should have been saying this to himself and not to David. He showed contempt for David's words of faith, accusing him of being guilty of pride and naughtiness. Eliab showed a superficial piety to God by supposedly being concerned about a few sheep. Here lies a contradiction. The man who appears to the believers to care about the sheep, had already been rejected by God. Eliab is full of hypocrisy, and concludes "thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle”. There was no battle, everyone ran to hide at the sight of the Philistine giant Goliath.

In the same way, representatives of Christianity in apostasy, from the moment they decided that the church they rule is of Jesus Christ and they are his servants and pastors and shepherds, the rest of the triumphalism is declared from behind the pulpit. They talk about "victory", "blessings", "joy of the Holy Spirit", "salvation", "healing", when before their eyes of the flock the image is the reverse, as long as the eyes of the members of the church are wide open. The flock or part of the flock suffers, it is unhappy, God's blessings are nowhere to be seen, and no one is healed. Life seems harder than ever before and problems are not solved. The time of involvement in the things of God does not determine the timing of the beginning of a ministry in accordance to the will of God. There is no shortage of examples in the Bible (Gideon, David, Jeremiah, Paul, etc.).

When David appeared determined to face Goliath, Saul gave him his armour to wear. When David tried it on, he couldn't move so he took it off. The armour of the Israelites symbolizes the armour of God in Ephesians 6:11-17, but since we are referring to Saul, his armour is the armour of religion. When a believer is provided with it, he cannot go anywhere, and spiritually, he will remain in the same state from where he started. When David defeated Goliath, Saul asked Abner, the captain of the host, “Abner, whose son is this youth? whose son is this young man?" (1 Samuel 17:55). Abner did not know, and when he brought David before Saul, Saul asked him “Whose son art thou, thou young man?” And David answered, “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite.” (1 Samuel 17:58). David had previously played the harp to Saul and Saul had been informed by his servant, who David was. “Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him. Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep” (1 Samuel 16:18,19). It shows the contempt of the leaders of the Christian church in apostasy, towards the flock. As long as the authority becomes an end in itself, then it ceases to matter who the flock is, what needs and problems they have. In the worst case scenario, the sheep become nothing more than a number that has to be increased and their only duty is to serve the leaders of the church, and carry out their instructions. David not only ministered to Saul, but he was a man who healed Saul when he was afflicted with an evil spirit.

The man David was a matter of indifference in Saul's career, he was just a soldier in his eyes, and himself a general in the Lord's army. It can be presumed that Saul had no difficulty remembering the names of the strong valiant men he took unto him, for they were the elite of the kingdom (1 Samuel 14:52). The strong valiant men were a type of the glorious secular hierarchy of the church. Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18:1-4 recognizes that David is a man of God. It is not surprising, because Jonathan was in a good spiritual condition and he saw that his father was faltering in the way of God. (1 Samuel 14:29). David was getting more glory than Saul, and Saul was very angry, saying "what can he have more than the kingdom?" (1 Samuel 18:7,8). 1 Samuel 18:9 says “And Saul eyed David from that day and forward”.

Saul’s behavior manifests lust for power, the typical attitude of an official of the church in apostasy, who holds on to power with all his might, and under no circumstances he would let it go. Saul knew that God had taken the kingdom away from him and had chosen David to give it to him, but he still did not want to give it up. If someone believes in God it does not necessarily mean that he has fear of God. If God resists his plans, it may be nothing more than a stumbling block to be brushed aside.

1 Samuel 18:10 says “And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand”. Prophecy is not a disease that the devil will impose on you against your will. Saul prophesied because he wanted to, and in all likelihood he believed that it was God speaking and not a spirit. Under normal circumstances Saul could have easily discerned that it was not God speaking because he had good experience of the Lord's prophecies (1 Samuel 10:10,11). Saul had no discernment in the things of God. He then began the attempts to kill David, throwing the javelin against him. Nevertheless, David continued to serve him by playing the harp (1 Samuel 18:10,11). Saul was an insane person at that point. He was not behaving that way because of ignorance. His knowledge is shown in 1 Samuel 18:12 and especially in 1 Samuel 18:28 “And Saul saw and knew that the Lord was with David, and that Michal, Saul's daughter loved him.” It is followed by this verse “And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David's enemy continually”. It’s ironic that Saul, instead of fearing God, he feared David.

From this point Saul became steadily worse, and he was just a wicked man, an enemy of the Lord. In 1 Samuel 18:17-27 he implemented a cunning plan to have David killed by the Philistines. This was tantamount to enmity against God, but Saul was now controlled by his passions and not reason. Nothing could change his mind even when his son Jonathan exposed his conduct and his sin, closing with these words “wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?” (1 Samuel 19:4,5). Jonathan reminded Saul of God’s commandments “Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked” (Exodus 23:7). Deuteronomy 27:24,25 says that anyone who does things like these is cursed, and Deuteronomy 19:10-14 instructs the death penalty of a man committing such an offense. Saul continued to disregard the commandments of the Lord and he was controlled by his passions.

Saul's sins are without boundaries and include efforts to kill David, perjury (1 Samuel 19:6), false repentance before David (1 Samuel 26:21), the killing of the priests of the Lord (1 Samuel 22:6-23), and consulting a necromancer (1 Samuel 28:7-15). In 1 Samuel 20:30,31, Saul exhibits psychopathic behavior toward his son, and in 1 Samuel 23:7, he is shown to have completely lost his mind. He believed that he was serving the Lord in his attempt to kill David “God hath delivered him into mine hand”.

In Christianity in apostasy, the belief of some that they serve God when it is obvious that they don’t is usually hypocrisy, but it can also be the result of madness, usually an outcome of pride. When someone loses his mind and sincerely wants God to help him because he loves him, then deliverance from demons is not necessarily the only solution. It is the ideal and desirable solution but difficult to achieve. Man can ask God for help and God will respond by clearing his mind to the extent that he can function normally.

In Saul's case, the prophecies could help pushing him further in apostasy. An evil spirit could have convinced him that he is his chosen one and that he restored the kingdom to him because he returned to his way, and that David changed and became a child of the devil. Although this is speculation, it is a very expected content of prophecies from a spirit pretending to be God, to deceive Saul and keep him in his bonds, away from God.

The spirit prophesying to Saul in 1 Samuel 18:10 could also be symbolic of the descent of Christianity to the worst stage of straying from God, which is the charismatic movement. The charismatic movement is focused on perception and spiritual experiences (Genesis 3:6, Daniel 4:3) rather than on true faith increased through the study of the Word (John 17:3, 5:39), and believers are stepping on perilous ground because evil spirits may disguise themselves as the Holy Spirit. The real gift of tongues is languages God gave to his people in order to spread the gospel to all the nations. They had to overcome the previous obstacle of Babel, when God confused the languages so people would not understand each other (Genesis 11:7,9). In the original Greek, tongue is glossa. In the Greek language both ancient and modern, glossa means both the body organ and the language, and in the book of the Acts it is or should be translated as languages. It is obvious in Acts chapter 2 that “glossa”, plural “glosses” (Acts 2:3,4,11) and “dialektos” (Acts 2:6,8) is an intelligible language or dialect. A gift the apostle Paul had, was to speak the language of his audience.

Another sign of Saul’s apostasy, is the Edomite servant he had. Not only he had no problem having an Edomite as his servant but allowed him to be among the priests of the Lord (1 Samuel 21:7, 22:9,18,22). He was the man who betrayed David that he was with the Lord's priests, and he was the man who obeyed Saul's order and killed 85 priests. We have a better understanding who the Edomites were in God's eyes in 1 Kings 11:15,16. “For it came to pass, when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom; (For six months did Joab remain there with all Israel, until he had cut off every male in Edom:)”

In the case of Saul we see the type of an elder or church leader of a church in apostasy that allows wolves to mingle with the sheep. In Revelation 1:6 the priests of the Lord are all the true believers, the entire flock of the church. Here we have a bigger picture what the Edomite servant was doing. The two main things a wolf can do in a local church or congregation are spying and undermining/destroying the sheep. The Edomite worked both ways in this case, and even killed 85 priests of the Lord all by himself. Since Doeg was a willing servant of Saul, it didn’t matter to Saul if he was an Edomite, or a Philistine, or an Amalekite.

In false Christianity or Christianity in apostasy the only condition for being among the flock is to accept the authority of the leader of the church and be willing to serve him. This mentality is against the will of God because the condition to be among the Lord's sheep is exactly that, to be a sheep. The sheep accept the authority of the Lord in their lives and hear his voice. Obedience to the Lord is beautifully defined by God himself in the case of Job "and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1,8, 2:3).

I also quote from three Psalms. Incidentally all three of them were written by David. Psalm 15:1-3: “Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour”. Psalm 24:3-5: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation”. Psalm 103:17,18: “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them”.

Therefore the acceptance of the authority of God in one’s life and not the authority of a leader or pastor is the requirement to be among the flock. In the case of Saul who was only interested in power, he knew Doeg's story of being an Edomite and yet he made him his servant and allowed him to be among the Lord's priests. All that mattered to Saul was Doug's willingness to serve him, with disastrous consequences for God's people.

2 Samuel 8:14 says "and all they of Edom became David's servants”. This is not to be confused with Saul, having an Edomite servant despite the use of the same word. In David's case it refers to the subjugation of one nation, Edom, to another nation, Israel. One of the laws of Moses was "Thou shalt not abhor an Edomite; for he is thy brother: thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian; because thou wast a stranger in his land” (Deuteronomy 23:7). The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, so they were a brother nation to Israel. Both are descendants of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Edom had violated the covenant of brotherhood (Amos 1:11) and was engaged in hostile activities against Israel for centuries. This is a list of prophecies where the destruction of the Edomites is foretold: Isaiah 34:5, Isaiah 6, Jeremiah 49:7-18, Ezekiel 25:13, Ezekiel 35:1-15, Joel 3:19, Amos 1:11, Obadiah, Malachi 1:3,4.

Later in 1 Samuel 23:21 Saul continues to appear to people as a man who loves and serves God, even though ordered the murder of 85 priests of the Lord, without a cause. “And Saul said, Blessed be ye of the Lord; for ye have compassion on me.” He later told David “Then Saul said to David, Blessed be thou, my son David: thou shalt both do great things, and also shalt still prevail” (1 Samuel 26:25). Later, Saul pursues David not further, but he most likely would have done so, had not David gone to dwell in Gad with the Philistines. “And it was told Saul that David was fled to Gath: and he sought no more again for him” (1 Samuel 27:4).

Saul never showed signs of improvement in his behavior. When David went to live with Samuel in Naioth in Ramah, Saul sent messengers to arrest him but in the presence of Samuel, the Spirit of God came upon them and they prophesied. Saul was forced to send other messengers twice but the same thing happened, so he himself went to Naioth (1 Samuel 19:18-24). The Spirit of God came upon Saul and prophesied "And he stripped off his clothes also, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?” (1 Samuel 19:24). The Lord's goal was to expose Saul because of his grave sins. Nudity in the Bible has a symbolic meaning in addition to the real one and is the uncovering of a person's sins in the eyes other people. In the case of Saul this was done through the prophecies of the Lord, even by those spoken by himself. The scene was embarrassing because not only Saul was naked before others, but he remained naked for 24 hours. God showed no mercy in exposing Saul in front of others because Saul was unrepentant and did not want to stop pretending to be the Lord's anointed one. He was still the ruler of the kingdom against God's will. Then he continued in the same path of sin. It is understandable that God showed no mercy on him. Earlier in 1 Samuel 16:1 the Lord told Samuel “How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.”

Later in in 1 Samuel 28:4 Saul asked the Lord about the battle with the Philistines but the Lord didn’t answer "And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1 Samuel 28:6).

Once again God did not pity Saul even though when he “saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled.” God shows repeatedly that He is not carried away by emotions like men. Saul never ceased to show to others that he loved and served the Lord, even though the Lord rejected him for the transgression of his commandments. Not long before this, in 1 Samuel 26:21 we saw a touching confession of repentance by Saul before David and in 1 Samuel 26:25 a display of Saul's humility and magnanimity when he blessed David, calling him twice "my son David".

Saul's very difficult position in 1 Samuel 28:5,6 was the reason he remembered the Lord and turned to him, but it didn’t make him repent and return to the Lord’s path, that is why the Lord did not heed his call and did not answer. Saul in his earlier years, killed all the diviners and sorcerers in Israel according to God’s will. Now he sought a female necromancer to ask the future (1 Samuel 28:7-22). His sin was serious and 1 Chronicles 10:13,14 says that it was one of the sins that brought his life to an abrupt end. “So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; And enquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.”

The last verse seems strange to us, because Saul had asked the Lord and the Lord did not answer him, so he resorted to a fortune teller. The explanation is that Saul asked the Lord of his heart who was not God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In 1 Samuel 23:7 it is confirmed that the Lord of Saul's heart had changed and he was the devil, whether he realized it or not. “And Saul said, God hath delivered him into mine hand”, meaning his own god, the devil. If we take into account that he “enquired not of the Lord” but earlier we read “And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1 Samuel 28:6), it is proof he enquired of the wrong god. Based on these, the devil was Saul's Lord and not the true god. The heart decides whether a believer is a child of God, and not the words of his mouth. I am referring to a teaching of Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees, the alleged representatives of the Lord in Israel, told Jesus "Abraham is our father" (John 8:39). Jesus answered them, “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me… Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:43,44).

Saul did not inquire of the Lord, simply because the god of his heart was not the Lord in heaven. He would become his Lord only through repentance of sins and turning away from his evil ways and not through despair and fear. Saul turned to a woman with a spirit of divination, a foolish action for someone who is supposed to know God, but Saul's mind was darkened by the the devil and he did not distinguish between sin and the will of God. When the woman asked him which spirit to raise up, Saul asked for the spirit of Samuel, the prophet of the Lord. It is yet another indication of a man that can’t think properly. Saul asks to hear the right person he accepts as a man of God, and does so in a divination ceremony. The Samuel who came up from Hades was a spirit pretending to be Samuel, even if he spoke truths. The New Testament excludes the possibility of someone returning from the dead to speak to the living, and if this were hypothetically possible, it would not happen in any case by the free will of a necromancer.