CHAPTER 13 THE KING IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE KING I Samuel 31:4-7, ""Then Saul said to his armor bearer, "draw your sword and pierce me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and pierce me through and make sport of me."  But his armor bearer would not for he was greatly afraid.  So Saul took his sword and fell on it.  And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him.  Then Saul died with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men on that day together.   And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; then the Philistines came and lived in them."" Saul died just as Samuel had prophesied from the grave.  And now the visible fulfillment of the spiritual fact that Saul had lost the kingdom was at hand.  Not only did he lose the kingdom, he lost his life and his family as well.   Not only did Israel lose their leader, they lost much of their freedom as well.  Saul started out right in God's eyes.   He was, at the beginning, according to I Samuel 15:17, "little in his own eyes.”  He was legitimately surprised to be chosen for leadership, and he was so touched by the Holy Spirit that he was "changed into another man" (I Samuel 10:6).  God changed his heart and gave him miraculous spiritual abilities.  He even prophesied with the prophets: I Samuel 10:9-10, "Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart; and all those signs came about on that day.  When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them."  Even though Saul's end was terrible and his last years were a pain-filled, paranoid finish to a disobedient life, earlier in his life he had concern for others, zeal for his people, and he was even able to instill the fear of the Lord into them and unify them with that fear.  God also gave him supernatural strength: I Samuel 11:4-7, ""Then the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and spoke these words in the hearing of the people, and all the people lifted up their voices and wept.  Now behold Saul coming from the field behind the oxen and he said, "What is the matter with the people that they weep?"  So they related to him the words of the men of Jabesh.  Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily when he heard these words, and he became very angry.  And he took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces, and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, saying, "Whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen."  Then the dread of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out as one man.""  As long as Saul had the anointing of God he was a spiritual, mighty man of the Lord. Remember David's tribute to Saul, from I Samuel 1:19-24: "Your beauty, O Israel, is slain on your high places!   How have the mighty fallen!  Tell it not in Gath; proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.  O mountains of Gilboa, let not dew or rain be on you, nor fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.  From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, and the sword of Saul did not return empty.  Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life, and in their death they were not parted, they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.  O daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel." David's tribute to Saul tells us much about Saul and why he failed so miserably.  His popularity is mentioned - he found great favor with his subjects: he was beloved.  His ability as a warrior is mentioned: his sword did not return empty, - he is called swift and strong.  His ability to provide material blessing is mentioned: he clothed his subjects LUXURIOUSLY in scarlet and gold.  All the qualities that David mentions are outer, carnal qualities.   Nothing is mentioned of God's love for him, his love for God, his dependence on God, or his faith in God.  He was given power by God, but it was not used to best advantage.  Saul never really understood the great gift that God had given him.  Saul never seemed to understand why he was given such power.  He never seemed to understand that it was to do the will of God and bring glory to God.  He seemed to think the power was merely to bless God's people and himself.  Even though his heart was changed, it seems that it was not changed completely.  Saul was a man with a divided heart.  Saul wanted to minister for God, but on his own terms.  He was given strength and ability, but he seemed content to see shallow victories and carnal blessings.  HE DID NOT DELIVER HIS PEOPLE TO BE FREE TO LOVE GOD; HE MERELY DELIVERED HIS PEOPLE TO BE FREE FROM THE ENEMY!  He did not provide their hearts with a single-minded devotion to Jehovah their God; he merely reinforced their desire to use God to get their own way by seeing the enemy defeated and being able to live in luxurious comfort.  Saul never saw the heart of the issue.  He never understood that the Philistines were not the issue; God was the issue.  Even when he spoke to the spirit of Samuel, he missed the point, "Then Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"  And Saul answered, "I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and answers me no more, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you that you may make known to me what I should do." (I Samuel 28:15).  Saul was worried about the Philistines.  Samuel tried to show him that the real issue was that God had departed from him, and had become his enemy!  Saul would never cry as David cried in Psalms 51, "take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.”  He did not value the Holy Spirit.  He valued the carnal.   His heart was not after God.  His heart was after the carnal.  Carnal victories!  Carnal luxury!  Carnal honor!   But not after God for Himself alone.  We do not see at any point in his life Saul express a single-minded love for God or fear of losing His Holy Spirit. The leadership in the Saul Church in our day has been showing signs that it too has lost the anointing of God, and also no longer fears losing the Holy Spirit of God.  There is a Laodecian presumptuousness that this church is doing fine and need not fear judgment.  The only fear they express is that they will not be able to finance the tremendous monuments they have erected to themselves and their denominations.  They fear failure, not loss of relationship with God.  They seem to be oblivious of the fact that the Philistines (the world) gains victory after victory and the Church loses ground in the culture.  They are oblivious to the gains of the cults, such as the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons and even the false religion of the Muslims.  The Saul Church is dying BY CHOICE because it will not see!  The eyes and the brain of the Saul church are no longer functioning properly.   There is double vision in the leadership, and the thinking process of men in authority no longer seems to be able to discern right from wrong.   Even as early as the 1980’s the Charismatic leadership of the Saul Church would not immediately rebuke a man who blasphemously depicted God as a tyrant who threatened him with death if he did not raise huge sums of money for works that he was associated with.  It is unbelievable that leaders and pastors of huge Charismatic ministries would not speak out against this unscriptural display of greed or folly or both.  It should have been clear that this man had lost touch with God.  There should have been a unified cry to Christians and the secular public that this man was wrong.  They should have spoken to him in private and if he would not be corrected, they should have warned the Church and the public that he had been misled by an evil spirit.  They should have discouraged people from giving to his work until he repented of his words.  They should have clearly stated that the statements he made could not have possibly been inspired by God.  Terms like “abomination” would have been fitting for the remarks he made.  This man was a great hindrance to what God was doing in America and should have been dealt with severely using pressure to have him step aside from his leadership.  Because he was not dealt with by men, within several years, God dealt with him and one of his great works was shut down.    The Charismatics, however, would not let the Sword of the Word touch him.  This once great man’s spiritual failure described above is topped only by the terrible sin of the leadership neglecting to warn the sheep of his false prophecies.   How could these shepherds be so blind and spiritually ignorant?  The Saul Church is killing itself by rejecting the sword of the Lord, the Word of God.  Consequently, it is becoming blinder and almost brain-dead. The death of Saul was a great tragedy that the people of God and their new leader, David, mourned.  David did not gloat or with self righteous indignation point to the terrible spiritual decline of the old king.  We too, if we truly desire to be men after God’s own heart, must NEVER revel in the fall of any anointed or previously anoint- ed man of God.  The ministry of Saul was set aside by God because of his failures, and the new leader, David, was patiently waiting for God to raise him up.  Even today, all in the emerging David Church want leadership that is fully, passionately, and radically after God's own heart!  We want leadership that invites the Sword of the Lord to cut away all that would hurt His Body, whether it be people, doctrines or sin.  Even if the sword of the Lord which is the Word of God, cuts deeply into our own hearts, we prefer that God would do His work and NOT allow the disease of sin to fester in His Body.  We want leadership that is so in love with Jesus that they would rather die than cause Him shame.  We want leadership that knows that Revival starts when the Body recognizes that it is almost dead or asleep.  After all, the phrase "We want REVIVAL", implies that we want the Body to wake-up from sleep or to be revived from near death.  We want leadership that knows there is a cancer that is destroying the people of God and their culture and knows the operation will hurt PERSONALLY, but for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ is desirous of having the SAULISH INFECTION cut away from both the Body at large and each individual heart.  This is necessary if the whole Body which God will raise up will be compos- ed of men and women with pure hearts.  This is necessary if we are to see a Church that is made up of men and women who are after God's own heart. DAVID’S LOVE AND HONOR FOR SAUL As was just mentioned, in the first chapter of II Samuel we see a beautiful song of praise directed to God’s people regarding Saul, their recently fallen king.  David wrote this psalm and as its content reveals, loved and honored the life and ministry of Saul.  He was not unaware of the fact that Saul had lost the anointing of the Holy Spirit and was terribly afflicted by an evil spirit.  He was personally touched by his paranoia, by his jealousy and his murderous intentions.  In spite of this, David still honored Saul and the anointing and power of God that once flowed through him.   Often critics of the Charismatic Movement don’t recognize that a man who commits terrible crimes against God and men can still have once carried the mighty anointing of God, even as Saul at one time was mightily anointed by God.  These men will reference with great accuracy the demonic or insane utterances of men who once ministered God’s healing power.  But they wholly neglect to recognize the mantel of healing that once rested on them.  They cannot understand nor do they have any love for men and women who once carried this anointing of God and then have lost it.  Many have ministered healing, have prophesied and have preached great sermons and were powerfully used by God for His glory, and then failed God.  Many critics, however, because of the inappropriate lifestyles, false doctrines or false prophecies of these men and women, have completely discounted every facet of the anointing of God that they once possessed and categorize all that they have said or done as “of the devil”.  They seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that God has in Scripture AND in the life of the Church, anointed men who have done things which pleased themselves and the people but often were not concerned about pleasing God.   Scriptural examples of the failures of men anointed by God include Balaam, Samson and Peter. Balaam who was at the end an enemy of God and His people because of his own greed, had to be recognized as a man through whom God had spoken many times.  Samson, when he was in the Spirit, magnified the Lord spectacular- ly with his God given gifts of strength.  Other times, however, he was a man of lust, rebellion and self-conceit.   Peter, in the New Testament, both before and after the powerful Holy Spirit illuminated his mind and life with tongues of fire that rushed through his soul and his spirit like a mighty wind, also let the Lord down.  In Scripture at least two situations are mentioned.   After Peter went out with the seventy and healed the sick in the Name of Jesus, he denied Him three times.  After the day of Pentecost, he denied the heart of the Gospel in front of Paul and others by his unwillingness to eat with Gentiles because he feared offending his Jewish brothers.  We must not entirely discount a man’s ministry or message on the basis of his sinful attitudes, actions or even poor doctrine.  Even when these attitudes,  actions or beliefs are wrong, we still MUST recognize the anointing from God that rested on individuals that God used and honor them accordingly.   The non-Charismatics who are completely convinced that the supernatural gifts and ministries of the Spirit are absolutely and unalterably NOT for today MUST believe that these gifts and ministries are either of the flesh or worse yet, of Satan himself.  Because of this belief it is almost impossible for them to honor anything super- natural that God has done through Pentecostals or Charismatics.  This lack of charity and total condemnation of supernatural Charismatic and Pentecostal ministry CANNOT be excused by their ignorance.  In spirit, it is not much different than the wrong headed and hateful attitude of some Protestants in the 16th century who tortured the Ana-Baptists who re-baptized by immersion those who became believers.                     The true David spirit is a spirit that is wise as a serpent; those in the David Church know that the enemy can get a foothold in a Christian’s life and that a man can become an enemy of God because of his beliefs, his teachings or his immorality.  But David was gentle as a dove in his love for Saul and had mercy upon him when he could have killed him.  Today some of the most articulate critics of the Charismatic Movement lack the spiritual ability to see the anointing of the Lord in MANY of those that they so vehemently criticize.  Often they are correct in pointing out the error and sin that they see, but they are absolutely unable to honor anything in the lives of these men and women.  This is not to suggest that all persons that they criticize are men or women of God.  Many in that day will say Lord Lord we ministered supernaturally in your Name, and He will say to them, “I never knew you.”  BUT, He will not say that to everyone who ministered supernaturally.     It is extremely important to recognize the tension that always exists between truth and love.  The Bible never fails to point out errors of judgment and sins against God that great men have committed, but always acknowledges the power of God that flows through them during their time of effective ministry.  Good writers of church history also will not flinch at mentioning the foolish doctrines and sinful deeds of great men and women of God.  Poor writers and dishonest scholars typically paint an idealistic picture of the heroes of the denomination or movement that they support.  The reverse can be said about unloving men of little discernment who neglect to mention or praise the great doctrines or great deeds of those who are not part of the movement or denomination that they support.  This is equally dishonest and displeasing to God. There will come a time when David must separate himself from Saul but the true David spirit will never lose his love nor his respect for the ministries that have been anointed by God to serve His purposes.  It is important, as these men and women are directed by God, that they leave; but it is even more important that they honor what God has done through the lives of men and women that have fallen short or men and women who not yet seen the tragic damaging error of the Saul Church.

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