I Told You So!

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.…Romans 8:28-30

Have you ever had a gut feeling about a person?  It might have been that first impression.  Or it might have been a pattern of behavior.  Whatever it was, it came as no surprise to you when that person failed big time.  You see it in a courtroom, where a mother has just seen her wayward son sentenced to prison.  "I always knew that boy would be in trouble some day."  You see it when an aging father embraces his newly divorced daughter.  "I never trusted that guy."

Some of that is intuition, and some of it is judgmentalism--jumping on the bashing bandwagon after that ship has sailed.  (I know, I'm mixing metaphors).  It's sometimes hard for us to tell the difference, which is why a lot of people get caught up in the verses in Romans chapter 8 about predestination.  How can God know beforehand whether we will accept Him, if there is such a thing as Free Will?  Because God is all-knowing.  If we are predestined to to love God and be called to His purpose, doesn't that mean that some other people are predestined to hell?  No, because God gives everyone the same opportunity--He sent His Son to die for all men.  John 3:16 says, "God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only Son..."  Not, "God so loved the Baptists", or "God so loved the Republicans."  He loved the WHOLE WORLD.

But still, He knows.

I have always wanted to do a character study of Saul, the first king of Israel.  What a character to study!  I truly think he was bi-polar.  We know from Scripture that he was disobedient to God's law, and unfaithful to God's word as spoken through the prophet Samuel.

Samuel tried to tell the people of Israel that God was their king.  But no, the people demanded that a king be set up over them, to rule them.  Samuel warned them that this meant higher taxes.  It meant that some of their sons and daughters would be forced into serving the new monarch, because a king needs stable boys and chamber maids.  (See 1 Samuel chapter 8).  It didn't matter.  They saw the neighboring countries, the competing peoples, and thought they were somehow at a disadvantage.  They had no human king to lead them into battle.  There was no monarch to meet with foreign dignitaries, or to sign treaties, or to look up to.

Ironically, God chose Saul, who stood head and shoulders above every other man.  If they wanted some person to look up to, God certainly gave it to them.  By all appearances, this was the man to lead Israel.  Yet when Samuel went to offer sacrifices to the Lord for the new king, Saul hid out among the baggage. (See 1 Samuel 10:21-23).

Back to the point at hand:  God knows what we will do before we do it.  Saul is set up as king over Israel.  The first order of business was to make war against the Philistines.  1 Samuel chapter 13 tells of how Saul amassed an army of fighting men, and they made ready to fight.  He knew that they still needed God's help, and that God demanded a sacrifice to be made.  They waited seven whole days for the prophet Samuel to show up to offer the sacrifice.  I can imagine Saul sitting there, seething.  "I am the King," he might have thought.  "How dare this priest not come running when I send for him."  Finally, Saul gets tired of waiting.  He orders the altars to be prepared with fire, and the bulls to be brought up for the sacrifice.  He offers the sacrifice himself, in the place of Samuel.

Stop and think about that for a moment.  Saul, who is merely a king, has no standing before God.  He needs a mediator, a go-between, to offer the sacrifice for him and the people.  Instead, he usurps the role of priest, and tries to offer the sacrifice to God all by himself.  Isn't that like us sometimes?  We grow tired of waiting for the Holy Spirit to move, so we defiantly stand up to God and take matters into our own hands.  Then we are surprised when God doesn't bless us.  The Bible says, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man--the man Jesus Christ." (1 Timothy 2:5).  When we try to reach God on our own, we will fail miserably.  There are not enough good works we can do to stand before God.  We need Jesus to stand before God on our behalf, to take our sin upon Himself, to clothe us in His own righteousness.

Here is the point of my little story.  As soon as Saul offers a sacrifice to God for the people, the prophet Samuel  arrives on the scene.

"What have you done?" asked Samuel.

Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord's favor.'  So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."

"You acted fooishly," Samuel said.  "You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.  But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord's command."  --1 Samuel 13:11-14

God was testing Saul.  If, in the face of a dwindling Israelite army and a swelling Philistine presence, Saul had waited on the Lord, it would have shown great faith in God.  Remember Gideon, who faced the enemy with just a squad of 300 men?  No doubt Saul had learned of Gideon's victory as a young Jewish boy.  If Saul had just exhibited faith and obedience, God could have made his dynasty last forever.  Instead, God had found another, a man after God's own heart, to lead His people.

Let's camp here a while longer.  Saul would be king over Isreal 40 more years (assuming that Saul reigned over Israel 42 years, and that this incident occurred within the first 2 years of his reign.)  That's a long time to rule over a people without God's blessing.  Samuel informed him that "Your kingdom will not endure."  His reign effectively ended that day.  He had no right of succession for his son Jonathan.  He had no dynasty to look forward to.  Not only that, but God had already picked his successor.  Look back at the passage, at verse 14.  He did not say, "Since you have not kept the Lord's command, He will seek out a man after His own heart."  What he said was, "The Lord has already sought out a man after his own heart, and has already appointed him leader of His people."

It was like God said, "I told you so."

You think you want a king?  I am your king.  You want to look up to a man?  Here is a man you can look up to--he is a foot and a half taller than all of you.  You think he will lead you in My ways?  I know better, and I told you so.

In His omniscience, God knew that Saul would not step up and lead the people of Israel in the ways of the Lord.  By the same token, in His grace, God was already preparing David to be king.  David, who learned humility as a shepherd for his father's sheep.  David, who was called into Saul's service as a musician, one to play the harp when Saul fell into a rage.  David, who was asked to step up and fight Goliath, a giant of a man, taller than Saul.  (Yet Saul still tried to put his own armor on David.  It hadn't helped Saul, and it wouldn't help David, either--but that's another sermon.)  David, who while in the service of Saul became a fugitive, because Saul wanted to take David's life.  David, who became best friends with the prince, Saul's son Jonathan, who gave David his royal robe, his sword, his bow and his belt.  By the time David ascended to the throne, he was uniquely qualified and trained to do the job.  He was a man after God's own heart.

Many times we try to do things our own way.  We don't wait on the Lord.  We usurp His authority.  We inevitably end up fallen, broken before God.  Yet God, in His mercy, has already made provision for us.  He proves again and again that he is able to show us great and mighty things that we don't even know. (Jeremiah 33:3).  The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” "

I am encouraged by the way The Message Bible puts it:

We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so. God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene. The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross. That’s why we have this Scripture text: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him. Butyou’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you.

Look at it again in the Phillips translation:

But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him’. But God has, through the Spirit, let us share his secret. For nothing is hidden from the Spirit, not even the deep wisdom of God. For who could really understand a man’s inmost thoughts except the spirit of the man himself? How much less could anyone understand the thoughts of God except the very Spirit of God? And the marvellous thing is this, that we now receive not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God himself, so that we can actually understand something of God’s generosity towards us. 

What more does God have to say?