Saul's Death, And The Birth Of Darth Vader. Series

Along time ago in a galaxy far, far away a young Jedi Knight by the name of Anakin Skywalker a talented and gifted young man was mislead by a Sith Lord, he then became Darth Vader, This had a fair bit to do with fear because of his desire to save his beloved. l could tell you the whole story but let me play you a clip that tells the story. (Show the clip of this happening from ‘The Revenge of the Sith’.)

I guess that you probably found that most enlightening if not a little surprising, the truth is that this was a sci-fi story which for those of us that exist in reality it is half a step off being a fairy story, but it has an interesting parallel in scripture.

This is a part of history where a young man was picked out from among his fellow Israelites as being physically a head above the rest, a young bloke from the tribe of Benjamin who was appointed and anointed as King over the United Kingdom of the Hebrews, as the first of the Hebrew Kings. This happened as the people wanted a king like other nations. The Spirit of God was with him in a mighty way in 1 Samuel 10:6-7 we read this “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon on you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do what ever your hand finds to do, for God is with you.”

So it was, Saul became King Saul at the age of thirty and he reigned for forty-two years, then it all finished for him in a way that no man let alone any king should have life finish. (Read, 1 Chronicles 10:1-14)

The verses that I want to address are those that deal why this Great man died, he was indeed a man who was great warts and all, and given that he was still able to fight at the age of seventy two he was quite some man, but why was it he died?

Saul died because:

• He was unfaithful to the LORD

• He did not keep the word of the LORD

• He even consulted a medium for guidance

• He did not enquire of the LORD

As a result he was dead, and his kingdom became David’s Kingdom. Now Saul was a great man and a powerful king. He even prophesied with the prophets of the time, he was anointed for God’s purpose, but he was a bit inclined to jump the gun and not be reliant on God to the degree that God required, I guess that we can all say that there are times when we have blundered on when God has said not to go in a certain direction in our lives. We also can behave in ways that are not where God wants us to be going.

The interesting thing with Saul is that he knew he was on the wrong path but he continued on it. This comes from 1 Samuel 24:16-17, it’s about one of Saul’s encounters with David, “Is that your voice, David my son?” And he wept aloud. “You are more righteous than I, “he said, “You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.”

In this case the word righteous is to be read as upright, just and innocent according with God’s proper standard. Saul knew he was out of sorts and what did he do about it?

Well what else would you do he consulted a witch! The king who had previously outlawed the consulting of mediums and witches went off and consulted one himself, the witch of Endor herself. Not the planet Endor of Star Wars fame where Ewok’s live but the real Endor which is a village in Israel.

The truth about Saul is that blew it, he had the knowledge, The Holy Spirit was with him, but he neglected his relationship with God, he became fearful and didn’t enquire of God, he did not keep God’s word, but in his fear, in his desire for answers he sought a different path.

A question for you, do you ever go down a shady path? Now I know that this is not politically correct, as there seems within Kiwi psyche a thinking that says, “if it’s not hurting anyone else that’s alright with me.”

This is an interesting statement; Saul probably thought that what he was up to would only have negative repercussions for him, if any at all. This was not so, his sons died with him, his armour-bearer died with him, the nation of Israel got an extreme thrashing from the Philistines.

There were also ongoing repercussions, David became king, Saul could have had an everlasting kingdom, for proof of this read 1 Samuel 13:13…but instead it belonged to David’s line.