Saul’s All-Consuming Jealousy

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Well, do you know anybody who makes so many bad decisions that it’s almost like it’s their job to do that? Don’t name names and certainly don’t point fingers in the room. But we all know people like that.

And part of the reason why we all know people like that is because it’s just a human characteristic. People are like that. Sitting there thinking about Saul, I’m just glad that the canon of Scripture is closed and they’re no longer adding things to the Bible.

Otherwise, I could very easily end up the subject of a month-long series on failures. So I’m glad that they’re no longer adding things to the Scripture. Saul is somebody who just made a ton of mistakes, but that’s what it means to be human.

We make mistakes. We make bad decisions. To put it in biblical terminology, we sin.

We’re sinners, and so we sin. He’s not the only one. But as we look at King Saul, one of his big problems was that with his failures, he tended, he had the tendency to not want to admit them and get right with God.

If you look at his successor, King David, who we’ve talked about a little bit in the last few weeks as their stories sort of intertwine, David went on as king of Israel to make some pretty horrendous mistakes. David made some mistakes that really messed up his family. The difference between Saul and David, the reason God looked at Saul and said, I’m done with you, and looked at David and said, you’re a man after my own heart, is that when David was confronted with his sin, David admitted that he was wrong and God was right and was willing to seek God’s forgiveness and willing to be restored.

Saul did like I tend to do sometimes when somebody says you’re wrong. No, I couldn’t possibly be wrong, and I’m going to explain to you the 56 reasons why I’m not. That’s not a good trait from me.

And I’d much rather be like David. I know I’m a sinner, but if I’m going to be a sinner, I’d much rather be like David and say, you know, you’re right, God. And let’s, you know, let’s get this taken care of.

So we’ve been looking at Saul’s failures and looking at them not from a standpoint of do these things so that God will love you or avoid Saul’s failures so that God will love you. More from a standpoint of saying to those who are believers, if you want to serve God well because he already does love you and because he already has forgiven you in Jesus Christ, if you want to serve him well, here are some things to avoid. And I think his story gives us a lot of examples.

We’re going to look at the final one. What we’ve covered in this series is not all of Saul’s failures. But this morning we’re going to look at the final one for this series in 1 Samuel chapter 18, if you haven’t already turned there with me.

1 Samuel chapter 18. It’s about a third of the way into your Bible. Ninth book of the Bible, 1 Samuel.

And we’re going to be in chapter 18 starting in verse 1. This is right after, well, I won’t say right after. This was sometime after David defeated Goliath.

We talked about that last week. And maybe a better way to say that, based on what I told you last week, is that God defeated Goliath and just used David as a tool to do it. But starting in 1 Samuel chapter 18, verse 1, it says, it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

So after God used David to defeat Goliath, Saul elevated David within the kingdom. Saul gave him a new position, and this gave David even greater opportunities to serve God. It gave him a greater platform to be able to serve God.

Now, God can use you. God can use you in his service no matter where you are. But sometimes if we’re faithful to serve God in little things, and Jesus talks about this in the New Testament, if we’re faithful to serve God in little things, God will give us opportunities to serve him in big things.

And so God, because of David’s faith in believing that God could defeat Goliath, that God could do the impossible, God said, I’m going to give you an opportunity to serve me in a more visible way. And Saul elevated David within the kingdom. And so he was taken into the royal court.

He’d already been around the royal court. Some, he had been a musician to comfort Saul when he was in his bad moods, but he was able to go back and forth between his father’s home and the court, you know, and just come back when Saul needed him. Well, he was taken into the royal court, and he was no longer a part-time musician.

He was a full-time military officer, and he was also promised to marry Saul’s daughter. So God had opened some doors for David within the kingdom, and at this time, as it says in these verses that we just read, David became close friends with Saul’s son and heir, Jonathan. And some people, some modern readers have made this out to be something creepy, the love between David and Jonathan.

That’s ridiculous. You have to go into it already thinking, already looking for something like that. They loved each other.

I think most of us in this room have had those kind of friendships where we just instantly clicked with somebody. And this is somebody I feel like I’ve known all my life. And Jonathan, what he’s doing here, because it describes him taking his clothes and giving them to David, Jonathan is taking David under his wing.

You know, David is a shepherd boy who’s shown up to kill the giant, and now Saul says, you’re coming back with us to court. Well, who wants to be the dirty shepherd boy in the king’s court? Wouldn’t you feel underdressed and out of place, the whole fish out of water scenario?

So the prince of Israel is taking his robe and his clothes and his sword, which by the way, remember there were only two swords in Israel at that time. He’s taking these things and giving them to David so that David will go into the king’s court in a way that befits his new status and in a way that shows the people who he really is and that he’s not just to be looked down on as this poor lowly shepherd boy. And it says they made a covenant together to watch out for each other.

They had this agreement that they had each other’s backs. They said, we’re going to look out for each other. They were allies, and they were close friends like brothers.

And so this friendship turned out to be a blessing from God for David because it was Jonathan who was going to go on to warn David of impending danger many times in the years ahead. There were going to be several times in the years ahead where David’s life was going to be threatened. And it was the fact that Jonathan was in court and knew what was going on.

And over every other loyalty said to David, you need to watch this person. You need to watch what’s going on here. And this was pretty amazing because all the things that God had said about giving the kingdom to another.

This speaks highly of Jonathan’s character. And I don’t know how somebody like Jonathan came from somebody like Saul who was driven to do really wrong things by power. Now, Jonathan, on the other hand, he could have been and should have been the prince.

He should have been the next king. And yet he’s allying himself to the one who’s going to take his throne. But he loved David.

He cared about David. And God put them together to watch out for each other. And so let’s go on to verse 5 now that we kind of see the scene where David is entering this dangerous world of Saul’s court.

And he’s got this friendship with Jonathan. Verse 5 says, And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him and behaved himself wisely. And Saul sent him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

Now, one of the best things that Saul did during this time was to put David in a position of authority over his troops. That was one of the wisest decisions he had made. And I think it speaks well a little bit of King Saul.

I feel like I’ve spent all month trashing King Saul. I want to give him a little bit of credit. He did do, on occasion, some wise things, just like you and I will sin, but on occasion, we’ll do, very occasionally, I’ll make wise decisions.

Once a year or so, just to mix things up, I’ll make a wise decision. That’s how Saul operated. See, God had appointed him to serve as king.

There were certain things that are involved in the role of king. One of those things is you want to protect the people. You want to protect the country.

You don’t want marauding armies running loose. And for the most part, Saul had done a lousy job at serving God as the king. He was disobedient.

He disbelieved God whenever he was called to step out on faith. He had just done a lousy job. And after numerous blown chances, God said, I’m not going to deal with you as king anymore.

We saw that a couple weeks ago. But God hadn’t yet removed him from the position. So while he’s still there, Saul had the opportunity to serve God if he would just take it.

And I believe that from reading this, I believe there’s some part of Saul, some part maybe deep down, I don’t want to give him too much credit, but there’s some part of him deep down that wants to rule well. He wants to do a good job at this king thing. And I don’t necessarily mean even that he had good motives, that he wanted to serve well, rule well for the glory of God or for the good of his people, anything like that.

But I think at the minimum, he was somebody who wanted the people to respect him. He didn’t want to be remembered as the weak, pitiful little king who let the Philistines march all over them. So I think at the very least, even if it was for selfish motives, he wanted to do a good job in the position God had given him.

He just went about it really the wrong way. Nobody wants to be remembered as that worthless king who let the country be overrun. And so I think one of the wisest things that he did, if he wanted to rule well, if he wanted to defend the people, if he wanted to have some success at being king and defending the country, one of the wisest things he did was when he saw promise in David to move David up in the ranks and give him more responsibility.

When it came to serving God, Saul failed time and time again. But even if he just wanted to be remembered kindly by the people, even if it was just an ego thing, there was some part of Saul that I think wanted to be a good king. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have moved David.

So he put David in this position to lead in the military because he’d seen what David did. David was fearless. And it’s not because David was the strongest or the biggest. It was because David had the biggest faith in God.

And so David was willing to go, as this tiny guy, David was willing to go out and confront the biggest guy that the Philistines had in their whole army and be successful and win. So David was very capable. Saul knew that God was with him.

And so Saul said, you know what, if I’m going to defeat the Philistines, I need a guy like David. If I’m going to do this part of my kingship well, I need a guy like David. I don’t know that he said those exact words to himself, but that thought process is in there somewhere.

Because if he was just, we’ll get to his jealousy in just a minute. If he wasn’t thinking about ruling well and defending the country, he would never have elevated David. And for his part, David served well.

David went out and he took care of business. It says he went, in verse 5 that we just read, it says he went out whithersoever Saul sent him. So he went and took care of business.

whenever the king said, I need you to go to war, he did it. And it says he behaved himself wisely. So David conducted himself in such a way that he earned the respect and the admiration of the other officials and of the nation as a whole.

It says Saul’s servants and the people. He was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul’s servants. So he had the respect and the admiration of both the establishment and the little people because they looked at him and said, this is somebody who knows what he’s doing and does the right thing.

So this was a wise appointment by Saul. And he should have been happy. What is it Trump told us?

I hire all the best people. In this case, Saul really hired all the, he hired the best person. And it should have, you know, it reflects well on him and he should have been happy.

You know, look what I did. Look who I appointed. He should have been happy about it.

But because David was making sure that the things God put Saul in place to do actually got accomplished. God put Saul there to defend the country. David was making sure it happened.

Saul should have been happy. But there were problems that arose. Problems popped up when the people started to love and respect David just a little too much.

Their love and respect for David started to eclipse what they had for Saul. And it says to us in verses 6 and 7, and it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, and that’s not necessarily Goliath, because he’s already been at court for some time. It talks in verse 5 about there being some going in and coming out.

So this is probably sometime later when he’s doing battle against the Philistines again. Came to pass, as they came and David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played and said, Saul had slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.

So the troops came marching home victorious from their battles with the Philistines. And the people came out into the streets for a victory parade. They came out for a victory parade.

They came out to greet the armies. And when the armies marched through, they sang and they danced and they celebrated in their villages. And one of the songs that the women sang said that Saul had defeated thousands and David had defeated tens of thousands.

Now, I think it’d be hard to be king without a big ego. But, you know, that kind of comparison might bruise any of our egos. I think we would all say, well, what about me?

One of my chopped liver, David did all that. But hopefully, I would hope that we would let that go and be glad that God used the other to defeat the tens of thousands. I would hope so.

But Saul wasn’t about to let the insult go. That apparently was not in his character. So we look at verses 8 and 9.

And it says, Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him. And he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands. And what can he have more but the kingdom?

And Saul eyed David from that day forward. So a couple things that I discovered as I was reading this passage. Just how mad was Saul?

Because, I mean, it says he was mad. We might, he was wroth. That word is the adjective that comes from wrath.

We might say wrathful. You and I might read that word and gloss over it and think, okay, he was angry. And move on.

I don’t speak Hebrew, but I have a Hebrew lexicon that tells me what words mean. And as I’m studying a passage, I’ll look at it if there are words I’m curious about, just how angry was King Saul. The word here for wrath, it describes an anger that burns within a person, and it’s related to the word that means to glow.

He was glowing with anger. So think about a coal that won’t burn out. It won’t stop burning.

You can’t extinguish it, and eventually it catches everything else on fire. There have been times in our fireplace that I put a ton of wood in there and thought the fire was out. By the way, sitting in the room with it, it’s not like we’ve left it to burn the house down.

But sitting in the room with it, we’ve thought, okay, it’s just about out. It’s getting late. I don’t want to put any more wood on it.

We go kind of stir things around. On at least one occasion, there’s been that cold in the back that just won’t go out. I’ll leave it alone.

And next thing you know, you look up and it’s reignited the wood. That cold just won’t burn out and suddenly everything is ablaze. That’s the kind of anger that it’s talking about.

I mean, he was glowing red hot with anger, and he was about to burn the whole house down, is the word we get there. So don’t miss what that word wrath says. And then I thought this was funny.

I don’t know if y’all will think this is as funny as I do. But that word displeased. It says that what they were saying displeased him.

Okay, I get displeased all the time. It’s not a strong emotion. You know, when I think of being displeased, I think of the Queen of England, And, you know, the expression never changes.

We are not amused. We are displeased. I don’t think of that being a strong emotion.

But behind that word, there’s a link to two Hebrew words in the lexicon. The first word is a word for tremble. And the second word is the word for I.

And I read that, and I actually started laughing out loud. Nobody ever means that when they say LOL in text messages. Nobody’s actually laughing out loud.

But I actually did laugh out loud at my desk reading that this week and had to go tell Charla that when it says he was displeased, it’s an understatement because what the Hebrew means is he was so mad he was doing this. He got a twitchy eye. You ever seen anybody that was so mad they started getting the crazy eyes?

King Saul. That’s how mad he was. And Saul became jealous of how God had used David.

That’s at the root of this. God had used David in a bigger way than he had used Saul, and Saul couldn’t handle it. he was jealous, even though God was still using Saul.

You know, I know God was done with Saul as king, but I don’t think for a minute Saul could have gone out and defeated thousands if God hadn’t enabled him to. So God was still using Saul. He just wasn’t using him as big as he was using David.

And Saul knew that David was eventually going to be given the kingdom. God had told him, I’m going to give the kingdom to somebody else. And he says at the end of verse 8, what can he have more but the kingdom.

He’d made him a military officer. He had the love of the people. He says, seizing the throne is the next logical step.

He knew that David was eventually going to be given his kingdom, and he began to eye David with jealousy from that day forward, says in verse 9. Saul’s problem, Saul’s problem was his jealousy of how David was serving God. Again, he should have been happy.

This was a good appointment for him. He was making, he was surrounding himself with the best people and making sure the job got done. But no, he had to have all of the glory and the praise too.

And so he was jealous. He was jealous of how David was serving God. And it kept him from using what remaining time he had on the throne to do anything worthwhile.

I don’t recall reading anything really worthwhile, anything substantial that Saul did the whole rest of his reign after this. The whole rest of his reign, he spent fixated on David. And it was never about what can I do for the people of Israel?

How can I glorify God, it was David. David. Let’s look at the next couple verses.

Verses 10 through 12. It 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. And Saul cast, excuse me, Saul cast the javelin, for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it.

And David avoided out of his presence twice. And Saul was afraid of David because The Lord was with him and was departed from Saul. First of all, I want to clarify one thing.

Where verse 10 says that Saul was overcome by an evil spirit from God, we need to understand what that means. That doesn’t mean that it was a demon, that God sent an evil spirit in that sense. God doesn’t oppress us with demons.

God doesn’t tempt us. God doesn’t do that sort of thing. That particular word in Hebrew for evil, it can mean evil.

It can mean bad. It can mean negative. It can mean disagreeable.

There’s a whole spectrum of meaning behind that Hebrew word. Because I looked in the lexicon, and the entry was about a mile long, okay, of all these various words that it can mean. And the word here for spirit can mean spirit in the sense of a being.

It can also mean a spirit in the sense of a temperament or disposition. So if you look at the rest of the Bible, and you know how God operates, and you know how Well, evil spirits operate in the Bible. God doesn’t send demons to deal with people.

A more consistent, a translation that would be, or an understanding, because I think this is also what the, I think this is what the King James translators intended when they understood when they said evil spirit 400 years ago. An understanding that’s more consistent with God’s character for us today, in our terminology, in our language, would be that God sent him a disagreeable disposition. Young’s literal translation calls it a spirit of sadness.

Saul was convicted by God about his sin and about his jealousy and what a rotten job he had done, and that interaction with God put Saul in a really bad mood. So if you read that and you wonder about it or somebody ever asked you, oh yeah, well, how did God send an evil spirit to Saul? That seems like something a skeptic would want to pounce on.

Saul felt the conviction of God and it put him in a really bad mood. That’s all that’s saying. Because conviction will do that to you.

When you feel the conviction of God, you know you’re wrong. It’s going to put you in a bad mood and it’s either going to drive you closer to God in repentance or it’s going to drive you further away from God in rebellion. But conviction doesn’t allow you to stand still.

And for Saul, he got mad at God. He got rebellious, went the other way. He’s in a bad mood, a really bad mood.

Because this mood grew worse and worse, and he began to fixate on David. Instead of thinking about what he could do or what he should do better or about how to get right with God, he just continued to get more and more jealous of David. He continued to fixate on David.

And David, unfortunately, for his safety, was there at court. And even though he was a military officer, he was skilled with the harp, and he was there playing for Saul, as he’d always done when these evil spirits, when these bad, disagreeable moods would come on Saul. and Saul was jealous.

He saw someone who was being used by God to do the things that he thought he should be used for and finally it got so much that he snapped and he flew into a rage and he took the spear. The Bible says javelin, same word for a spear. He took this spear-like instrument and he threw it at David and he even says here that what his intention was was to impale David and nail him to the wall with that spear.

I don’t believe I’ve ever been that angry. I’m not sure I can relate to that thought process. Friday I got angry with a neighbor.

I got angrier than I’ve been in a long time. And my response was just to go in the house and shake about it until I calmed down. I can’t relate to the impulse.

I’m going to take a spear and nail you to the wall with it. But I guess when you’re twitchy-eye mad, that kind of thing happens. And wisely this caused David to flee.

It says he went out of Saul’s presence. Saul was jealous because God was with David. God’s anointing was on David and it was no longer on Saul.

Now this failure of Saul was a turning point because as I said, he spent the rest of his life trying to kill David. There were times, there were occasions where they would make peace, he’d bring David back to court, but then he’d just fly into a rage again. The rest of his life is focused on getting David, on eliminating the threat that he perceives.

He never accomplished much of anything else because he was too wrapped up in this jealousy. God left him on the throne for 40 years. At any time, Saul could have repented and he could have returned to serving God.

He could have done something good with that time. There’s no promise from God that if he had repented, God would say, okay, you get to still be king. There might have still been the consequence of him losing his throne, but he could have made good use of that 40 years because we’re about two years into the reign here.

He spent 30 plus years wasted when he could have served God in a big way if he just repented, 30 plus years wasted because he was too jealous of the way God was using somebody else. And we look back at verse 12, Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed from Saul. So instead of getting right and seeking to serve him well, Saul spent his time stewing over how God was using David over his jealousy.

It consumed his life, kept him from repenting and caused all that time to be wasted. Folks, what I learned from this story about Saul for us is that jealousy is a dangerous thing in our service to God. If we want to serve God well, jealousy of our fellow servant is a dangerous thing.

In this context, or in our context, it’ll keep us focused on others instead of God and his plans. Never mind what God wants to spend however many years are left of my life. Never mind how God wants to spend that time and use me that time, I’m so focused on how God’s using kin and jealous that I can’t be used in the same way that it just makes me mad.

We have an old saying in the youth group that I came from, let it go, it’ll turn you bitter and ruin your ministry. I don’t know where that came from, but it’s still etched in my brain. Some things will just make you bitter and ruin your ministry for God.

Jealousy is one of those things. And if I spend all my time focused on kin and how God is using kin in a way he won’t use me, or using Julie in a way he won’t use me, and I’m mad because their ministry is being more fruitful than mine, well, that’s time I’ve wasted when God could have been using me all along. But Saul didn’t see that.

It keeps us from, it keeps us focused on others instead of God’s plans for us. It keeps us from rejoicing where God’s will is fulfilled in others. And I see this sometimes from pastors, the jealousy over who’s got the bigger church, or who’s got more money at their church.

You know what? I’ve pastored churches bigger than this one before, and you know what? There’s more headaches.

Y’all are easy. Y’all are easy for the most part. Watch this.

One of you is going nuts this week and going to start calling me with all kinds of problems, but y’all are easy, and so it’s easy to, when you’re at the little church, it’s easy to look at the big church and be jealous of the way God’s using that guy. When you’re at the big church, maybe it’s not a wealthy church, it’s easy to look at the church that has more money and be jealous of the way God’s using that guy. Well, the guy at the big wealthy church is looking at the guy at the little church and saying, I wish I had more time for my family like that guy.

And you can get so wrapped up. Preachers are the worst about this. We have to fight it on purpose.

The jealousy of how God is using somebody else and not me. Golly, I’m just so jealous that First Baptist had over 100 kids at their BBS this year, and we didn’t even have enough people to run one. So jealous of that.

Or I could be thinking, thank God for the ministry that First Baptist is able to accomplish in the community. And you know what? First Baptist has sent people to us when there are people that they don’t have a food pantry.

And they could say, why don’t we have a food pantry? Why won’t our members contribute to that? Or they could say, thank God that Trinity is reaching these people that need help.

See, we could be jealous about what the other church is doing. It happens on an individual level too. I’m so jealous of the way God uses so-and-so.

Instead of being jealous and saying, you know, why couldn’t God do that through me? Praise God that he’s accomplishing great things through somebody else. I used to go do street ministry with a retired Marine, retired trucker.

He was Bo. He was a scary man. I loved him dearly, but he was a scary man.

He’d walk right up to people in Bricktown and big tough guys need Jesus too and hand them a tract and make them read it right there. And I think, why can’t God use me like Brother Parker? And if you stop and think about it, I mean, you might get jealous.

I wish I could reach people like that. You know what? Instead, I decided I’m going to stand here and pray for what he’s doing and thank God that he’s using a man like that to do what I’m really not wired to do.

I’m a low confrontation person and God’s wired me that way on purpose. That jealousy keeps us from rejoicing when God’s will is fulfilled by our fellow servants. And it keeps us from fulfilling the role that God placed us here because we’re too focused on the other.

Paul wrote about that problem in 1 Corinthians when he talked about the parts of the body. And he compared the parts of the church body to the parts of the human body. And I’m just going to paraphrase here, but he says, the body is not all one part.

And this is 1 Corinthians 12, 14 through 18. You can go read it for yourselves. I’m going to paraphrase it.

The body’s not all one part. If the foot says, oh, I’m not the hand, is the foot not needed? Is it no longer part of the body because it’s not a hand?

We need our feet too. If the ears say, oh, I wish I was an eye, you know, what good is the body if it’s all just a big pile of ice? You know, we need all the parts and God put us all together.

It does no good for the ear to be jealous of the eyes or the foot to be jealous of the hand or the nose to be jealous of the mouth or any. God put us all together and intends to use us for his unique purposes for us. And instead of being jealous of what God’s doing through another, which accomplishes nothing, we ought to rejoice for the ministry that he gives each of us and rejoice that God’s will is being accomplished no matter