THE SAFEST PLACE

 

 

 

                                   Samuel  arrives at last

In July 1911 a stuntman named Bobby Leach went over Niagara Falls in a specially designed steel drum and lived to tell about it. Although he suffered minor injuries he survived because he recognized the tremendous danger involved in the feat and because he had done everything he could to protect himself from harm.

Several years after that incident, while skipping down the street in New Zealand, Bobby slipped on an orange peeling, fell and badly fractured his leg. He was taken to a hospital where he later died of complication from that fall. He received a greater injury walking down the street than he sustained in going over Niagara. He was not prepared for danger in what he assumed to be a safe situation (source unknown).

In Ruth chapter 1 we read of a man named Elimelech moving his family from God’s land Bethlehem to the pagan’s land of Moab because of famine. His move was a manifestation of lack of faith in God; possibly he feared that his family would perish if they remained in Israel. Instead of trusting God to take care of him there like he had cared for his forefather Isaac (Gen 26:1-16), Elimelech took what he reasoned was a necessary step in the face of a crises.

But this was an unfortunate and very costly decision because it went against God’s will. He died in Moab even though food was plenty there.  His two sons married Moabites women and they both died leaving childless wives. When the family left Bethlehem, there were four of them. But now the three men were buried in the mountains of Moab leaving three childless widows.

Naomi was still in Moab, far from home, coping with the loss of her husband and her sons. She is in a pagan land separated from God’s people, facing the consequences of her husband’s unwise decision. To be a childless widow was among the lowest, most disadvantaged classes in the ancient world. You had to live on the generosity of strangers. Naomi had no family in Moab; it was a desperate situation.

Sometimes later Naomi heard that things were good in Bethlehem her homeland and she decided to go back. She implored her daughters-in-law to go back to Moab (vv.8-9). But how could she, a faithful Israelite encourage them to return to their false gods? A godly Israelite would know that there is only one God, Yahweh the God of Israel. How could Naomi encourage Ruth and Orpah to return to their gods, when doing so would condemn them eternally?

Serving the gods of Moab was an abomination to God.  God had commanded “Pay attention to do everything I have told you, and do not even mention the names of other gods– do not let them be heard on your lips” ( Exodus 23:13). Their ultimate blessing would have been to leave their false religion and to identify with the Israelites and with their God. How could Naomi point them in the wrong direction?

From the human point of view this seemed to be the wise thing to do. They had stronger family ties in Moab than they did with Naomi, so it made sense for them to stay in Moab. Naomi gave them a realistic counsel, based upon what could be seen, rather than on the principle of faith. Naomi’s hope was in the physical rather than in the spiritual, in the present rather than in eternity. Her well-meaning advice was supportive of what she really wanted to do, rather than what God commanded.

In Genesis 19 we read of Lot a righteous man (2 Peter 2:7-9) who because of a wrong decision spent his last days in a mountain cave. This sad ending resulted from a series of little wrong choices. It all started with the choice to take the best land for himself (Gen 13:1-13). He moved near the Sodom and camped outside. Later he moved into the wicked city and unlike his uncle Abraham who was living in tents (Gen. 13:18, Heb. 11:9-10) Lot had a permanent house (Gen. 19:1-5).

Later on God destroyed Sodom because of their great sins (Gen. 19:30-38). Lot lost what had attracted him to the plains; he lost his wife, home and possessions. He fled out of the Sodom with nothing except his two daughters. They went to the mountains and lived in a cave. The situation seemed hopeless to the oldest daughter. She saw there were no men nearby to marry, bear children to preserve their father’s line. She did not want to die childless.

 Once she saw their plight as an emergency, incest was no longer a moral problem for morality must yield to practicality in emergency. In such a declared “emergency,” she reasoned, they must take extraordinary measures. And so she persuaded her younger sister that they get their father drunk and lie with him. And so they did and got sons Moab and Ammon. This is the origin of the Moabites and the Ammonites who became persistent enemies of Israel.

In 1 Samuel 13, a huge army (thirty thousand chariots and six thousand horsemen and people as many as the sand on the sea shore) of Philistines gathered to crush Israel. When the Israelites saw this army, they were terrified; they hid in caves, thickets, rocks, pits and some fled across the Jordan. King Saul was waiting for Samuel to come and offer sacrifice to prepare Israel for the battle.

Samuel did not come within the seven days he had told Saul to wait. With each passing day the situation was getting worse. The Philistines were getting more organized, Saul’s troops were losing confidence in him and beginning to scatter, this made Saul very anxious. This was a real crisis and he needed to do something fast. Out panic Saul did something sinful, he offered the sacrifices. Only priests were to offer sacrifices but Saul felt this was a crisis that justified setting aside obedience in faith to God’s Word.  

As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering Samuel arrived. If only he had trusted God and waited one more hour, how different things could have been. The last moments of waiting are usually the most difficult and they powerfully tempt us to take matters into our own hands. Samuel said what have you done? Saul’s response is a classic example of excuse making and failure to trust God.

 Saul said “I saw the people were scattered from me?” God would have seen him to victory over the Philistines with or without a large army (Deut. 20:1-4). He had done it before (2 Chron. 20, Judges 7). But if he had a large army and God was not with him his plans would all crumble. This had happened before (Joshua 7). Saul should have been more concerned with pleasing God instead of the people.

He said Samuel it was really your fault, if you came earlier I would not have done this. But if Saul obeyed and trusted God, God would take care of Samuel and his timing. Even if Samuel was totally in the wrong it did not justify Saul’s sin. We often try to blame our sin on someone else. It’s true the Philistines were approaching and the danger was very real but Saul could have cried out to God, but instead he did the one thing he must not do: offer a sacrifice

Despite all the excuses , all the reasons , all the blaming someone else the bottom line was “you have not kept the commands of the Lord your God “  the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever but now your kingdom shall not continue”. Disobeying God in the time of crisis costed Saul the monarchy.

We can fall victim to the tyranny of the urgent. The crises of life are God’s pop quizzes, times when He puts our faith to the test, times when He gives us an opportunity to put our faith on display. Let us live by the principles of Scripture; people of faith often stand out in times of crisis. When we make the wrong choice we pay a heavy price for our mistake. It is always less costly to obey God. He does not need your help to accomplish his plans; he needs your obedience faith and trust.