Saul, David, and Solomon

by Surath Fernando

Saul is an interesting character. The first king of Israel, he enjoys tremendous success at the beginning. He has the Lord’s favour, he succeeds in battle against the Philistines, and is well regarded as king. But at the end of his life, he dies knowing the Lord has left his side, his beloved sons are dead, and his nation Israel failed.

These tragic circumstances arise due to his disobedience.

Saul repeatedly disobeys The Lord. Perhaps he fell into that age old trap of power corrupting absolutely. All the while, he justified his wrongdoings with an idea that his motives were pure. Perhaps his pride and jealousy stopped him from seeing any different. In doing so, he presumes to impose his will above the Lord’s, and pays the ultimate price.

Instead of extracting his self-worth from his relationship with the Lord, he focuses on the finite. He gets angry when people speak of the virtues of David over Saul. This drives him to sin against David, in so doing, he sins against himself and the Lord.

This is an important lesson for us even today. We live in a society that focuses on the self. There are so many self-help books that aim to strengthen our own image. I have quite a few myself! But at the end of the day, developing our finite selves for ourselves is folly. It leaves us idolizing the false idols of flesh, money, and pride, and these false gods are always self-defeating. Much like Saul. Better to focus on developing ourselves in the image of the one true God and His son, Jesus Christ.

And whilst nowhere near Jesus Christ, note the characteristics with that of young David. He who has an innocent and humble heart. He is bold when necessary and strong in prayer and worship of the Lord. In David, God sees a man after His own heart.

But unlike Jesus Christ, at the end of the day, David is just a man. And as all men, he is also subject to fall. For all his courage in battle and vehement trust and faith in God, he commits a terrible sin.

Out of lust, he commits grievous adultery and covets another's wife. He fails in his fatherly duty to discipline his children, resulting in Absolom taking matters into his own hands and murdering Amnon. This event causes a bloody civil war in Israel.

But oh, does David repent. His anguish at the death of Absolom is heartbreaking - "O my son, Absolom, my son". Who can't but shed a tear upon hearing his cries of despair?

The key takeaways for me from David's life is that God values our faith in Him above all else and that even the mighty may fall. There is after all, sin in all of us. However, God offers forgiveness of sin, if there is heartfelt repentance and a desire to never to do it again, by the grace of god. By the grace of god!

But we cannot escape the consequences of sin. These may be painful in the short run (consider the death of Bathsheba’s son) but redeeming in the long run (consider the birth of Solomon). And the line of David does not end there, but with the son of man, Jesus Christ. This concept of short term pain, long term gain is more appealing than the alternate short term gain and an eternity of damnation.

In Solomon, I see the birth of the modern man. He asked God for the gift of wisdom. To understand and discern. And its results are evident. By all accounts, Solomon was wise in money, trade, diplomacy, administration, biology, and the sciences. In fact, I see the beginnings of the banking industry in Solomon's reign, where he acts as a middleman for the trade of horses and chariots at a margin. For those in the finance industry, the link being the borrowing and lending of money and a net interest margin.

Solomon also worships the materialistic world as most of us do today. He gives in to the baser pleasures of lust. He forgets that God is our first love and is seduced towards false idols.

He reminds us that whilst it is part of life to live and succeed in a material world, we must endeavour to glorify God in all our successes. And lest we too fall into our base sin, we must ensure that we too "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind" (Luke 10.27).