Spirit of Power, Spirit of Weakness

Scripture: 1 Samuel 10: 5-13; 19:18-24

Sermon: Spirit of Power, Spirit of Weakness

Topics: strength, weakness, Holy Spirit

Preached: May 26, 2002

Rev. Mike Abma

1 Samuel 10: 5-13

⁵After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, at the place where the Philistine garrison is; there, as you come to the town, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the shrine with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre playing in front of them; they will be in a prophetic frenzy. ⁶Then the spirit of the Lord will possess you, and you will be in a prophetic frenzy along with them and be turned into a different person. ⁷Now when these signs meet you, do whatever you see fit to do, for God is with you. ⁸And you shall go down to Gilgal ahead of me; then I will come down to you to present burnt-offerings and offer sacrifices of well-being. For seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.’

9 As he turned away to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart; and all these signs were fulfilled that day. ¹⁰When they were going from thereto Gibeah, a band of prophets met him; and the spirit of God possessed him, and he fell into a prophetic frenzy along with them. ¹¹When all who knew him before saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, ‘What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?’ ¹²A man of the place answered, ‘And who is their father?’ Therefore it became a proverb, ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ ¹³When his prophetic frenzy had ended, he went home.

1 SAMUEL 19: 18-24

 Now David fled and escaped; he came to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. He and Samuel went and settled at Naioth.

 ¹⁹Saul was told, ‘David is at Naioth in Ramah.’ ²⁰Then Saul sent messengers to take David. When they saw the company of the prophets in a frenzy, with Samuel standing in charge of them, the spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also fell into a prophetic frenzy. ²¹When Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they also fell into a frenzy. Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also fell into a frenzy. 

²²Then he himself went to Ramah. He came to the great well that is in Secu; he asked, ‘Where are Samuel and David?’

And someone said, ‘They are at Naioth in Ramah.’ ²³He went there, towards Naioth in Ramah; and the spirit of God came upon him. As he was going, he fell into a prophetic frenzy, until he came to Naioth in Ramah. ²⁴He too stripped off his clothes, and he too fell into a frenzy before Samuel. He lay naked all that day and all that night. Therefore it is said, ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’

INTRODUCTION

In anticipation of Pentecost, I began looking through the Bible a few weeks ago in search of ways the Spirit worked in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Whenever we rummage around in the Bible, we are bound to discover things we do not expect. We are bound to find things we are not sure what to do with. The two passages we have read this evening seem to fit into this category. In both instances, the Spirit of God comes upon Saul. But the results of the Spirit’s presence seem so totally opposite. “How can this be?” we have a right to ask. How can the Spirit visit one time and fill Saul with strength and power and valor, then visit another time and leave him helpless, naked and rolling on the ground? Is the same Spirit really at work in both instances?

These are some of the questions I would like to ask this evening. To do justice to these questions, we must also do justice to the Bible passages they are in.

FIRST VISIT OF THE SPIRIT

In the first passage, the prophet Samuel has just anointed Saul as king of Israel. Saul at this time was a tall but shy young man. He was shocked that he was the one receiving this honor. “How can this be”, he wondered, “since I am from the smallest tribe and from the lowliest clan in that tribe?” (9:21). Even after he was anointed, he was a person who wanted to avoid the spotlight. Later in this tenth chapter when Samuel makes public who the choice for king was, Saul was nowhere to be found. He was hiding among the baggage.

But the Spirit of the Lord has a profound effect on Saul just as it had on the Judges in years past. Remember Samson? Remember how the Spirit of the Lord would come on Samson with power allowing him to battle hundreds of Philistines at a time? In a similar way, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul with power. We are told that not only did God choose Saul, but now God was also changing Saul, changing his heart so that he could become the king he was meant to become.

In verse 10 we read that when the Spirit of God came upon Saul in power, he joined the procession of prophets in their prophesying. When people saw this, they were astonished. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Was this really Saul? Was Saul really one of the prophets, they asked? Of course, the answer to this rhetorical question was yes. Believe it or not, shy Saul had become King Saul. To prove it, in the very next chapter, chapter 11, his courage was tested and he rescued the city of Jabesh Gilead from the Ammonites.

The Spirit in this passage provides what we might expect from the Spirit: power, courage, ability.

SECOND VISIT OF THE SPIRIT

But then there is our other passage 9 chapters later. Again the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, but this time the results were totally different. Instead of standing tall and strong, Saul was stripped of his royal wardrobe. He was reduced to groveling on the ground before Samuel the prophet. Again the people asked the same question, “Was Saul really one of the prophets?” But this time the question was asked in a totally different way. In chapter 10 people asked the question as if pleasantly surprised. They asked the question in admiration. This time they asked the question with almost pathetic sarcasm. Saul was no longer a king to be proud of, but a pawn without power. He was no longer a monarch with authority. He was an obsessed man left only with his madness. There was no admiration left, only sadness.

Now what happened between chapters 10 and 19? And how is it that the Spirit could fill Saul with power in chapter 10 and yet expose his weakness so thoroughly in chapter 19?

In many ways, these two passages represent book-ends to Saul’s career as king. The first passage is one of the Spirit anointing, empowering, and authorizing Saul to be king. The second passage is one of the Spirit taking away Saul’s authority, Saul’s legitimacy as king. In a very real sense, this is a story not so much unlike the story of Job.

But Job was able to say,

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return;

the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. (Job 1:21)

But Saul could never say this. Yes, his kingship had been taken away, but Saul could never bless the name of the Lord. And that is the tragedy of Saul. He could accept power but he could not accept weakness.

He could accept being chosen.

He could not accept being rejected.

MISERY OF ALWAYS APPEARING STRONG

The story of the battle between Saul and David is in the end a very sad one. It is hard not to feel somewhat sorry for Saul. It was not as if Saul was a worse person than David. David’s life clearly shows this was not the case. But what was different was the relationship Saul and David had with God. Throughout his whole life, David remained a person close to God’s heart. He remained a person who was submissive, who was able to repent, who was able to accept God’s will.

But Saul refused, over and over again, to accept God’s will. Right here, in the 19^th chapter, when he should have accepted that his kingship was over, that David was now the anointed one, Saul will pathetically cling to power. A healthy dose of humility, of self-control, could have taken Saul a long way. Instead, Saul became filled with bitterness, with anger, with envy. His hatred for David literally consumed him. Saul resisted David as the new king. In the biblical sense of the term, Saul was stiff-necked. Near the end of his life, when Saul was consulting the witch of Endor, he complained bitterly that God had turned away from him. That God no longer answered him. But this was simply a symptom of Saul’s spiritual problem – the spiritual problem that any failure, any unhappiness he felt was always someone else’s fault.

In the end Saul blamed God for rejecting him.

He blamed the Israelites for chasing after David.

He even blamed his own family for favoring David.

But in the end he stood alone, very alone, in his misery.

JAYBER CROW

Recently Wendell Berry wrote a novel called Jayber Crow. The novel tells the story of Jayber Crow, a barber in the small town of Port William. Jayber was a friendly fellow who got along with everyone in town – everyone except Cecelia Overhold. Jayber’s one consolation is that Cecelia seemed to rub everyone in town the wrong way. The reason for this was that nothing and no one was good enough for her.

The town of Port William never measured up to her standards. She latched on to newcomers to town to let them know what they must already know – that any place would be a better town to live in than Port William.

If she was not happy — that was most of the time — it was always someone else’s fault.

Wendell Berry describes how anger, contempt, and hatred leapt out of her mouth like tongues of fire on dry grass. She had the ability to snub others so that self-doubt festered in their soul. But then he goes on to describe WHY she had this ability. She had this ability because self-doubt was already festering in her soul.

The problem with thinking

“there is always a better place to live,

a better spouse to marry,

better friends to have,”

is that one day you will have to look in the mirror and face the reality you too could be a better spouse, a better friend, a better mother, a better father.

Then Wendell Barry makes this observation:

“This circle of discontent surely describes one of the circles of Hell. And who hasn’t traveled around it once or twice? (p.210).

By the end of his life, Saul was running himself dizzy round this circle of Hell.

Saul was tormented

that his country admired David more than him;

that his family sided with David more than him;

and that even God seemed to favor David over him.

But perhaps the deepest tragedy of Saul is that he was most angry with himself.

There is an incident in 1 Samuel 24 where Saul is again hunting down David to kill him. Saul enters a cave to relieve himself. David and his men are hiding in that cave. David could have killed Saul, but instead David cuts off a piece of Saul’s cloak. Later, when David shows Saul this piece of cloak, Saul breaks down and weeps.

He cries, “You David, are better than I am. You have treated me well. I have treated you badly.” (1 Sam 24).

The tragedy of this story is that Saul knew better. He knew he should let David be king. He knew David would make a better king. He knew David was God’s choice. But Saul could not let go. He could not step aside. He could not accept the Spirit of weakness, the Spirit of humility. He could not allow God to use him through his weakness.

GOD USES WEAKNESS

In this season of Pentecost, we should remember to give this some attention. We are used to speaking of the Spirit of the Lord filling us with power, with strength, with the ability to do what God is calling us to do – to bear the Spirit’s fruit, to use the Spirit’s gifts.

But what if the Spirit is filling us with weakness? What if the Spirit is filling us with humility? What if the Spirit is saying Stop instead of Go? What if the Spirit is asking us to step aside for another rather than to rise to the top? What if the Spirit is asking us to appear as failures in this world rather than successes?

Remember what happened at Pentecost? At Pentecost Peter was filled with the Spirit’s power. He preached a sermon after which three thousand converted and were baptized.

But only a few chapters later, Stephen was also filled with the Spirit. He also preached a sermon after which no one was converted and Stephen was stoned to death.

It was the same Spirit, wasn’t it? Then why did Peter have such success and Stephen such apparent failure? It wasn’t because Peter was a good preacher and Stephen was a poor one. The reason is because the Lord uses both power and weakness for his kingdom. And the gospel reality is that often, the deepest power is found in weakness.

Just take a look not at king Saul, not at king David, but at our ultimate King, Jesus Christ. Isn’t the paradox of his power that he was willing to endure the weakness of the cross? Isn’t the paradox of his strength the reality that he was despised and rejected by his very own?

This is a message we need to hear again and again, especially as Christians living in the richest and most powerful nation on this planet. We are almost conditioned to equate things like numerical growth, financial success, an increase in prestige, as the direct result of the Spirit’s presence:

* if a church is growing by leaps and bounds, we assume the Spirit must be at work there.

* if a person is makes financial gains, we assume the Spirit is blessing that person.

* if a Christian’s life receives lots of public attention, we assume the Spirit is using that person for the glory of the kingdom.

But maybe, just maybe, we should be more attuned to the ways the Spirit might be

* leading churches to become more serious about discipleship causing them to shrink rather than to grow;

* how the Spirit might be leading people to live lives of intentional modesty

* how the Spirit might be leading people away from the spotlight rather than into it.

I think it is hard for us to think like this because we are a culture that is addicted to power, to wealth, and to the security these promise. Even though Jesus calls Christians to be sheep among the wolves, we would much rather be wolves among the sheep.

CONCLUSION

This is the Memorial Day Weekend. We are living through a time when we as a nation are flexing our muscles militarily. We are living through a time when every other automobile seems to have a sticker that says either God Bless America or In God we Trust, United We Stand.

How do we think God should bless America?

And what do we mean when we say, in God we Trust?

In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul says, that God specializes in taking the weak of the world to shame the strong; he takes the foolish to shame the wise, he takes the poor to shame the rich.

Are we ready to ask God’s Spirit to bless us with weakness, the foolishness of the cross, and poverty?

Are we really ready to trust God more than our wealth, our power, our prestige?

Maybe, just maybe, we should think again about how the Spirit is working in us.

And maybe, just maybe, when we are willing to be weak, and foolish, and poor for the sake of Christ,

we will not stand alone against the world,

but we will stand with the Spirit in us.

Amen