I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

     Once again King Saul is pursuing David. This time David, accompanied by one of his men, sneaks into Saul’s camp and steals Saul’s spear and water bottle. The man who accompanied David urges David to allow him to kill Saul, but David refuses. David expresses the opinion that it would be wrong to harm one who has been anointed as Israel’s king. David believed that God would remove King Saul in His own time and way. After this incident David became convinced that King Saul would not stop hunting him and that if he remained within Israelite territories Saul would eventually track him down and kill him. David therefore decided to go to live among the Philistines. After a short time among the Philistines David convinces their king to give him and his men a small town to use as a base of operations. From this new base of operations David and his men conduct raids on peoples who were considered enemies by the Israelites, killing the entire population of those towns that he raided. But he told the Philistine king that he was conducting raids against Judea. This convinced the Philistine king that David would be unable to return to live among the Israelites and that David would have no choice but to remain loyal to him. Finally, the Philistines go to war against Israel again and the Philistine king orders David to join him in going to war.
     When the Philistine army and the Israelite armies were drawn up against each other, King Saul was frightened by the size of the Philistine army. This leads him to frantically seek an augur of what to do in order to win. None of the priests or prophets of God among the Israelites was able to give him any answer. This leads Saul to seek out a medium, even though he had outlawed them on pain of death. Saul disguises himself and asks the medium to call up Samuel from the grave. The medium calls up Samuel who tells Saul that he and his sons will be killed the following day and that the army of Israel will be routed. This is the culmination of King Saul’s life. From the beginning he has ruled based on his own skills and abilities. His actions have been based on what he thought was the most politically and militarily expedient choice at any given time. Rather than base his rule in trust in God, King Saul has relied on his own judgement. Now, when he faces a situation where his own judgement tells him that he faces sure defeat, he seeks God’s guidance, after rejecting that guidance repeatedly when it conflicted with his judgement in earlier situations. If we reject God’s guidance until we are at the end of our ropes, it may be too late. If King Saul had chosen to follow God’s commands earlier, this situation would not have arisen, or it would have been different in such a way that his army would not have been sure to lose. But Saul had relied on his own judgement, this led him to drive David out from among his commanders and probably had diminished the strength of his army in other ways as well. When we trust in our own judgement rather than rely on God, we will have to face the consequences of our actions. We cannot always see how choosing our own will rather than God’s will bring us to this sort of defeat, but we can be assured that it will.

     This passage has been the subject of many sermons and Sunday School lessons. When Jesus receives word that Lazarus is sick, He does not immediately head for Bethany. Instead He tells His disciples that Lazarus’ sickness will not end in death and that it happened so that God might be glorified. This is the first of the lessons I see here. We should view sicknesses and other misfortunes as opportunities to bring glory to God. Our thoughts in those situations should be as to how we can glorify God through the circumstance that non-Christians would view as a tragedy. From a Christian perspective, we do not suffer tragedies, we receive opportunities to serve God.
     After waiting two days, Jesus tells His disciples that it is time to go to Judea. His disciples balk at the idea because it was only a short time since people there had tried to stone Jesus. When Jesus tells them that Lazarus has fallen asleep and He will go wake him, they think He means that Lazarus is getting better, the subtext being that there was no reason for Jesus to risk Himself by going there now if Lazarus was getting better. Jesus replies that no, Lazarus has died and that this means that the disciples will really believe. When the disciples see that Jesus is determined to go, they choose to accompany Him, believing that by doing so they will be facing death with Him. When Jesus gets to Bethany, both Martha and Mary express the belief that if Jesus had been there sooner Lazarus would not have died. When Jesus speaks with Martha and tells her that Lazarus will rise again, she expresses both a belief that Lazarus will rise at the last day and that Jesus is the Messiah. Here we see Martha, even in the face of the loss of her brother, affirming her faith in God and in Jesus.
     When Mary comes to Jesus accompanied by the other mourners, Jesus is upset and asks to see the tomb. The passage does not tell us why Jesus is upset, but it appears to me that He is upset with the other mourners. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I think He was upset because the other mourners were not comforting Mary and Martha. Instead they were affirming their grief and encouraging them to wallow in it. We should comfort those who have lost loved ones and encourage them to work through their grief, not belittling the grief but encouraging them to process the feelings of loss and deal with the issues involved.
     When Jesus gets to the tomb, He weeps. Some of the people who witness this are impressed by how much He loved Lazarus, but others wonder why He had not come sooner and kept Lazarus from dying. Jesus then asks them to roll the stone aside. Martha objects, saying that by now the stench will be overpowering. Jesus tells her that if she believes she will see God’s glory, so the stone is rolled aside. Jesus prays thanking God for hearing Him. He points out that He did not need to pray out loud to be heard and answered, but that He did so for the sake of the people around Him. This is an important lesson. We do not need to pray out loud, but sometimes we should do so for the benefit of those around us. When we pray out loud we provide witness to those around us. If they are unbelievers they may come to faith through the power of our prayers, either because they see the outcome that we prayed for come to pass or just because they witness our faith in that situation. If they are believers, our praying out loud may give them comfort or encouragement from the sentiments we express in our prayers. This does not mean that our out loud prayers should be composed for the people around us, I do not believe that they should be. I believe that our out loud prayers should be mostly the same as what they would be if we said them silently. We should remember that the Lord’s prayer should be the model we attempt to base our prayers on, whether silent or spoken.
     Jesus calls forth Lazarus from the grave and he comes out. The passage tells us that many of those present believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. The interesting thing is what it tells us some of the rest did. They went to the religious leaders, who were also the political leaders, and told them what had happened, knowing of the hostility that the religious leaders had for Jesus. The religious leaders did not see this miracle as a sign from God, but as a threat to their position. They were more afraid of the Romans than they were of God. They were afraid that if they did not put a stop to Jesus, everyone would believe in Him and this would lead the Romans to launch a punitive expedition against the Jews and that the Romans would be victorious. It never occurred to them that if God was on Jesus’ side, the Romans would be defeated. This reaction served God’s plan, since it was not in God’s plan to raise up a rebellion against the Romans. However, it also demonstrated the lack of faith in God on the part of the Jewish religious leaders. This is a trap that those who attempt to combine their faith with political action sooner or later fall into, being more concerned with the political consequences of something than with how it glorifies God.

     I will praise the Lord because His love is unfailing and He is faithful to the end of time and beyond. The word unfailing is important for us to remember. It means that not only will God’s love continue for all of eternity but it will also not fail us in times of trouble. I know that my parents love me deeply, but there have been times in my life when their love failed me. Not because they stopped loving me, but because they are human and finite. Their were times in my life when I had needs that they, for all of their love, were unable to meet. With God that is never true, He is able to meet all of our needs and His love will never fail to do so…and it will always meet our deepest need first, even when we see it differently.

     Our first proverb tells us that making plans without getting advice is a sure way to have things go wrong and that having many advisers leads to success. This is very true because no one person can know all of the ways that a plan can go wrong. If you seek the advice of others, they can help you see the things you did not plan for. The more people who review your plans, the more perspective you will have on approaching the problem and the less likely the plan will go wrong because you overlooked something important. The second proverb is slightly related to the first. It tells us that saying the right thing at the right time brings joy to the one who says it and the one who hears it will benefit from it.