Don’t Force It
1 Samuel 13:11-14 (ESV) Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.” 13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God, with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”
We can see in this passage the difference between trying to keep the law and being led by the Lord through relationship with Him.
Saul had no relationship with the Lord. He knew only to try to interact with God through the forms and rituals he saw around him. So, led by his own reasoning and the pressures he mentioned, he did the only thing he knew; he sought God’s favor with a sacrifice. But this was against the law of Moses; only priests could offer sacrifices. Verse twelve says he had to “force himself.”
force myself (Strong's H662 - 'āp̄aq)-a primitive root; to contain, i.e. (reflexively) abstain; [BDB] compel oneself; [Gesenius] to hold oneself fast, to restrain one self from giving way to the impulses of… conscience, 1 Samuel 13:12.
Saul knew he was forbidden to offer the sacrifice, and his conscience warned him against it, but he forced himself and did it anyway.
This is how many of us keep laws to earn God‘s favor. We force ourselves, for there is nothing in our natural inclinations that desires to keep religious laws. They are unnatural to us, a drudgery – that is, if we actually even try to keep them. They are so far from the natural desires of an unregenerate heart that they require the utmost determination and strain to keep just a few of God’s laws, and then we keep them only seldom, inconsistently, and begrudgingly.
Yes, anytime we don’t have true relationship with God, we “force ourselves” so that, possibly, we might earn His favor. This is what we default to, even as Christians, when we are not walking in sync with the Holy Spirit, but are drawn aside by distractions, slothfulness, neglect, and many other things. For me, forcing myself might be throwing a few notes together or a few songs together that might benefit our congregation though my heart is not in it. Forcing myself might mean trying to counsel someone with many vain words and examples, drummed up from my natural understanding. All the while, my conscience, like Saul’s, is opposing my mind and flesh, saying, “Stop, this is not the Lord’s leading. It’s just you moving out presumptuously. Wait on the Holy Spirit to lead you.” But I force myself to move on past the warnings of my conscience.
Oh, but when we’ve been in the Lord’s presence, there is no need to resort to the scramblings of the flesh. We simply turn our hearts to the Lord in the moment, and there He is, faithful to lead us.
This is the kind of man the Lord sought as king and found in David. In similar difficulties, David did not cobble together a religious ritual, but did as he had long been accustomed to doing: he “inquired of the Lord.” And for him, this meant praying to the Lord to ask Him for direction, not killing an animal or doing something else to gain His favor. He knew from his relationship with the Lord that he had God’s favor. Now he merely asks Him for direction (such as in 1 Samuel 23:2: Therefore David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I go and attack these Philistines?” And the Lord said to David, “Go and attack the Philistines and save Keilah.”).
In relationship, we need not force things. God has written His laws upon our hearts and changed our desires so that it’s easier to flow with His leading than to do something else. Going to church, being with believers, reading, and studying the word of God, praying, singing to the Lord – none of these things need be forced. They do take some discipline, but only the effort it would take, say, to launch a small boat out into the gentle current. Once there, it sails smoothly.
Now, do you see the types the Lord uses here to instruct us? Saul represents the frustration and failure that come with trying to keep the Law; David represents the easy flow in the favor of God that comes with surrender to Jesus and submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit – all born out of the relationship with God provided by the blood of Christ.
Saul represents the Old Covenant and David, the New Covenant. Saul is the flailings and thrashings of the old, natural man as he tries to appease God. David is the new heart of flesh with the law of God written on it.
Saul is the jealousy and hatred of those of the Old Covenant against the liberty observed in those of the New Covenant. He is like Hagar, the bond woman with her children, positioning themselves in opposition to Sarah and the Child of promise. Saul is the Pharisees and Sadducees and elders of the Jews that could not tolerate a new and living way (Hebrews 10:20). Saul is everything that is the outward show of religion without the inward heart toward God. He is the unwitting participant with darkness, and with the devil, the one trying to persecute and kill that which is born of God – the Babe, the Church, the believer, the Light of the world. He is the one who “does always resist” (Acts 6:10) the work of the Spirit and God‘s acceptance of His people, and their freedom to be who they really are in Him.
And what Samuel says to Saul is true of all of these:
…your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you (verse 14).
And we know that this man was David, a type of our Prince, the Lord Jesus Christ.