The Sabbath-School

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 36.

The Sabbath-School.

Notes on the International Lesson.

DEATH OF SAUL AND HIS SONS.

MANY instructive lessons might be drawn from the incidents connected with the interval between this and the last lesson, did time permit. The death and burial of Samuel is a subject of notice, and the renewed efforts of Saul to capture David are also worthy of mention. The flight of David to Gath, and his agreement with the Philistines while virtually exiled from his own country; the account of the interview Saul held with the woman of Endor, in which an evil spirit was caused to personate the dead prophet, Samuel; these, together with several other features, are all full of interest, but cannot properly come inside the scope of the present lesson. However, these subjects will amply repay private study, and will furnish much food for reflection.

IN the lesson of to-day we have the closing scenes in the eventful life of Saul, as far as recorded. The Philistine armies under Achish, king of Gath, had once more invaded Palestine, and were encamped on or near Mount Gilboa, a range of hills about ten miles in length, extending eastward from the City of Jezreel, where the Israelites had pitched their army. Here the final battle of Saul was fought.

FOR some time previous to this, the Lord had refused to guide or answer Saul in any way because of his persistent course in evil. Just previous to the battle recorded in the present lesson, Saul, in his last extremity, had turned to those who had familiar spirits, and communed with them, the express command of God to the contrary notwithstanding. By thus doing, it would seem that he forever severed any connection which might have remained between the Lord and himself. Failing to obtain the solace he desired from the evil spirits, and apparently recognizing that his life was a failure, the monarch returned broken-hearted to the field of battle, and during the few remaining hours of his life, what courage he manifested must have been the courage of sheer despair, ending finally in his ignominious death by his own hand.

THE overthrow of Saul was not from lack of military knowledge, as some have supposed, but was the direct result of forsaking the ways of the Lord. Saul had shown himself at the outset to be not only brave and courageous but possessed of good executive ability, and had he continued to allow the Lord to lead him, there is no reason to think these qualities would ever have failed him. God had promised to confirm him in the kingdom if he continued to walk righteously in the sight of the Lord, and it was not until Saul had flagrantly rebelled against God that this promise was withdrawn.

"IF God be for us, who can be against us?" Rom. 8:31. Our hearts can endure almost anything so long as we know that the Lord is on our side. And he will be for us and will order everything for our best good so long as we obey him and follow after righteousness. But when God is no longer for us, when through a desire to follow our own ways we walk away from the paths of truth, then how can our hands be strong, or how can we expect the blessing of the Lord? It is a tremendous truth that God does govern and direct in the affairs of men. Let us not wait as did Saul, until we are compelled to acknowledge it by the sternness of God's dealings with us on account of our disobedience.

SAUL was rewarded according to his own transgressions. He had rejected the counsel of Samuel, his life-long friend, and had ordered the slaughter of the priests at Nob, and now he died comfortless and alone, without so much even as a prayer in his behalf. Had he not so persistently sought the life of David he need not have died because of the lack of David's help. He had put away the fear of God from before his eyes during his life, and in his death God turned away from him. If we expect to die right, we must live right.

THERE is one redeeming feature connected with this lesson which we may ponder with profit. The Philistines had insulted the bodies of Saul and his sons after their death by fastening them to the wall at Beth-shan; but when the men of Jabesh-gilead heard of it, the remembrance of Saul's former kindness to them in delivering them from the Ammonites so moved upon their gratitude that they arose by night and took the bodies to Jabesh, east of the Jordan, and burned them and buried their bones that no further indignity might be offered them. Here was a generous and unselfish deed performed by Saul forty years before, and yet its influence extended down past his death, and these men of Jabesh-gilead showed that they had never forgotten it. What an incentive this should be to us, to scatter light and help others along their pathway.

THE character of Saul may be briefly summed up. He was certainly a man of many good qualities, as is shown by the fact that he did not neglect the affairs of the kingdom even when engaged in battles with the nations around him. He seems to have punished all idolatry and false worship, and as no complaints were uttered against him after his death, it is probable that during his life he must have discharged the duties of the kingdom, in temporal matters at least, to the satisfaction of