In 1 Samuel 13, we are told of an incident between the Prophet Samuel and King Saul, Israel’s first king. In this section of scripture, we are told of a number of battles between Israel and the Philistines. As they prepare for an upcoming major encounter, Samuel told Saul to take his troops, go to Gilgal, and wait for Samuel to come and offer sacrifices on behalf of Israel before going into battle. Samuel told Saul he would come on the seventh day to offer the sacrifice (1 Sam. 10:8).
In chapter 13, we are told that Saul was waiting at Gilgal on the seventh day. His troops were terrified. He was frightened and yet Samuel had not yet arrived. As the day wore on, some of Saul’s men began to scatter. Saul decided to take matters into his own hands and he himself offered the burnt offering and fellowship offering that Samuel was to offer. Saul was not a priest. He was not authorized to offer sacrifices and yet he did so out of fear of losing his army. Of course, the moment the last billow of smoke drifted up from the offering, Samuel arrived.
The text reads, “What have you done?” asked Samuel. Saul replied, “When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” “You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Sam. 13:11-14). Notice that Saul decided to take matters into his own hands, blamed Samuel, and then said he needed God’s blessing even if he had to obtain it through disobedience. His thinking was skewed like that throughout his entire life.
Ultimately, this event and others like it cost Saul his kingdom and his life. We could take numerous lessons from this passage, but the one I want to emphasize now is the principle of waiting on the Lord. Saul had received instructions from the Lord though Samuel to wait at Gilgal until the prophet, who was also a priest, arrived and offered sacrifices. Saul depended on his own abilities and the abilities of his men for victory. As they began to leave, he apparently had no thought that God could give them victory regardless of their numbers. In fear, he went ahead and offered the sacrifices rather than waiting on God’s man to arrive. Saul believed that God would honor his actions even though they were disobedient. Saul always felt that the end he wanted justified the means.
There was a test woven into this circumstance. Would Saul obey God even when it began to look like obedience might cost him his victory? In a similar incident later, Samuel would say to the king, “Does not God desire obedience more than sacrifice?” The issue is whether we will trust God and be obedient when things aren’t going according to our time table or our presuppositions about life and what it should look like.
Satan is quick to show up and whisper that God is not going to show up so we must take matters into our own hands. When that happens, a lack of faith rushes ahead and tries to engineer the outcome we are wanting. That is not a good idea! Remember Abram and Sarai.
God promised Abram a son, even though Sarai had been unable to bear children. I’m sure they got busy trying to fulfill that promise, but time passed and nothing happened. In Genesis 16, we are told that Sarai decided the promise was not going to be fulfilled through her, so she offered her handmaiden to Abram and he fathered a child though Hagar. From a natural, fleshly perspective that made sense, but it was something that could be accomplished apart from God. God often wants to do something supernatural in our lives that leaves no question his hand was in it. That brings him glory, increases our faith, and builds relationship with him. But I have seen many people who waited on a promise or a prayer to be answered for a while…but then decided to make the promise or prayer come to pass in their own way by their own efforts.
The enemy was busy injecting thoughts that God wasn’t going to come through for them or didn’t care about the need they so desperately wanted him to meet. So, they moved ahead only to find that the decisions and the outcomes they engineered were catastrophic. Just as Saul went ahead with the sacrifices, they ran ahead on relationships, marriages, job opportunities, major moves, and so forth. Just as Saul lost his kingdom, they found the things they engineered did not work out well.
Very often, Satan prompts us to run ahead and take matters into our own hands. God wants to do things by his Spirit. Satan wants us to operate in the flesh. Abram and Sarai thought they would help God fulfill what he had promised. But the way the promise was fulfilled was just as important as the promise itself. Abram got Hagar pregnant. But then Hagar began to despise Sarai and flaunt her pregnancy. Sarai became enraged. When Hagar bore a son, he was not welcome. Ishmael and Isaac became estranged brothers and their descendants (Arabs and Jews) have been fighting ever since.
Certainly, we have a part in many promises, but waiting on the Lord can be a significant part of spiritual warfare because God is aligning all things to birth the answer to our prayer and his promise. If we run ahead, some ingredient(s) that will make the answer amazing will be left out. The answer will fall flat, lack flavor, be bitter, or be inedible all together. Satan will have taken the best part and we will be disappointed. Satan will then rush to get us to blame God rather than ourselves for not having the faith to wait.
As we pray for significant things, we may also need to pray for God to give us the patience and even endurance to wait on his answer. His supernatural outcome will always outpace whatever we can do in our own strength.
