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The solution to Saul’s bad precedent, part 5

Samuel told the Israelites that in spite of their sin in wanting a king like the nations, they might still enjoy a good relationship with God if they would not turn from God (1 Samuel 12:20, 21). This implies that if the people remained righteous, their king would also be righteous.

In fact, I have come to see that God gives us rulers that reflect the hearts of the people. In other words, we get what we want. God answers our short-sighted prayers, but those answers can turn into divine judgment—cause and effect. We need to ask God for the right things, because if He gives us what our carnal mind desires, we will not like what we get. So if we do not like our rulers, it is most likely because the majority of the people have asked for things that are not beneficial to us in the long term.

Recall how the Israelites in the wilderness wanted meat to eat. God sent them quail. However, it made them sick. Numbers 11:33 says,

³³ While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people; and the Lord struck the people with a very severe plague.

God answered the prayers of the people and gave them what they wanted, but this did not mean that God was pleased with them. So also, they later wanted a king like the nations. They got their request, but God made it clear that they had rejected Him (1 Samuel 8:7). The lesson here is that before we ask God for things, we may need to spend some time praying to know His will. Once we know His will, then it is safe to pray for things according to His will.

I began to learn this as early as 1985, when a few of us would gather around a table to pray and discern the will of God. It often took at least two hours to learn the mind of God, as each person shared what he/she was hearing during this time of meditation and prayer. Each received a piece of revelation until finally the last piece of the puzzle was revealed, showing the full picture. Once we knew, then it took only a few minutes to declare it. This brought a small piece of heaven into the earth. Our prayer was answered, and we could then go home.

Out of this came the gradual realization and revelation that prayer was mostly about hearing what God was saying—not simply telling God what we wanted Him to hear. To pray according to His will usually meant that first we had to meditate to hear and to know His will.

Saul’s Disqualification

King Saul seemed to have had about two good years in his reign over Israel. We read in 1 Samuel 13:1 KJV,

¹ Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel…

The NASB says that Saul reigned 42 years, but this directly contradicts Acts 13:21. The implication is that after about two years, Saul began his military campaigns against the Philistines, as we read in the next verse. Saul raised a standing army of 3,000, of which 2,000 were stationed at Michmash with Saul himself, and another 1,000 were stationed at Bethel under the leadership of Jonathan, Saul’s son.

Jonathan’s army destroyed the Philistine garrison at Geba, and this sparked a reaction. The Philistines raised an army of 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen “and people like the sand which is on the seashore.” The Israelite army ran for the hills, and some even crossed the Jordan River. Saul himself went to Gilgal to regroup.

Samuel then sent word to Saul to wait for him to come and make a sacrifice to God and to receive further instructions from the Lord. But when Samuel tarried, the people began to desert and scatter. Saul felt it necessary to offer the sacrifice himself (1 Samuel 13:9). No sooner had he finished when Samuel arrived, asking, “What have you done?”

Saul explained that the people were deserting from the army, so it was necessary to offer the sacrifice himself. But the prophet answered him in 1 Samuel 13:13, 14,

¹³ Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever [olam, “indefinitely”]. ¹⁴ But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Applying the Prophecy

The 40-year reign of Pentecostal Saul was a prophetic type and shadow of the 40 Jubilees of the Church under the Pentecostal anointing. The first Jubilee cycle began in 33 A.D. and ended in 82 A.D. The second cycle ended in 131-132 A.D. at the start of the Bar Kochba revolt against Rome, which resulted in a decree banning Jews from setting foot in Jerusalem.

John died in the year 100, so this second Jubilee cycle came in the next generation of the church. The pattern of Saul suggests that in the early part of the second century, the church as a whole had begun to depart from the commandment of the Lord. God’s verdict was that the church under Pentecost was disqualified to establish the Kingdom. Instead, God would call someone else—David in this case—“a man after His own heart.”

Saul did indeed have a kingdom, but it was characterized by lawlessness and disobedience and was not the righteous Kingdom that God had in mind. It would require an overcomer (David) that would be anointed with the authority of the feast of Tabernacles, the third feast. Pentecost was good, but it was inadequate. Therefore, God has, in these last days, raised up an overcomer company to reign with Christ (Son of David) in His Kingdom.

By studying church history, we see that that the church in the first century was dominated by Jewish believers. Many of them were opposed to Paul, believing that the Greek believers had to be circumcised outwardly and, essentially, to insert Jesus into Judaism, as if He could take over as a high priest of the line of Aaron.

Paul won his case against circumcision in the first Church Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15). The Greek believers, however, being set free from the traditions of men in Judaism, cast off the laws of God, conflating them with the traditions of men. So by the end of the second Jubilee, the church, now dominated by Greek believers, began to view the Scriptures through the eyes of Greek culture. The Old Testament was thought to be entirely allegorical, much like they viewed Greek mythology. The Hebrew view was rooted in history, not in allegory.

By comparing the reign of Saul with the church’s Pentecostal Age, we may conclude that by the early second century, God decreed that the Pentecost church was disqualified in its calling to bring in the righteous Kingdom. “Your kingdom shall not endure,” God said to Saul. God still saw fit to let Saul rule for another 38 years, and for the church to rule for another 38 Jubilees, but its end was established in favor of the overcomers and the greater Feast of Tabernacles.

We now live at the end of the age where the great shift in authority is taking place. Let us learn the lessons from biblical history, and let us understand how those lessons apply to the church, so that we may break free of the failing house of Saul and enter the enduring house of David.