Saul – beGeSt and deGeSt

Saul was anoin­ted as the first king over Isra­el. As equip­ment for this, the Spi­rit of God came upon him. He was SPIRITED. The Spi­rit cau­sed him to speak pro­phe­ti­cal­ly, to be trans­for­med into ano­ther per­son and to be led by God. Through dis­o­be­dience to God, he was deSPI­RI­TED, the Lord tur­ned away from him, which ulti­m­ate­ly ended in sui­ci­de. We can learn a lot from this sto­ry for our life with the Holy Spirit.

An advo­ca­te (lite­ral­ly the sum­mo­ned) is a lawy­er or an advo­ca­te. The New Tes­ta­ment word for the Holy Spi­rit para­cle­tos also means the sum­mo­ned. At Pen­te­cost, the Spi­rit of God was sum­mo­ned to dwell in the peo­p­le who trust Jesus Christ and live with him. Howe­ver, the Holy Spi­rit is not an inven­ti­on of the first Pen­te­cost in Acts 2, but was alre­a­dy a guest with indi­vi­du­al peo­p­le befo­re that.

Chosen and inspired

For exam­p­le, on Saul. The peo­p­le of Isra­el lived in a theo­cra­cy sin­ce their foun­ding by father Abra­ham. God spo­ke direct­ly to the respec­ti­ve lea­der. After peo­p­le like Moses and Joshua, the­se were the so-cal­led jud­ges. During this dif­fi­cult time, the desi­re grew among the Israe­li­tes for a king, just as their neigh­bours had long had. Howe­ver, God – not enthu­si­a­stic about this idea – con­ce­ded the mon­ar­chy to them.

God cho­se Saul to be the first king over Isra­el and spo­ke at the right moment to Samu­el, his priest and pro­phet: «This is the man I have announ­ced to you! He will rule over my peo­p­le» (1Samuel 9:17 NL). «Then Samu­el took a vial of oil and pou­red it out over Saul’s head»(1 Samu­el 10:1 NL). At the anoin­ting as king, he pro­mi­ses him: «At the same time, the Spi­rit of the Lord will come upon you with power»(v.6a NL).

Saul, cho­sen by God, recei­ved the Holy Spi­rit. This pro­cess has remain­ed the same until today. Cho­sen and inspi­red. The adven­ture of «life with Jesus» always beg­ins with elec­tion by the hea­ven­ly Father (John 6:44). No one can find faith in Jesus Christ on their own. And then the­re is the gift of the Spi­rit: «Through Christ you too have now heard the truth, the good news that God saves you. You have belie­ved in Christ, and he has con­firm­ed you as his own with the seal of his Holy Spi­rit, which he pro­mi­sed long ago.»(Ephe­si­ans 1:13 NL).

SPIRIT led and changed

When the Spi­rit of God moves into the home with a per­son, a new era beg­ins: «At the same time, the Spi­rit of the Lord will come upon you with power, and you will pro­phe­sy with them. You will be chan­ged into ano­ther per­son. When the­se signs have come to pass, do what you think is right, for God will be with you.»(V.6+7 NL).

Of the colourful bou­quet of the effects of the Holy Spi­rit, we see three in Saul:

• Speak pro­phe­ti­cal­ly. You may feel a litt­le uncom­for­ta­ble about this. The Greek word for pro­phe­cy is made up of two words: per and phé­mi. Phé­mi meant to speak, per means from. So you could also say com­po­si­te: audi­tion or some­thing bring for­ward. At school, you elect a class repre­sen­ta­ti­ve. He knows the will and the opi­ni­on of the class and brings that to the front. He is, so to speak, the depu­ty spea­k­er. The one who speaks up or pro­phe­ti­cal­ly. In the days of Saul, the class pre­si­dent might have been cal­led the class pro­phet. So spea­king pro­phe­ti­cal­ly means kno­wing the thoughts of God and com­mu­ni­ca­ting them. In prin­ci­ple, every per­son in whom the Holy Spi­rit dwells has this gift. Accor­ding to Paul, the pro­phe­tic gift is valid and useful for the Church: «Love should be your hig­hest goal. But also stri­ve for the spe­cial gifts that the Spi­rit gives, espe­ci­al­ly the gift of pro­phe­cy.»(1 Corin­thi­ans 14:1 NL). This gift is also pro­no­un­ced dif­fer­ent­ly in dif­fe­rent peo­p­le. We have a group that con­scious­ly works with this gift and also offers pro­phe­tic prayer.
• Trans­for­ma­ti­on into ano­ther human being. «[…] Whoe­ver lives with Christ beco­mes a new per­son. […] This new life comes from God alo­ne […].»(2 Corin­thi­ans 5:17,18 NL). The hea­ven­ly Father has not only cho­sen us, but is also trans­forming us into other peo­p­le. We can see the direc­tion of this chan­ge in the fruit of the Spi­rit that grows in us: Love, joy, peace, pati­ence, kind­ness, good­ness, faithful­ness, gent­le­ness and self-con­trol (cf. Gala­ti­ans 5:21,22). God’s Spi­rit trans­forms us into a fra­grance for our envi­ron­ment. By con­tem­pla­ting our Crea­tor we are trans­for­med into His image (cf. 1 Corin­thi­ans 3:16–18). Our part is to look at him, the Spirit’s part is to trans­form us. We must come to God so that he can do for us what we can­not do for ourselves.
• Gui­ded by God. It is so bril­li­ant to expe­ri­ence the gui­dance of God in one’s own life. He who has the full over­view and knows me bet­ter than I know mys­elf. The Holy Spi­rit chan­ges our sen­ses in this direc­tion, that we think and act more and more in the sen­se of God. That is why Samu­el could say: «When the­se signs have come to pass, then do what you think is right, for God will be with you.» (V.7 NL). Our jud­ge­ment will sett­le more and more in the cent­re of God’s will in the cour­se of time, so that it comes to this swee­ping pro­mi­se. The con­nec­tion bet­ween the Spi­rit of God and gui­dance in life is also shown to us by Paul: «All who are led by God’s Spi­rit are His sons and daugh­ters»(Romans 8:14 NGÜ). The world is beco­ming more and more com­plex, the opti­ons are gro­wing expo­nen­ti­al­ly, so how valuable is a secu­re com­pass. In doing so, you do not have to be fear­ful and pro­cras­ti­na­te, but may bold­ly go ahead, «for God will be with you».

Disobedience and deGEIST

Saul had a good start as king over Isra­el, he was popu­lar and vic­to­rious. Actual­ly, the­re would have been no reason to chan­ge any­thing. But slow­ly, arbi­tra­ry action crept into his ever­y­day life. Once he was too impa­ti­ent and offe­red a sacri­fice to God hims­elf, alt­hough this was the priest’s busi­ness. Then he ful­fil­led his com­mis­si­on to the Ama­le­ki­tes only half-hear­ted­ly out of fear of the peo­p­le (1 Samu­el 15:24). More and more he tole­ra­ted «litt­le foxes in his viney­ard», which ulti­m­ate­ly devas­ta­ted him. Then Samu­el says to him: «Becau­se you have tur­ned away from the word of the Lord, He has now also tur­ned away from you; you will no lon­ger be king»(1 Samu­el 15:23 NL). From then on, Saul goes downhill, seeks David’s life, falls into occul­tism in the mat­ter of inqui­ring about the dead and in the end kills himself.

We can sad­den, dam­pen and suf­fo­ca­te the Spi­rit of God. «Be careful not to grie­ve the Holy Spi­rit by your beha­viour. Rather, remem­ber that you bear His seal and thus have the assu­rance that the day of redemp­ti­on will come.» (Ephe­si­ans 4:30 NL). This state­ment shows that the Holy Spi­rit will not be expel­led from life. Chris­ti­ans, as Paul men­ti­ons, bear «his seal» on the day of redemp­ti­on. The Spi­rit of God is a down pay­ment on life in the imme­dia­te pre­sence of God in the new world (Ephe­si­ans 1:14). When we buy some­thing or book a trip, we make a down pay­ment as a gua­ran­tee that the deal will get off the ground. Thus, with the Holy Spi­rit, God gives us a gua­ran­tee that glo­ry with God is our future.

But – the effec­ti­ve­ness of the spi­rit can be mas­si­ve­ly down­gra­ded – like a car that is no lon­ger run­ning on all cylin­ders. This hap­pens when we start tole­ra­ting things in life that are not good. When we keep guilt in secret ins­tead of con­fes­sing it. The Spi­rit of God with­draws in such situa­tions – not as an offen­ded liver sau­sa­ge – but as a gen­tle­man who does not impo­se himself.

In the Bible, blas­phe­my against the Holy Spi­rit is lis­ted as a sin that can­not be for­gi­ven. «But he who blas­phe­mes against the Holy Spi­rit has no for­gi­ve­ness for eter­ni­ty, but is guil­ty of eter­nal sin» (Mark 3:29 NL). By the scri­bes accu­sing Jesus of cas­ting out demons by demo­nic powers, when in fact he was cas­ting them out by the power of the Holy Spi­rit, they prac­ti­cal­ly cal­led the Holy Spi­rit a demon. This is blas­phe­my against the Holy Spi­rit. Can peo­p­le still com­mit this sin today? Pro­ba­b­ly not. This sin could only be com­mit­ted as long as Jesus was doing mira­cles on earth. Becau­se he is no lon­ger phy­si­cal­ly pre­sent today cas­ting out demons, this pos­si­bi­li­ty of blas­phe­ming the Holy Spi­rit no lon­ger exists. Peo­p­le who worry about having com­mit­ted the sin that can­not be for­gi­ven have cer­tain­ly not com­mit­ted it. The very fact that they worry about it pro­ves that they are not guil­ty of blas­phe­ming the Holy Spi­rit. All sin can be for­gi­ven – all sin – pro­vi­ded the per­son accepts for­gi­ve­ness.

Like you and me. Not quite! We live after Pen­te­cost. In mat­ters of the Holy Spi­rit, we no lon­ger live in a visi­ting cul­tu­re, but in a living cul­tu­re. The Spi­rit of God no lon­ger departs, but remains. Our task is to see to it that he feels at home. How does this work? Paul says: «Do not get drunk on wine; other­wi­se you will ruin your life. Ins­tead, let the Holy Spi­rit fill you»(Ephe­si­ans 5:18 NL). The means are prai­se and gra­ti­tu­de. If we do this, we remain inspi­red. The Spi­ri­tus Sanc­tus, the Holy Spi­rit, is also in this word.

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Acts 2

1. Cho­sen and inspi­red – is that you?
2. Why did the Spi­rit of God come upon Saul? What were the effects?
3. How do you expe­ri­ence the pre­sence of the Holy Spi­rit in your life in the three are­as mentioned?
4. We are to be fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit all the time. How do you expe­ri­ence this?
5. Pray for each other for more abun­dance through the Holy Spirit!