But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death today, for today the LORD has accomplished salvation in Israel.”  1 Samuel 11:13.

A new king, and fresh from his first triumph, Saul faces a singular opportunity to eliminate his political enemies.  Instead he lays aside personal promotion in recognition of God’s sovereign work.  It is Saul’s finest hour.

Chosen.  Anointed.  Tall.  Handsome.  Rich.  Filled with the Spirit.  Saul has it all.

Part of Israel comes under siege.  Filled fresh with the Spirit and provoked to anger, Saul hacks up a yoke of oxen and sends the carcass pieces throughout Israel, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel [to join in battle], so shall it be done to his oxen.”

Gruesome and over dramatic perhaps, but it is not a threat.  Saul is not threatening that he will bring trouble on those who do not respond.  Threatening would have been to say “so shall it be done to any person” who does not respond.  Rather Saul is warning that all are in jeopardy from the attacking enemy.  His technique is crude, but graphic and successful.  He is exercising an essential leadership principle of calling followers to action by communicating that they all, individually, have something at stake, and success can only come by working together.  See, e.g., Nehemiah 2:17-18.  It was a dramatic wake up call, but that was what the extreme peril they were in required.

The people respond.  The enemy is defeated.

This was Saul’s triumphant moment.

But Saul had internal enemies.  Detractors who challenged his selection, despised him personally, and did not honor his office.

In the triumphant celebration, the people called for the death of the detractors.  They even appealed to Samuel and there is no indication of Samuel’s refusal.  But Saul said no.

Saul could have ridden the tide of success and popularity to eliminate his opposition then and there.  No one would have stopped him.  He would have been justified as executing treasonous traitors.

Instead Saul pulled back.  “No one shall be put to death this day, for the LORD has accomplished deliverance in Israel.”

Saul gets it.  He recognizes the “who.”  It was not Saul and his prowess, but the LORD who delivered Israel.  Saul was merely an instrument and was present.

And Saul recognizes the “what.”  The people rallied for one another.  Israel, as a people, was saved.  Killing internal political enemies would have been factional and internecine warfare, antithetical to the very work of unitary salvation of the nation that the LORD had just accomplished.  This was the significance of the moment, not Saul’s personal advancement.

Saul sacrifices his personal status, abides his enemies, and puts his own interests aside for the sake of worship, giving credit where credit is due, and Israel.  The result was that all of Israel greatly rejoiced.

Saul’s agenda, at least in this chapter, was not to exploit.  Not to make it about himself.  The threat of evil from foreign invasion was totally eradicated.  Saul’s focus was on the main thing, and on the LORD.  And so he could relent.

We should never relent against evil.  But we need not pursue our own agenda.  We can abide our enemies.  Vengeance belongs to the LORD.

Even Jesus, at the fulcrum of all history, facing the cross, at the moment of His glorious and ultimate defeat of sin, death and evil …

Even Jesus, who could summon the host of heaven to rescue Him, and whose mere breath of “I AM” caused the entire Roman cohort who came to arrest him to fall …

Even Jesus, riding the popularity and frenzy of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem …

Relented.

Not against evil.  That was uncompromisingly defeated.  But against His enemies.

Wrongly beaten and chastised, He did not respond or utter a word, but entrusted Himself to the One who judges righteously, who sees all, and to whom all justice and vengeance belongs.

Saul was not about his own agenda that day, only God’s.  Saul recognized that our lives are not our own, for our own advancement or happiness.  We are not here to accomplish or objectives, but His.

And so, “not a man shall be put to death this day.”  The result?

• Saul’s kingship is reestablished.
• Peace offerings are offered.
• The people rejoiced.

Saul does not take his power and prestige into his own hands.  Rather than seizing for himself what was rightfully his and easily within his grasp, he relented for the sake of God and God’s kingdom.  And then not through his own hand, Saul was established as king.  This was not the objective.  It was merely part of the overflow of God’s blessing and grace.  When God moves, blessings multiply and abound.

LORD, may I forsake every personal agenda.  May I seek and do only Your will.  May I eradicate evil completely from my own life.  I entrust myself and my future to you.  May Your will be done and Your Kingdom come.  You are good.  All the time.  I belong to You. 

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