“Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul, but he was told, ‘Saul has gone to Carmel. There he has set up a monument in his own honour and has turned and gone on down to Gilgal.’” (1 Samuel 15:13)
Continuing my quiet times in 1 Samuel, I have been struck by Saul’s glorious start in kingship and his equally rapid disintegration. He began with an overwhelming personal experience of God’s anointing which saw him reckoned among the nation’s prophets (1 Sam.10:9-13). After a significant victory against the Philistines, he “built an altar to the Lord; it was the first time he had done this.” (1 Sam.14:35). Yet the very next chapter describes a battle against Amalek in which Saul does not follow God’s directions. When he is again victorious, he goes to Carmel where he “set up a monument in his own honour” (1 Sam.15:12). In just a short time span he has gone from building altars to the Lord to building monuments to himself. Pride, self-reliance, arrogance, and self-aggrandisement have surfaced. A spiritual rot has set in. Within the next few verses, he will blame his own soldiers for his disobedience, he will spin a tale about his motives in keeping the plunder, and he will plead with Samuel to not rebuff him publicly. Samuel will have none of it and tells Saul the kingdom has been torn from him and given “to one better than you.” (1 Sam.15:28).
It’s a salutary story and one every Christian leader should heed. The line between glorifying the Lord and glorifying self is alarmingly thin. And the consequences of crossing that line are enduring and devastating. Our calling is building the Kingdom of God. We must always guard ourselves if we are to ensure that we remain Kingdom-builders and not empire-builders.