Two Kings

Saul

In the Old Testament, we are told of the two lines of Kings that ruled over Israel. Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, and David was from the tribe of Judah.

Saul’s appointment is curious, as it was prophesied in Genesis 49:10 that the line of Kings would come from the tribe of Judah. That perhaps is the subject best left for another day.

Saul seemed a humble man at first. The record of his anointing and selection is found in 1Sam. 10.

Saul became a great leader and won significant battles, but it all came undone when he trusted his own gut and feared a drop in popularity rather than obey God. 

The first signs that Saul was unstable as a leader was when he stepped into the role that only a priest could do, and in order to bring order in the military ranks, he offered a sacrifice that Samuel was supposed to offer. When Samuel arrived, this is what he said to Saul.

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. 

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.” 1Sam 13:13-14

Later on, God told Saul to obliterate Amalek and to leave nothing. Saul and the people allowed the king of Amalek to live and kept the best of the sheep and cattle. Saul did not obey, and God rejected Saul because of his disobedience and sent Samuel to him to let him know he was fired. After beating Amalek, Saul had got busy and set up a monument to himself. 

When Saul eventually hears what Samuel has to say, he protests his innocence of wrongdoing, to which Samuel replies,

“What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” 1Sam 15:14

Samuel refuses to take responsibility for his actions and blames the people. To which Samuel replies, 

“Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

As in obeying the voice of the LORD?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

And to heed than the fat of rams.

“For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,

He has also rejected you from being king.” 1Sam 15:22-23.

Only then does Saul admit he has sinned, and after tearing Samuel’s garment then insists that Samuel still publicly honour him by accompanying him to the ceremony they are about to have. He wanted Samuel to pretend nothing was wrong.

So, Saul was a man who interpreted the word of the Lord through his gut instinct, which led to partial obedience, which is never acceptable to God. He built memorials to himself and demanded personal loyalty from those around him, and wanted public honour even when he was wrong. In the Bible, there is no record of Saul being deeply repentant of his sins.

David

David was Saul’s replacement. He was from the tribe of Judah and was selected and anointed as King in Bethlehem whilst he was still a young shepherd. God described him as a man after His own heart in 1Sam. 13:14.

The record of David’s selection and anointing is found in 1Sam 16:12-14

David, although only young, was the man God sought to be king. At the time, Samuel looked through David’s brothers, seeking a new king. Saul noted their height and strength, but God told Samuel,

“Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1Sam 16:7

David’s journey to the throne room was long and arduous, but he never lost sight of the fact that Saul was the anointed King and God would have to take him off the throne before David could rule.

We should be mindful that David was probably about 15 years old when he was anointed, and 30 years old when he became king. So there were 15 years of Saul's poor leadership before God allowed the changeover. Although the spiritual anointing was lifted from Saul and rested on David at the time of David’s anointing,  there was still a journey to be had before temporal reality lined up with spiritual reality. David did not push the point; he waited for God.

Once in power, David had many great victories, but built no monuments to himself.

God saw in David a man who had a heart after Him. When David became King, he was far from perfect, and he made major mistakes and sinned greatly. The most obvious being the affair with Bathsheba, his friend's wife. She fell pregnant, and David tried to cover things up by killing her husband and quickly marrying her, ostensibly to raise up children in his friend's memory. But God saw everything and sent Nathan the prophet to confront David. David acknowledged his sin. God judged him, and the result was the death of the child and the later rebellion of Absalom. David’s repentant response was recorded in Psalm 51.

So David sought the Lord, acknowledged his sin, repented deeply, sought no monument or personal recognition and did not demand personal honouring or loyalty. 

There was also the issue of the census he took in 2Samuel 24.

History remembers David’s reign in a much better light than Saul’s. Saul’s fear of man, his "go with my gut" approach, and his demand for honour and loyalty were his undoing because they took him away from doing what God specifically asked him to do. Any good that he did was overwhelmed by his disobedience to the word of the Lord and his later reliance on the occult to try to hear the word of the Lord. (1Sam. 28:7-10) David is remembered not for his sins, but for the way he retreated to God and confessed his sins when he strayed from God’s path.

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,

Whose sin is covered!

How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,

And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away

Through my groaning all day long.

For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;

My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.

Selah.

I acknowledged my sin to You,

And my iniquity I did not hide;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”;

And You forgave the guilt of my sin.

Selah. Psalm 32:1-5

Our governance

Today our governance is elected; it does not come by birthright. We choose or re- choose our ruler every few years. Paul writes in Romans 13:1

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Romans 13:1

So, when our selection, or re-selection, of a leader happens in an election, we need to trust that God, who is greater than any leader of any government, is still in control. Even if the person elected is not the one we voted for. Rebellion is not God’s way of doing things. We can re-choose in a few years' time. Lies and baseless accusations are also not God’s way of doing things. It is how the devil operates; it’s the way the devil used to get Jesus a death sentence, and the devil, according to Jesus, is a liar and the father of all lies. (John 8:44)

We should not be reactionary to political propaganda but rather be looking to God and seeking his will in the situation. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. 

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matt.6:33-34

However, all this being said, I think we can say any nation’s leaders can have a tendency to be like Saul or be like David. If you were to look at your nation's leader, how would you rank them as a Saul or a David?

The Power of the Widow’s Mite

And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And He saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them; for they all out of their surplus put into the offering; but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4

The widow's gift

Jesus was observing people coming to the temple to give gifts and tithes to the temple treasury. Some made a big deal of it, making sure as many people as possible saw their generosity. But a little widow came and put in two small copper coins. It was all she had to live on, and it was the only gift that Jesus took notice of. He knew those two copper coins were more costly than all the gold and silver that had been placed there by the rich and famous.

The KJV translation of the Bible, when talking about these copper coins, uses the word Mite. A Mite was a tiny Medieval English coin. The coin in Jesus’ day was called a Lepton and was 1/64th of a Denarius, which was the basic wage for a labourer for one day’s work. A Lepton could buy a very small amount of food. This widow had indeed given away all she had to live on and would go hungry because of her giving to God.

In Matthew 6, Jesus says,

So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:2-4

It seems that some givers in Jesus’ time made a show of their generosity. Sounding the trumpet so the poor could come scrambling to receive from their hands or making a show of their temple gifts. Jesus said that God will see what you do in secret. This widow was not making a noise about her gift; she gave all she had, and God was watching. We can be assured that she was rewarded for her generosity and that God would have looked after her. We do not hear the end of that story, but we can be assured that God, who cares for the orphan and the widow, had her needs firmly in His sights.

Prosperity preachers

I sometimes look at the sermons from these prosperity preachers, who say if you sow a gift of $1,000 in their ministry, God will bless you and give you 10 times more back in blessings. Then they make a show of their mansions, planes and bank accounts, and I wonder if their ministry is just one of trumpets and loud noises or not letting their left hand know what the right hand is doing!

In my life’s journey, I have seen God provide and care for my family time and time again. God is faithful, and He rewards the humble; however, he does not want us to be greedy and demand from Him more than He is willing to give. There are no magic formulas to make God love and bless you more. He has already shown the greatest amount of love possible by sending His son Jesus into the world to die for you. But these prosperity preachers. I am not even sure if the gospel they preach is in any way related to the one we read about in the Bible. It seems like a grab for cash to me!

The love of money

We live in a big world where the gaining of money and riches are encouraged. Earning and spending are good for the economy; the more you spend, the more other people in the economy can benefit. If 10,000 people spend $10 on coffee on the way to work each day, then that $100,000 goes a long way to employ other people who spend their wages on other things, and so it goes on. But how much is enough?

Paul wrote to Timothy in 1Timothy 6:10

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Timothy 6:10

So, our attitude towards money and riches is something we need to keep an eye on. In my journey, I met some very wealthy people who love God and who have a balance between their relationship with God and the money He has blessed them with. They are not driven by a need to make more and more money; they are driven by their love for Jesus and wanting to serve Him.

On the other hand, I have met people who I would describe as moderately wealthy, who have been obsessed with making lots and lots more money, and as Paul writes, some of these have come to grief.

Jesus once met a rich young man who was on the way to grief because of his riches. Jesus told him to go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. The rich young man went away sad, for he was very rich and did not want to part with his wealth. He wanted to be Jesus' disciple on his own terms. You will find the story in Matthew 19:16-30.

Giving all you have

The widow at the temple gave all she had; would some of these prosperity televangelists do the same? One famous one is estimated to have personal wealth of more than $700 million. Imagine if he were just to quietly give it away; how many Bibles could you distribute with $700 million? How many starving children could you feed? How many churches could you plant? These guys do not hold a candle to the widow, whilst they only seek to increase their wealth, rather than give it all away! They want discipleship on their own terms.

A personal journey with some "widows".

As some of you are aware, in the past I have led a ministry that worked with the abject poor, so I have an appreciation of what the word poor means. Some of my closest friends are refugees, or people who have lived in very difficult situations.

In the early years after I took over the ministry, we had a financial crisis. Just getting enough money coming through the books to cover our running costs was sometimes difficult. We were never insolvent, but I had to be innovative to create new income streams. We had street appeals, sold drinks to students, and continually prayed for God’s help. One thing I did was I started producing a monthly newsletter, and people began giving to the ministry through it. Many of the donors were what I would call “the widows”; all they could afford to give was a few dollars each month, and they did, faithfully. These “widows” were giving us their widow’s mite. By itself, their few dollars did not amount to our whole financial answer, but what accompanied it was much more valuable than their donations. Often attached to their cheque, or $5 note that they had sent through the mail, was a note.  These notes were handwritten and offered us a word of encouragement or a Bible verse. One widow would send in dollar coins sticky-taped to a piece of paper; and on the outside of the envelope, she wrote the dates and times that she prayed for the ministry. These widows did not have much money, but they were praying every day for our ministry. Sometimes when we faced a huge challenge, the Scripture verses they sent to us spoke to us specifically about the situation we faced. We were in a place of incredible blessing. God’s people were praying for us every day and letting us know that they had. 

The ministry I led grew; it went from a very small income of about $60,000 a year when I took over, to about 1 million a year by the time I left. However, we only got through the difficult challenges because we had our widows giving and praying for us.

I believe that the “widows” of this world carry with them a special gift from God, intercession for God’s projects.

Conclusion

So, if you fall into the category of someone who is financially depleted, who is only able to contribute a mite. Go ahead, make that contribution, as you feel led, and … pray for that ministry. Your prayers may bring about the very breakthrough that ministry has longed for. The small amount you give is dear to Him, and He will hear your prayers.

On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come. 1 Cor.16:2

Paul encourages the church to give as they can afford. These widows were sending what they could afford, but adding to it that which they could freely give: their prayers and encouragement.

Shifting Veils

The Gospel is simple: we are sinners. The wages of sin are death. Because of sin, we are eternally doomed. However, God has had compassion on us and sent Jesus to die in our place so that we can have forgiveness of sin and live with Him forever. 

Jesus died and is now resurrected, and if you want to have your sins forgiven, simply repent and believe the gospel. 

Because all people are sinners, we all need God’s forgiveness; there are no exceptions. (Romans 3:23) God’s forgiveness is only offered through Jesus. There is no other way.

So, if you don’t repent and believe the Gospel, then you will die in your sins and spend eternity in Hell. 

These facts are all a person needs to know when they reach out to Jesus for His forgiveness.

We do not need to make the gospel more palatable by softening it at the edges; anyone who reaches out to Jesus, turns from their sin and believes in His name will be saved. 

As that person follows Jesus, their life and their behaviour will change. As they read God’s word, they will grow, and more information and personal revelation will come into their life. You don’t have to be a theologian to get saved; you just have to put your trust in Jesus. 

So, if salvation is this easy, why isn’t everyone saved? Why is there a resistance to the gospel?

Veils

In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul writes this. 

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Paul had been talking to the Corinthian church about the Gospel, and here he says that some people are not saved because the devil (the god of this world) has placed a veil over their hearts that stops them from understanding the Gospel and acting upon it.

Previously in 1 Corinthians 1: 18, Paul wrote

For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

We can put these two scriptures together. The reason people think the gospel is foolishness is because of the veil that the devil has placed over their hearts.

Church-going is not salvation

Once we were all in such a position. Sure, some of us may have even grown up in the church, but our values and behaviour outside of the church building may have been very contrary to God’s laws, and we were still sinning. With a veil over our hearts, we thought we were ok and that going to church was enough to save us. However, going to church won’t save you of itself; only repentance and faith will. Every believer at some time in their life was a sinner who has had an encounter with God. In everyone’s life, there was a time when they met Jesus and repented of their sins and believed that everything He did on the cross for them was enough to pay the price for all of their sins. It is at this point that they became a born-again believer.

Going to church should put you in an environment where you are hearing the Gospel, and learning how to live in a broken and sinful world; but church attendance on its own makes you as much of a Christian as going to McDonald’s makes you a hamburger!

So, we have a planet full of people, many with veils over their hearts that are stopping them from understanding the truth of the Gospel and acting on it. So, what do we do? We live our lives openly and share the message of Jesus plainly. Life brings events that often lift the veils on people’s hearts, and for a short time they are receptive to the Gospel message. But to hear it, they need to be around people who are living it and telling it as it is.

The nurse who changed

On my life’s journey, I once worked as an orderly at a hospital in Canberra. I just did my daily duties and wasn't aggressively evangelistic, but people knew I was a Christian. One day, a nurse came to me and said,  

“I don’t know what you are doing, but God is at work in my life; keep praying.” 

I was surprised I could not remember talking to this nurse about Jesus, but the veil over her heart seemed to be shifting. I began to pray for her. A few weeks later, she came to me and said that she was going to a local church and was enjoying the fellowship. I continued to pray. Then one day in the staff room, she told everyone that last Sunday night she had gone forward in church and given her life to Jesus, and she was feeling the presence of God in her life in a real way, and she knows that all of her sins are now forgiven, and she is going to heaven when she dies. Most of the staff in the room didn’t know what to say.

I congratulated her and encouraged her to continue in her walk with Jesus. She then turned to me and said … “and my conversion is your fault. Whenever you came to work on the ward I was on, God started getting on my case.” To this day, I do not see how I could have had a direct effect on her life, but I trust God and His timing for her.

Not a score board.

You would be right if you are thinking that I am trying to move myself out of the spotlight of this story. This is God’s story; I just happened to be there when it happened.

For a long time, I have been uncomfortable when I hear people say things like: “I got 93 people saved this week!”

When I hear that, I think, “Really!!” The Bible says that God is the one who saves; we sometimes have the privilege to be present when someone gives their life to Christ.

It is Jesus who is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29

It is the Father who draws people to Jesus. John 6:44

It is the Holy Spirit that convicts the world of its sin. John 16:8

We have nothing to do with the salvation of another person; we are called to be witnesses of what God has done in our lives and what He is doing now, and sometimes we happen to be there at that critical time in a person’s journey when they give their life to Christ. Jesus said, 

… and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:8

Our job is to be faithful witnesses. Evangelism is not like a scoreboard at a sports ground; it is a process in which many people may contribute, but God deserves all the glory.

Shifting veils

The veils over people’s hearts shift from time to time. A death in the family, sickness, war, a marriage breakdown, or just the realisation one’s life is empty, may be a time when the veil over a person’s heart shift. Shifting veils provide the opportunity for people to clearly hear the truth about Jesus. When a veil has shifted, the people who we work alongside or even pass on the street may find a piece of the Gospel through their encounter with us. Continued encounters may bring a person to the point where they give their lives to Christ.

Salvation is a journey; for some people the journey is very quick, for others it takes years, but it is a journey, nonetheless.

The Engel Scale

The Engel Scale is a conceptual framework or tool used in understanding a person’s spiritual journey from unbelief to conversion. 

This scale was developed by Dr James Engel, and you will find it in his book, What’s Gone Wrong with the Harvest! 

In the book, Engel puts forward the idea that coming to Jesus is a series of steps that are of no measurable length, but still steps people need to go through in order to come to Christ and be successfully discipled. These steps have become known as the Engel Scale, and they help us to understand that we too are part of the process of other people finding faith in Christ.

Over the years I have seen many versions of the Engel Scale; here I am going to outline a simplified version.

The Engel Scale steps explained.

-8 Awareness of a supreme being – no knowledge of the Gospel

Many tribal peoples would fit into this category; they may worship the spirits or a god, but they do not have knowledge of the Gospel.

I was once in secondary school in a NSW country town that had many strong churches. There I met a white Australian teenager who had never heard the Gospel, did not know what Easter and Christmas were about and thought that Jesus Christ was an expletive you said when you were angry or hurt. This young man was at -8 on the Engel Scale.

-7 Initial awareness of the Gospel

Many people say that they understand the Gospel, but who really would not have a clue. They will tell you that Jesus died on a cross, but they do not understand the reality of the Gospel message and its implications. They may have seen something on the internet or on TV but seen it without understanding.  Proverbs 4:7 says … with all your acquiring, get understanding.

-6 Awareness of the fundamentals of the Gospel

In the opening of this article, I explained the fundamentals of the Gospel. We are sinners; God is holy. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)  Because of sin, we are destined to spend eternity in Hell. Jesus came to die in our place and pay for our sins. He offers us forgiveness of sins and eternal life if we will repent of our sins and believe that all that He has done for us on the cross, plus nothing, is enough to pay the price for all of our sins and that with our sins forgiven, we can live with Him forever. 

Some people can rattle off these facts and still not want to do anything about it because of the veil over their heart.

-5 Grasp the implications of the gospel

These are the people who one day wake up to the fact that they are dead in their sins unless they do something about it. They might say, “When I am dying, I will do it then, but now I am just too busy.” 

They understand the implications, but their attitude is that it is not a high priority for them. One could argue here that they say they understand the implications, but really, they don’t.

Sin is not an inconvenience, it is a wretched and horrible state from which we need rescuing. The key truth we all have to grasp here is, this is a problem that only God can fix.

-4 Positive attitude towards the Gospel

After grasping the implications of the Gospel, the person must develop a positive attitude towards the Gospel where they see it as the truth that will set them free.

Once they have this attitude, these people are on the edge of making a decision to do something about it; these are the people who might attend a crusade meeting or talk with a street evangelist, or even visit a church. 

-3 Personal problem recognition

This is a fancy term for when a person is convicted by the Holy Spirit about their sins.

Part of the role of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of its sin. When the veil has moved, and the Holy Spirit convicts a person of their sin, this is a likely time when the person will decide to act.

If they decide not to act, then on the Engel Scale they slide back to -5 because they obviously do not appreciate the full implications of saying no to the grace of God extended to them through Jesus. For them, they will have to continue their journey until at last they decide to follow Jesus.

-2 Decision to Act

Once a person has grasped the implications of the Gospel, has a positive attitude towards the gospel, and has been convicted of their sin by the Holy Spirit, their next step is to decide to act. They decide to give their life to Jesus.

-1 Repentance and faith

At this step, the person prays and asks Jesus to forgive them and to be the Lord of their life. Then receive God’s offer of forgiveness and eternal life because of the death of Jesus.

Here the miracle happens: all their sins are forgiven, the power of sin in their life is broken, and their name is written in the Book of Life. They are a New Creation.

0 New Creation

By the time the person says amen to the prayer they pray, they are a New Creation. They are not the same as they were a few minutes ago. But this is not the end; the Engel Scale continues for 5 more steps.

+1 Post-decision evaluation

The question every new Christian needs to ask is, now that I belong to Christ, how should I live my life? This may lead a person to change their friends, habits, or occupation. Perhaps, like Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10), God will lead them to make restitution to people they have wronged. This is the time when the journey when the new convert finds their footing in their new life with Jesus.

+2 Incorporation into a church body

Within a church body are the keys for sustained and continued growth. The next steps in their Engel Scale journey presume that they have a fellowship or church to which they belong where they can receive teaching and can worship and participate in a way that will help them grow in Christ. Bible study groups will be a key element of their spiritual growth.

+3 Conceptual and behavioural growth

In a fellowship or church, the nitty-gritty of daily life as a Christian is fleshed out. Here other Christians can give new converts pointers as to how they handle the dilemmas of daily life. Here the new convert learns about the more complicated matters of faith, such as the incarnation, Baptism, Holy Communion, and the Trinity, just to name a few. 

It is also within the fellowship of the church that the new convert is taught how to worship God and the importance of reading the Bible, the importance of tithing, and much, much more.

+ 4 Communion with God

At church and at home, the new convert needs to know how they can prayerfully practice the presence of God. Read the Word, pray, worship, and experience God’s presence in their daily life.

+5 Lead others to Christ

This step could well happen before some of the other post-conversion steps. But every Christian should know how to lead someone else to the Lord, should they ever have the privilege to do so.

Evangelism is not just for the evangelists; it is for those who are part of God’s forever family.

Why the Engel Scale is important

Veil movement and opportunities to share the gospel are important in evangelism. There are some people who are gifted evangelists who find it easy to share their faith in a public forum. Some are terrified of sharing their faith in case they get it wrong, especially in a public forum.

The Engel Scale shows us that because a person’s conversion is part of a process, we may already be affecting people’s lives without knowing it. That person you work with may have slipped from -7 to -6 on the Engel Scale because of the chat you had with them over morning tea. The little old lady who visited your church, whom you spoke to at morning tea and who you drove home, may have developed a positive attitude towards the Gospel based on your kindness.  

Evangelists are very good at working with people at -4 through to conversion on the Engel Scale, but there might have been 100 people God used to get them from -8 to -4.

Evangelists may also be very lacking in discipling new converts. This is the job of those with pastoral and teaching gifts, and Christian friends that they make in their local church. So in the bigger picture, we all have a part to play.

The veils on people’s hearts shift, and opportunities arise; as Christians, we need to be living our faith openly and clearly so that those around us can hear the message that will change their lives for eternity.