Saul’s reign over Israel was one of contradictions. He would go to carry out God’s commands, but he just wouldn’t quite get the whole job done. This became his downfall and the reason that God would remove his presence from Saul, giving the kingdom instead to David who would give his whole heart to the Lord.
An example of this was toward the end of Saul’s reign. We are told that he had driven out all of the mediums and spiritists from the land of Israel. This was good because the people of Israel were told that they should not engage in these evil spiritual practices as all of the other nations around them had. The other peoples would go to these mediums and would even sacrifice their children to these “gods” of the other nations in order to try to curry favor with the them. But the people of Israel were commanded to be a people set apart for God, serving him only and not following these same practices.
Yet when God did not respond to Saul as the Philistines were amassing to attack Israel, what did Saul do? He sought out a medium who would let him talk to Samuel! The very thing that he not only knew not to do, and even had rightly acted upon as king, he himself went to do.
Saul was rejected by God because of his half measures. God had previously given him the job of completely destroying the Amalekites, but he didn’t do this either. He allowed the king and all of the best animals live, the animals supposedly for sacrifice. Samuel the prophet, though, asked an important question: Is it not better to obey the Lord than to offer him sacrifices?
Saul served God half-heartedly. He would receive God’s instruction, but he would fulfill the instruction in the way that he preferred. He did not serve God fully. He did not completely give himself to the Lord as God required. Just as Samuel told Saul when he was consulted through the medium:
The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. The LORD will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines.”
1 Samuel 28:17-19
God would take the kingdom from Saul and give it to David. God would allow the army of Israel to be defeated by the Philistines, Saul would be defeated, and both he and his sons would be killed. Just as the Lord had said would happen, it did. Now, Saul was learning that he would be killed within the next 24 hours, and that is what would happen.
God wants our whole hearts. God desires that we give all of ourselves to him. This is why, for example, Jesus told the rich young ruler to go and sell all of his possessions, give them to the poor, and come to follow him. Without giving him our whole heart, we cannot inherit eternal life. Without giving him our whole heart, we cannot truly know him. That is the lesson that Saul learned. It is the same lesson that the rich young ruler learned. And it is the same lesson that we must learn as well. God wants all of us. Without exception. May God help us and teach us to give our whole lives, our whole selves, to him.