1 SAMUEL 13

13 And Samuel [Shmuel] said to Saul [Sha'ul], Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept [been shomer over] the commandment [mitzvat] of the Yahweh thy Elohim, which He commanded thee: for now would Yahweh have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever [mamlachah over Yisroel ad olam].

Saul proved an unfaithful king. What that means will be discerned by those who understand the difference between faithfulness in its common acceptation and faithfulness towards God. A man is faithful in the common acceptation who performs what he undertakes as between man and man; but a man faithful to God is one who aims at carrying out the appointments of God for no other reason than that they are the appointments of God. Such a man has such an aim, because he discerns, and is deeply impressed with the fact, that all things belong to God, and that God only has the right to appoint what is to be done.

Because he so discerns, and because the wisdom and excellence of God are lovably manifest in him, he "delights in the law of God after the inward man," as Paul expresses it. "I delight to do thy will, O my God," as David has it. Such a man is faithful to God, because his first consideration is, "What is the will of God?

What is His appointment?" In this sense, Paul informs us that Christ was "faithful to him that appointed him" (Hebrews 3: 2). This also was the distinguishing excellence of Moses as a servant, as Yahweh Himself pointedly declared (Numbers 12: 7-8). More or less, it is the characteristic of every accepted son or daughter in every age. This, in fact, is the faithfulness of the faithful to be manifested and acknowledged in the day of account: a controlling susceptibility in reference to the divine will: an anxiety to know it; a zealous readiness to do it.

The Saul class are by no means distinguished in this way. They are governed by their own impressions and feelings as natural men. They are unsusceptible of solicitude towards God. They conceive of things, and do things merely as creatures possessing a certain power of observing facts and reasoning on them. They have no active sense of God's prerogative; no tender zeal for His will: no jealousy for His rights or regard for His name.

Nay, they have not even a practical sense of His existence. The things they see and the things they feel form the boundary line of their philosophy. They are insensible to the higher aspect of things as the embodiment of the Father's power for the Father's purposes. They are strictly creatures of sense-"common sense," as it is called-which is all very well for the regulation of matters that are to be discerned only by the ear and eye: but out of place when applied to things that we can only know by revelation, such as the will of God and the nature of duty.

Visible Hand of God Ch 23