The demand for an unfaithful king
During his reign as king over Israel, Saul committed many sins; in his overconfidence, he made a sacrifice he was not in a position to, spared the Amalakite king and went against God doing so, committed murder, and consulted a medium in his helplessness instead of turning to God (1 Chronicles 10).
However, Saul was not always like this. This was in contrast to his display of humility when he was first chosen as king --- feeling unworthy of being spoken to nicely by Samuel, being lowly (1 Samuel 9:21, 10:22). What eventually made him fail as God’s chosen king was his self-assured confidence, pride, and unfaithfulness to God.
Blindness because of pride
The Spirit of God was initially with Saul, enabling him to prophesy and carry out God’s work. Very quickly, however, Saul began to rely more on his own judgment than on God's guidance, allowing his wisdom to take precedence over obedience to God. In our own forms of church work today, we might also start off thinking we are unworthy of service, which makes us more sensitive to what God wants us to do. However, when we become more familiar with a particular work and grow more proficient in it, will the time we allocate to pray about the work last shorter than before? When a task becomes more like second nature to us through experience, will we still pray about such matters? Do we care if they are still done in a manner acceptable to God?
The pride in Saul remained in him until the day he died. Though his encounters with Samuel and David were there as opportunities for him to realise his mistakes and repent, his regretful moments were superficial and temporary. Eventually, Saul’s reign ended with him being overwhelmed by the Philistines, where even then his pride prevailed. Rather than face capture and humiliation at the hands of the Philistines, he fell upon his own sword.
While God has always been merciful to people who have sinned in the bible, until what extent will He then become our enemy?
