When the good go bad

Superman

When it comes to superheroes none are better known than Superman.

Superman from the very beginning seemed too good to be true. His powers seemed to be limitless which was only strengthened when it went from the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound to the ability to fly.

And to top it all off was an almost too good to accept character. He never seemed tempted to to cut corners, compromise or any other internal struggle that would make for great plot lines in other super hero stories.

It was almost as if the creators of this story made him too perfect, too likeable. His only real interesting personal struggle was his love interest Louis Lane and the pain of lose of his home planet and family.

Which lead some fans to wonder what would happen if Superman with all his great power turned bad.

So in 2013 a video game was made to look at that possibility as well as comic book series released from 2013-2016.

It is called injustice and chronicles an “alternate reality” where Superman’s wife Louis Lane and child are killed by Batman’s arch enemy the Joker. The grief pushes Superman over the edge as he rapidly descends into tyranny declaring war on criminals by putting Metropolis city and Gotham into essentially marshal law with him as the only authority.

His descent into madness turn him from hero to villain as his grief renders any sympathy, moral responsibility or decency from his character. As people view him less as saviour and more as monster he view his attempt to help the people as slighted and essentially promises them chaos.

The worlds only hope? A billionaire who like to dress up like a bat puts together a team of superhero’s to oppose the tyranny of Superman and the band of hero’s who have sided with him, thinking they should have been doing more and were before showing too much restraint.

That’s the gist of it anyway, super fans of the Original Superman or fans of the Injustice series will both be less than impressed with my description of both, but the reason I bring it up is to ask a question...

Can a hero goes bad?

This is actually a pretty common theme in many comic book stories as our heroes have to walk that line between enforcing the law and breaking it, as vigilantism is in fact against the law they claim to uphold.

But what about our heroes? For those who have been following along we are in as series right now titled heroes of the bible.

We are looking at different heroes of the faith and learning from their stories about what it takes to be a hero of the faith.

Now we have already determined that what it takes ultimately is...

Faith

But each Hero of the faith can teach us so much so today I want to look at a hero of sorts by the name of Saul. King Saul to be more clear.

King Saul

The story today takes in over 7 chapters and so for time sake with your indulgence I want to give you, what I call a 30,000 foot description of the story. All that means is imagine we are flying overhead at 30,000 feet and I’m gonna touch down on just some of the highlights, and we will end by reading the last bit of the story. That said I would highly encourage you to read the whole story in one sitting from 1 Samual 9 to at least 15. Make it your devotions for the week it is an amazing story and like I said I’m just gonna be hitting the highlights.

So let’s take off the story of Saul starts as his rich father loses some donkeys and decides to send his son Saul and a servant to go find them.

They covered much ground but without any success Saul figures they should go home. His servant had another suggestion. Let’s go ask the seer, which is what they called the prophet Samuel, as his prophecies always came true.

After a short debate they go with this plan, oh I have skipped so much good story, please read this when you go home. Anyway turns out the missing donkeys were part of God’s plan for Saul to meet Samuel who was to anoint Saul as the very first king of Israel.

Turns out God’s people were no longer happy with their current leadership style and wanted to be more like the nations around them and have a king. Even though this was not God’s plan He did decide to grant them this request.

Interestingly enough the word in verse 9:16 which we translate leader or ruler is actually prince showing that God had no intention of no longer being the King of his people but would allow them to have a human leader.

Now let’s regain some altitude before I land this thing mid story. After a very special meeting with Samuel and being honoured without knowing why Saul Spent the night there.

In the morning the servant was sent on ahead as Samuel explained God’s plan to Saul. He also gave him signs that would confirm what Samuel said to Saul was true. They all came to pass.

Long story made slightly less long Saul was publicly declared King with many early adopters and a few hold outs who couldn’t see it. Ok so that’s 2 chapters of the story. Are y’all still with me.

Meanwhile on the other side of the Jordan the King of the Ammonites was making trouble. for the Israelites who had settled on the other side of the Jordan. To this point they were not getting any help from the tribes across the river and so King Nahash seemed unstoppable in his atrocities.

His method of humiliation was plucking the right eye of everyone he conquered preventing them from ever being effective in battle again. Only 7000 men had escaped and were finding refuge in a neighbouring community. Nahash found them.

Word get’s back to Saul. The spirit of the Lord comes upon him and in a show of power rallies troops from every tribe and frees God’s people from the atrocities of the Ammonites.

This Solidifies Sauls kingship and despite promptings from others Saul refuses to put to death those who doubted he could lead the Israelites to freedom.

So far so good. Now with full acceptance Samuel resigns as the one who was leading God’s people by God’s direct guidance, however makes known their request was sinful and they should be ashamed and also that he would never stop praying for them and would still serve as a voice for God.

So Saul Goes to work putting together a professional army in three divisions. 2 he would lead and 1 his son Jonathan would lead.

God gives an early victory to Jonathan against the Philistines which causes them to put together a great show of strength of their own in numbers. This scares the professional army of Saul and they start to hide and scatter.

Saul however was under instruction to wait for Samuel to come and make sacrifices before he engaged. Saul waited the seven days he was instructed by When Samuel still hadn’t showed Saul took matters into his own hands. He did the sacrifices himself and just as he finished who showed up? Samuel. This was the first of Saul’s bad choices.

However He was still God’s anointed and God gave him success, but even amid the success Saul kept making foolish mistakes and bad choices, and by foolish I do not mean silly but making not well thought out oaths and rash statements that only undermined his authority in front of the troops and caused self doubt to plague him.

This brings us to Chapter 15 so that was 6 chapters .

Chapter 15 starts with God giving Saul explicit instructions in righting an old wrong. He is told to destroy the entire nation of Amalek, keeping nothing destroying everyone and everything.

Instead Saul Captured the king Agag and allowed the Soldiers to collect the choicest animals. So God send Samuel to Saul again.

Now lets read

1 Samuel 15:16–23 NLT

Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Listen to what the Lord told me last night!” “What did he tell you?” Saul asked. And Samuel told him, “Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord has anointed you king of Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ Why haven’t you obeyed the Lord? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord’s sight?” “But I did obey the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but I destroyed everyone else. Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”

1 Samuel 15:16-

1 Samuel 15:10–23 NLT

Then the Lord said to Samuel, “I am sorry that I ever made Saul king, for he has not been loyal to me and has refused to obey my command.” Samuel was so deeply moved when he heard this that he cried out to the Lord all night. Early the next morning Samuel went to find Saul. Someone told him, “Saul went to the town of Carmel to set up a monument to himself; then he went on to Gilgal.” When Samuel finally found him, Saul greeted him cheerfully. “May the Lord bless you,” he said. “I have carried out the Lord’s command!” “Then what is all the bleating of sheep and goats and the lowing of cattle I hear?” Samuel demanded. “It’s true that the army spared the best of the sheep, goats, and cattle,” Saul admitted. “But they are going to sacrifice them to the Lord your God. We have destroyed everything else.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! Listen to what the Lord told me last night!” “What did he tell you?” Saul asked. And Samuel told him, “Although you may think little of yourself, are you not the leader of the tribes of Israel? The Lord has anointed you king of Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and told you, ‘Go and completely destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are all dead.’ Why haven’t you obeyed the Lord? Why did you rush for the plunder and do what was evil in the Lord’s sight?” “But I did obey the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but I destroyed everyone else. Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, goats, cattle, and plunder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” But Samuel replied, “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.”

What I hope you just witnessed there was a highly abridged view of a man made king and his decent into deliberate disobedience of God.

So now I want to go back to that question from earlier.

Can a hero go bad?

Well the story of Saul answers that easy enough.

Yes!

But for those of us who want to join that list of heroes of the faith found in perhaps a better question is...

How can we keep from going bad?

Integrity

Me: I first learned about integrity when I stole a wrench from Buckinghams is Florenceville. I was not very old I want to say 3 or 4 perhaps my mother remembers better. Anyway we were at Buckinghams and I was in the toy department. I found this amazing green plastic wrench and I knew I had to have it. So I did what any child would do. I begged with no avail. So if you think about it, it is really my mothers fault. I mean I already told you I had to have it, what else could I do?

I don’t think we were even all the way to my grandparents in Bristol when my mother saw me playing with my new toy.

Then came the question… Where did you get that? Like she didn’t know! So I told her from the store. I wasn’t gonna lie I had more integrity than that. After a talk about right and wrong and doing what is right even when it is hard I returned the item with a apology, and a lesson on integrity.

We: We all know the difference between right and wrong, it is engrained inside us. Even in areas that don’t seem so black and white God has given us His word. Integrity is about doing what is right even when it is hard.

God: This was Saul’s downfall, and eventual decline into madness. Saul’s problem didn’t start when he decided to right out disobey God in Chapter 15.

His problem started with a series compromises the first occurring in chapter 13 when Saul’s impatience, insecurities and anxieties caused him to stop waiting for the Prophet to come and and offer proper sacrifices and instead do something that would create a pattern for Saul. He took matters into his own hands.

From there it was not necessarily right and wrong but rather unwise choices because he would act or speak without first seeking God the very one who anointed Him as King. And each time it only made his impatience, insecurities and anxieties worse.

This brought him to the point where he was faced with a choice. God had told him to destroy the Amalekites and everything they owned, but the soldiers didn’t want to destroy all the good spoils. After all shouldn’t they be paid for putting their lives on the line.

So Saul was in a tough spot pease God or please the men who served him. Because Saul already felt the mens affection may be weaning and his own insecurities coupled with anxieties Saul choose to disobey God, (a God who he no longer really felt connected to. look at v. 21) in favour of giving the men what they wanted.

From here Saul’s story only gets worse. From here we find Saul hiding from the Philistines, struggling to hang onto power and ultimately hunting down and trying to kill the new/next King of Israel. All because when it was hard to do what was right Saul lacked integrity.

You: So what about you. When it is hard will you choose to do what is right?

We: Without integrity it is only a matter of time when we allow the small compromises and unwise decisions lead us to outright disobedience, but with integrity we wait even when it is hard, we hold our tongue and try and make wise chooses instead of knee jerk statements, and most importantly we choose to do it God’s way no matter how hard it might be for us and what we might have to face.

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