The Worst Procedure

When the leadership turned corrupt, two Godly men, Jonathan and Ahimelech, stayed loyal and tried to do right at the same time. Both were destroyed. Two other Godly men, Samuel and David, deserted, and they survived. And then there was Doeg...

When King Saul sentenced Ahimelech and the other priests to death, Saul's soldiers refused his order to kill them. It was obvious that the priests were innocent of any plot to kill Saul. Doeg, knowing that the priests were innocent, obeyed Saul's order to murder them.

Doeg was what some Christian leaders want--on the outside. He obeyed orders blindly, ignoring the fact that they were wrong. But Doeg's "loyalty" didn't come from Godliness. Doeg had "set up" King Saul to murder the priests, and Doeg's loyalty was the result of evil, not good.

Don't ever show that kind of loyalty to a person. Get fired, get demoted, get slandered, get expelled, but don't ever show that kind of loyalty to a person.

Another Correct Procedure

David also found himself caught in the middle when King Saul turned corrupt. He had started out by driving an evil spirit away from Saul. Then he had killed Goliath. Then he had successfully led Saul's army. But as Saul looked at David's success, Saul didn't see a young man who was a blessing to him. He saw a rival for the throne.

Church politics is one of the ugliest parts of the Christian life, but you have to learn how to deal with it. When David was unfairly demoted, he behaved himself wisely, and he continued to be a blessing to Saul. When he finally had to leave, he allowed Jonathan to bring about reconciliations between himself and Saul.

But David eventually made a final decision: he left Saul for good. In doing so, David deserted an army that needed him. He lost his chance to be a good influence on Saul. For years, he was separated from his wife. And when David's best friend needed him the most, David wasn't there.

Did David do the right thing in leaving Saul? He continued to serve God in exile, but on a smaller scale than he had before. Eventually, though, God raised up David to be king  for forty years, defeating David's enemies on every side.

Many of those who stayed loyal to Saul were destroyed, but David, who separated from Saul, was successful. As painful as it is, when leadership turns corrupt, you need to leave.

The Correct Procedure

1Sa 16:1 ¶ Now the LORD said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons."

Realizing that Saul had become hopelessly corrupt, Samuel separated himself from Saul. But Samuel didn't go around fighting Saul. He didn't go around "warning people about Saul's sins," or "exposing the sins of King Saul." Samuel mourned for Saul; he didn't hate Saul, he loved him. Incidentally, I have personally observed that the people who leave a church because of sin in the leadership often love the pastor more than the "yes men" who tell him what he wants to hear.

It could be argued that Samuel should have stayed with Saul. Samuel could have been a good influence on him. That's the course that Jonathan took, and God did bless Jonathan. But Jonathan also got destroyed along with Saul.

After a while, God gave Samuel a newer and greater ministry: to make David king. Your Christian life will not collapse if you leave a church for the right reasons. If innocent people are hurt by your leaving, that is the leaders' fault, not yours. Your Christian success ultimately depends on God, not men. The fact that someone is angry at you for doing what is right does not obligate God to stop blessing you. God blessed Samuel after he left a bad leader, and God can do the same thing for you.

Not a Great Man, but a Good Man

When Israel rose up to fight off the Philistines, Ahimelech really didn't know what to do. He was helpless to stop King Saul from offering a disobedient sacrifice, but he stayed loyal. He stood faithfully on the side of King Saul, while Saul's army was deserting him. He remained faithful as David slew the giant, although he was unable to do anything himself. David would later say that Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, but if said that about Ahimelech, it is not recorded. Ahimelech was loyal enough to King Saul that he didn't want to help David, until David deceived him into believing that David was still serving Saul.

Later, under the influence of his evil servant Doeg, King Saul believed that Ahimelech was involved in a conspiracy to murder Saul. And so, King Saul, a leader gone corrupt, faced faithful Ahimelech the priest. He challenged Ahimelech for his lack of loyalty, because Ahimelech had helped David. 

1Sa 22:14 So Ahimelech answered the king and said, "And who among all your servants is as faithful as David, who is the king's son-in-law, who goes at your bidding, and is honorable in your house?

King Saul thought that he spotted disloyalty in Ahimelech when Ahimelech told Saul the truth. The truth was that David was Saul's most loyal servent, who had delivered Saul from the power of an evil spirit, who had delivered Saul from Goliath, and who had smote Saul's enemies everywhere he went. But because Ahimelech didn't tell Saul the lies that King Saul wanted to hear, Saul believed that Ahimelech was disloyal.

Ahimelech was destroyed, but he was destroyed while doing what was right: telling a corrupt leader the truth.

Loyal and Successful

When King Saul became jealous of David, Saul set out to murder him. Jonathan, the son of King Saul, found himself in a difficult situation. It was Jonathan who had delivered Israel from the Philistines before David came along to replace him. But Jonathan appreciated David's victory over Goliath, and recognizing that God was going to make David, not Jonathan, the next king, Jonathan helped David.

In the 1970's, a popular Christian seminar taught that authority is an umbrella of protection that God puts over Christians. But when the umbrella has holes in it, the Christians assigned to be under that umbrella have little that they can do. Thirty years later, I have seen that this is true. When Christian leadership goes bad, the followers are going to have problems.

Jonathan struggled to stay loyal to his father, King Saul. Neither a spineless "yes man" nor a rebel, Jonathan reasoned with Saul and sometimes succeeded in getting Saul and David temporarily reconciled. Eventually, Saul found out that Jonathan was lying, as Jonathan tried to be loyal to both Saul and David. Jonathan was pushed away from leadership, as Saul turned to less Godly "yes men" for help.

Still loyal, however, Jonathan was destroyed with King Saul in a battle with the Philistines. All that remained to Jonathan was his crippled son, who lost all his family's property. Later, after Jonathan was dead, King David (a picture of Christ the King) restored everything that Jonathan had lost, but that didn't change the fact that Jonathan had been destroyed.

When David Slays Ten Thousands

1Sa 18:7 So the women sang as they danced, and said: "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands."

 8 Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?"

 9 So Saul eyed David from that day forward.

One of the key failures for some Christians is not recognizing the principle being taught here: people blessed by God might face jealousy from the leader. David was totally loyal to King Saul, delivered Saul's kingdom from Saul's enemies, and was faithful in every assignment that Saul gave him. Common sense tells us that Saul should appreciate David.

But Saul also understood some spiritual principles. He knew that ultimately, it is God Who sets up kings, and he suspected that God was in the process of doing so. He would also fear a conspiracy by David to murder him, but one way or the other, Saul regarded David as a threat to Saul's power.

So, why didn't David's loyalty work? Why didn't David's good service persuade Saul to appreciate David? Because sin was a factor in Saul's life, and Saul misjudged David as having the same sin. David stayed loyal to Saul just the same, and God blessed him. But I want to show you what happened to some people who got caught in the middle.

Pr 18:13 ¶ He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him.

A common problem when I taught school involved students lying to their parents about why they got into trouble. Smart students quickly learned that if they could get to the parent first, they could get the parent into a rage against the teacher, the parent would complain to other parents, and then the parent had a hard time backing down when the teacher told what actually happened. Some parents would then refuse to back down and would launch telephone smear campaigns against the teacher. What the parents didn't know was this:

The students, especially their own child, regarded the parent as stupid.

If it got serious enough, the school board would look into the matter, and they would try to solve the problem graciously. But among themselves, the school board believed:

The parent was stupid.

Some parents prided themselves on how afraid the teachers were of them. They would have been less proud if they had known what the teachers thought about them when they discussed the situation among themselves:

The parent is stupid.

If you want to succeed in the Christian life, you will need to influence other Christians by your good example. You will need to have other Christians trust you to handle problems. You cannot do this if you make decisions without hearing the entire matter first, because if you do, other Christians will regard you as stupid.