1 Samuel 10:26-27 And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched.… It is interesting to observe that, although the people were so bent on having a king, they still were willing to have God decide who their king should be. They had not "waited patiently for the Lord," content with the administration of their national affairs which He had instituted until He should see fit to order a change; yet they did not wish to break wholly away from His control. They desired their king to be chosen by Him and kept under His guidance. They did not dare take their new departure without the counsel and benediction of Samuel, "the man of God." As a people, although faulty, they were still the sincere people of God, adhering still to the purpose which an earlier generation avowed to Joshua. "We will serve Jehovah," although so far from perfection of fidelity in that service. From that inauguration scene "Saul went home to Gibeah" — went, no doubt, to serious and earnest thought and deliberation — and (how beautifully it is added!) "there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." There is infinite poetry in that expression, in that thought — God touching a man, the invisible, spiritual God touching the hearts of men. The contact of material bodies, which that word primarily signifies, is a very simple and a very familiar fact. But in living bodies it suggests much more than that primary fact. It is connected with vivid sensation. To touch is to feel — to be touched is to be made to feel. And then with what facility do our minds pass from feeling as bodily sensation to feeling as mental emotion! The effect of a blow upon our flesh is expressed by the same word as the effect of a sorrow or a disappointment upon our souls; we feel it, it touches us. We. are in no danger of misunderstanding the word touch when applied to God. When the afflicted patriarch of Uz exclaims, "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends, for the hand of God hath touched me" (Job 19:21), no one gets the idea of bodily form or members as belonging to God — members which could be brought into contact with the bodies of men. It is only a vivid mode of expressing Job's devout belief that all which he suffered was sent on him by God. "He toucheth the hills and they smoke" (Psalm 104:82), is the Psalmist's poetic utterance of his sentiment that the sublimest volcanic phenomena are easy products of almighty Divine agency. It is the parallel, in thought as in form, of the other phrase, "He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth." When we read of our divine-human High Priest that He can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15), we readily understand Him to be capable of quick sympathy, feeling with us whatever painfully affects us. There were some disloyal, some "sons of Belial" — wild, reckless, unprincipled men — who did not hesitate to manifest their contempt for the new monarch. Over against these in the Scripture picture we see "a band of men whose hearts God had touched," whose behaviour showed that they were acting under a Divine influence — that their minds were decisively affected by Divine power. What was the behaviour which showed this? It is very simply related in the context. They "went with him." Were you ever in circumstances in which simply to go with you was the kindest, and the bravest thing that any friend could do for you, including and pledging every other kind and generous and courageous thing which there might yet be occasion to do? Did you ever stand among an angry crowd tossing your name about with ribald scoffs and glaring on you with ferocious faces? Have you known the comfort in such a situation of having honourable citizens and reputable ladies come quietly to your side and show themselves determined to stand with you, and to take with you whatever insults or whatever injuries might come? How came they to have this generous disposition and this loyal spirit? They were "a band of men whose hearts God had touched." Does this dependence on God for such good influence remove from men all responsibility for the state of their minds? To affirm this or to think this would imply an utter misapprehension of the character of that Divine influence and its relations to human activity, human responsibility and human character. The influence which He exerted in touching their hearts to make them feel and act rightly cannot have been inconsistent with such righteous exercise of His judgment upon their conduct, and upon the state of mind which their conduct made manifest. The relation of Divine influence upon men to men's voluntary action, and to their character, and to God's just judgment of them, is one of the most difficult problems of theology. The different attempted solutions of it have had much to do with the classifications of theologians under the names of great theological leaders, as of Calvin and Arminius, or into parties, as Old School and New School, for example. How human character can be determined by Divine influence, and still be character, retaining all the elements of responsibility, no one has yet so explained as to satisfy all other equally candid and clear-minded persons. For myself, I propose to be content without such explanation until, by God's mercy, I may stand on a higher point of view, and may look with a more clarified vision than I expect to have in this world. We can never justify or excuse our wrong conduct or our disobedient or unlovely or unholy dispositions by ascribing them to God's withholding from us the influence which would have begotten right dispositions. The "sons of Belial" who scoffed at Saul and turned away contemptuously from him were wicked men in so doing. Saul could not help blaming them; you cannot; God cannot. Are any of you painfully sensible of failure to be and to do what God reasonably demands of you? It certainly is not best for you simply to lash yourselves up to frantic endeavour or hasty resolution to do better. You will not do better without an influence from God moving and helping you thereto. Seek that influence in simple, frequent, persistent prayer. Every influence of which any of you are conscious, impelling you in any direction which you know to be right, to any service of usefulness which you honestly regard as work for God, — be assured that that influence is Divine. That is God touching your heart. Turn not away. (H. A. Nelson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched. |
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