Our passage today, which is the first chapter of the Book of Second Samuel, is one of the most interesting and revealing passages of the Bible with regard to leadership. David displays a marvellous leadership trait here, something that every leader must have. Otherwise, they are not worthy of that name. Now, many are in leadership positions who are not leaders intrinsically. In Christian parlance, we will say they don’t have a call on their lives to lead.
Leaders are a great blessing either to the church or out there in the world. Leaders are called by God and trained by Him. He will often train them on the job. Without a call, there is nothing to train. And nothing can be more injurious to any organisation than to have someone superintendent over it who has no gift or call to lead it. It is just as injurious to the leader as it is harmful to the group itself.
In our passage, David manifests the trait of a great leader called discernment. This is a divine ability to read beyond the surface, between the lines or beyond what is obvious. A leader hears what others can not hear. A good leader can usually tell when he or she is lied to, or someone is telling a half truth.
Here David discerns the young Amalek who brings him the news of the death of King Saul and his son, Jonathan. An ordinary person would swallow the story of the young man, hook, line and sinker. This was a dangerous liar because most of the things he said were true. Saul and Jonathan were indeed dead. The armour and headset of Saul that he brought were identical to Saul’s. David would know if they weren’t because David had once been King Saul’s armour bearer! The Amalek must have been on the frontline of the battle somehow. When we compare his account to that of actual events on Mount Gilboa recorded in the closing chapter of First Samuel, we will see that they are similar.
And the Amalek was careful not to assume that David would rejoice to hear of the death of his tormentor. He came in rent or torn clothes and a mournful countenance to deliver his message. David read his intent, which was to gain his favour and possibly be admitted into his inner circle. I also want us to note that it took David the whole day to fully grasp the situation. He might have had his suspicion from the beginning but waited all day to confirm his hunches.
But how exactly did David see or read the young fellow? First and foremost, he was from a rogue country. This neon sign could not be ignored! However it is important to say that there were good Amalekites! You would find good people everywhere. There was a good Samaritan! And there are bad people kicking around, all over the place! There were evil priests and Levites on the road to Damascus! God would sometimes connect you with a wonderful spirit even in the midst of a fallen nation!
David also saw perhaps immediately that the fellow had no fixed address and no fixed convictions! You must beware of someone who is on everyone’s side without a fixed opinion. This man was in the midst of a battle, but was not on any particular side! He was a loafer. He claimed to have “happened by chance on Mount Gilboa”! How was it that he was at a battlefield by chance! He was where the fight was hottest without being involved! Many in the churches are like this. They are there but are not involved. They snake their way into leadership where there is a lust for membership. Organisations that are in essence vessels sailing to hell, in which anything goes. When the ministry is enduring its worst attack, they are there without bruises. Like the Amalek, they can not be wounded because they are neutral! Or so it would seem. A self-serving narcissist is actually an agent of the devil.