The Trouble God Gives

1 Samuel 16:14 (ESV) Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the LORD tormented him.

1 Samuel has a lot of passages that could trouble theologians. This is one of them. How can the Lord Who is good send a harmful spirit to torment Saul? 

The spirit so troubled Saul that his court noticed its effects:

1 Samuel 16:15 (ESV) And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you.

Now some have chosen to believe that the Old Testament writers tended to see everything in the world as directly from God since God created all things at the beginning of the Biblical account. So what we would have here is the way those who saw it happening would have perceived this spirit. But such a view requires serious leaps of Biblical interpretation. Not to mention the scripture's own claim of authority (2 Timothy 3:16-17). If this passage is "God-breathed" then why the erred human perspective on what happens here?

No there's a far more important truth to be learned here.

What we must remember first is that the Spirit departed from Saul after his greed based disobedience to spare the best of the flocks during the Amalekite war. And before 1 Samuel 16:14 tells us about the harmful spirit from the Lord, it says, "Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul." The Holy Spirit left Saul and a troubling spirit came to him. 

The text is clearly showing us the effects of turning away from the goodness of God. Saul ran after greed and notoriety. He was obsessed with his position, status and image. For his disobedience in serving himself instead of God's purposes, the Lord departed. And if the Lord is the author of all that is good and beneficial it stands to reason this simple fact: When people reject the Lord, there is nothing to receive other than evil from Him.

Picture it this way. An automobile can be an effective tool at carrying your body from one place to another at rapid speeds. But if you disregard the speed of a car from the outside and stand in front of it as it hurls over you, there's only one effect left for the car to bring upon your body. It is not that the car is no longer a good car, it is your response and treatment of the car, your behavior towards it that causes harm. 

So too, God is good, and all good comes from Him. But to reject Him and seek our glory and honor instead of His is like standing in front of a speeding Lamborghini. It's not going to end well for you and it is certainly not a black mark on the value of the car. It's your foolish behavior around it that leaves you with black marks all over your body. 

What we have here is a small picture of hell. People are troubled by the idea of hell, but when men reject a God who is so good He is willing to give up His Son for their salvation, where else is there to go? Nowhere good! Just as cold is not the presence of cold but rather the absence of heat, Hell is not the presence of evil as much as it is the absence of God. 

YET what are we ultimately shown in this passage? That God can leverage people's rejection of Him for His ultimate goal of salvation. For in the following passages we see that this trouble from the Lord is actually opening the door to David's arrival in the court.

1 Samuel 16:18 (ESV) Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.”

The cross stands as testimony to God's continued willingness to leverage the rejection of man for His ultimate purpose to save. Jesus went through hell on the cross so that we would see heaven.