Satan’s strategy (8)
“And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David.” (1 Samuel 18:9)
The Bible speaks of two types of jealousy. One is the jealousy of God and the other is the jealousy of Satan. God's jealousy is good because He loves people and hates sin at the same time. But Satan's jealousy is evil because he loves sin and hates people (Pusey, Park). A good example of God's jealousy is Phinehas in Numbers 25. When the whole assembly of Israel were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting because of the wrath of God came upon the people of Israel, Phinehas saw an Israelite man named Zimri brought to his family a Midianite woman named Cozbi right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel. So he took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent and pierced Zimri and Cozbi's belly and killed both of them (Num. 25:7-8). As a result, the plague against the Israelites was stopped (v. 8). In the end, Phinehas had turned away God’s wrath from the sons of Israel in that he was jealous with God’s jealousy, so that God didn’t destroy the sons of Israel in His jealousy (v. 11). A good example of Satan's jealousy is King Saul in 1 Samuel 18:9. King Saul looked at David with jealousy eyes. And Saul's eyes of jealousy were the eyes of murderous jealousy that even tried to kill David.
Saul wasn’t jealous of David from the beginning. Saul had disobeyed God’s commands (15:11, 18-19) and was already rejected by God (vv. 23, 26; 16:1). So the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him, and instead an evil spirit from the Lord was tormenting him (vv. 14, 15). And David had already been anointed by Samuel at God's command (v. 12), and he was greatly moved by the Spirit of God (v. 13). At that time, Saul needed a man who could play the harp when the evil spirit from the Lord came upon him (v. 16). And one of Saul's servants recommended David, who knew how to play the harp, was a brave man and a warrior, and spoke well and was a fine-looking man (v. 18). So Saul sent men to Jesse, David's father, to send his son David to him (v. 19). When David came to Saul, the moment Saul saw David, he liked him very much, and David became one of Saul’s armor-bearers (v. 21). But the reason why Saul, who liked David very much, began to look at David with jealous eyes was because after David went out against the Philistine giant Goliath (17:23) in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel (17:45), with a sling and a stone, without a sword in his hand and killed the Philistine giant Goliath (v. 50) and when he and King Saul were returning, the women from all the towns of Israel came out and celebrated the victory by singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes and sang, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands” (18:6-8). When Saul heard this, he was very angry and said, “They have credited David with tens of thousands, … but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?” (vv. 8-9) And the very next day, Saul, who was strongly possessed by an evil spirit, tried twice to kill David, who was playing the harp to calm him down, as usual. But David escaped from Saul's spear twice and fled (vv. 10-11). Then one day, Saul said that he would give David his older daughter Merab as his wife when David serve him bravely and fight the battles of the Lord with the Philistines. The reason Saul said this was because he wanted to put David to death at the hands of the Philistines instead of raising his own hand against David (v. 17). But there was a setback in that plan (v. 19). So when Saul heard that his daughter Michal loved David, he was delighted and thought that he had another chance to kill David. So he tried to use his daughter Michal to trap David and put him to death at the hands of the Philistines (vv. 20-21). So Saul told David through his servants that he didn't want anything but 100 Philistine foreskins to avenge his enemies. The reason he said so was because Saul had a plan to put David to death at the hands of the Philistines (v. 25). Saul's jealousy toward David was a murderous jealousy that even tried to kill David.
Even now, Satan is twisting our love relationship into a relationship that makes us not only to hate each other, but also try to kill each other. The weapon Satan uses at that time is “jealousy.” That jealousy is a sinful jealousy, a murderous jealousy, and also Satan's jealousy. Satan stimulates and incites us to keep comparing us with others in our minds and to make us feel superior to others in that sense of comparison. But at the same time, Satan not only makes us not feel superior, but also makes us jealous by making the other person more praised, recognized, and exalted than we do. In particular, Satan fuels the jealousy of our hearts by making us maximize what others have as well as what we don't have. Therefore, Satan is making us maximize our hateful feelings against the person who has more than us, and also makes us express those hateful feelings through actions. What should we do? How can we fight and overcome this satanic strategy without falling for it? Like Phinehas, we must be jealous with God's jealousy (Num. 25:11). To do this, we must know that our God is “a jealous God” (Exod. 20:5; 34:14). In doing so, we must be jealous of God's jealousy and hate idolatry (v. 3) and all sins that God hates (Ps. 5:4). In particular, we must hate pride, arrogance, evil behavior, and perverse speech, which God hates (Prov. 8:13; 16:5). We must guard ourselves against the proud heart that strives to elevate ourselves, that is obsessed with the idea of being superior to others, the jealous heart that cannot endure when others are praised and recognized more than others, and the jealous heart when others receive more praise and recognition than others. We must guard our heart, which is the wellspring of life (4:23). May the Lord, who neither slumber nor sleeps, protect us (Ps. 121).