In few but telling, words Samuel reminded Saul of the Lord's dealings with him in the past and of his flagrant disobedience to His word. It was no mere expression of his own opinion: “I will tell thee what the Lord said to me this night” (1 Sam. 15:16). When Saul was little in his own sight, God made him head over the tribes of Israel. There was indeed a day when Saul spoke of himself as belonging to the smallest of Israel's tribes and to the least of the families in that tribe (1 Sam. 9:21), but that day was a long way in the background as far as his feelings were concerned. He was now, in his own esteem, a great military commander, able to call more than 200,000 men to his standard. He had become one of the notables of the earth, a man to be feared. Uzziah fell into the same snare, after some remarkable victories. “When he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (2 Chron. 26:16). With Paul, on the contrary, the sense of his own insignificance and unworthiness grew upon him as the years passed. “I am less than the least of all saints,” said he to the Ephesians (Eph. 3:8); “chief of sinners,” he said to his son Timothy (1 Tim. 1:15). At a certain point in his history he abandoned the name of Saul, preferring henceforward to be known as Paul, which means “little.”
Brethren, while we keep small, God has some use for us, but if, perchance, we become swollen with a sense of our own ability and importance, or even get occupied with our divinely granted gifts, we shall assuredly be passed by when the Spirit is in search of an instrument for His work. He has come from heaven to magnify Christ, not men. The lesson of the little child was set before the disciples by the Lord in Matthew 18:1-4. Have we learned it? Let us examine ourselves and see.