Who is King?
Study Scripture 1Samuel 8 4-7; 10:17-24
Background Scripture Deut 17:14-20
Lesson 8 October 22, 2022
Key Verse
But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your catastrophes and your distresses: yet you have said, “No, but put a king over us! “ Now then, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your groups of thousands”.
1 Samuel 10:19
INTRODUCTION
Our Lesson Study is set in a time of divisive political climate in ancient Israel. There is therefore a demand that because the system seems to be broken people are demanding that things have got to change. Today similarly there is no real agreement on what needs to change, how to change it, or even who is going to bring about the change.
The clear issue that confronts the people of Israel however is who should bring about the change? IHs even the clearly recognized authority and leader the one who is to bring about the change that is being demanded?
We in this Study are forced to consider that if we are people of God, and if the Lord Jesus Christ is living His life through us, and if we are led by the Holy Spirit, and if we are bought with a price, should we in our own strength and by our own initiative expect to bring about change, even if it appears to us that the system is broken?
In addition, can we go by what our sight tells us? Are we so sure that the system that does not appear to have planned for good government and leadership is to be changed?
Here we therefore come face-to-face with the government of God and the issue that that raises. What kind of discernment, or analytic skills, or knowledge of the future, do we have so that we can demand change?
And if we think that we are capable of demanding change, what is the basis for this change? Is this change in leadership something that God wants? Are there practical principles in this matter of leadership which must be examined?
It is popular nowadays for people to broadcast and tell you that we and they are kings and queens and that we and they deserve these elevated positions and titles. But the question we should examine what leadership is and what it entails. And in addition to this we should ask , Who is King? Is there one king or many kings? As the popular saying goes, How many bulls or otherwise powerful animals can there be in one pen?.
What do these titles of royalty really mean? Is it good to want to be a ruler knowing what ruling implies, or is a person of God to be a servant?
We must however bear in mind that all of us are called to leadership in some form or fashion for all of us are called on to have a good and godly influence on the people that are around us for God placed them there so that we could interact with them positively.
But the question that we have to look at is how do we get into positions of publicly recognized leadership in one form or other and how we should rise to leadership in a way that is biblically mandated and balanced, spiritually healthy, and of course pleasing to God.
We are sometimes told that there are three or more main leadership principles that we can learn today from our Study and they are as follows:
• Begin with the Holy Spirit. Ensure that the Holy Spirit changes your heart and the heart of the prospective leader for we remember what we were like with stubborn hearts of stone, defiant and disobedient to God before we came to Christ and are washed clean.
Next, make sure that the Holy Spirit brings changes so that the singular fruit of the Spirit recorded in Galatians 5, the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control will begin to appear and multiply so that the person that is called to any kind of leadership becomes a new person and people will notice the difference brought by the Holy Spirit.
Then we have to wait for God’s timing. The danger is we are often in a rush but God never is in a rush and so we have to wait on Him.
Note however that patience is an extremely difficult virtue to inculcate. Having patience is one sign that you are well on the way to spiritual maturity. So the warning is that if God is telling you that you are to move in a direction it is generally not too wise to be in such a rush that you rush to share your calling with others. The idea is to let God do His work first so that the nature of your calling will unfold.
And of course next we know that we have to trust God to open the right doors for us for then we will be instructed in the ways of humility so that God will lift us up.
The burning question that we will look at when we want change is, Do we want to be like everyone else? Do we want to follow the example and pattern established by those outside of God? Do we want God to make the choice and the changes we desire? Do we really want to obey His rules for life and living?
The Scriptures in 1 Samuel 5 and 6 tell us in plain language of the 20 silent years when the Ark of God was taken by the Philistines when the moral condition of Israel and the sins of Eli the prophet and his family were clear. The people indulged in idolatry and they worshiped at the high places and paid reverence to their graven images. The priests and the people were wicked alike. Shiloh had lost the prestige among the tribes which it had enjoyed from the days of Joshua and it became a memorial of the nation’s sin at the time. It was so serious that the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 7, 500 years afterwards warned Israel that because of the wickedness of the people God would cast them out of His sight as He had done with Shiloh.
The Lord God had miraculously raised up Moses to lead the people out of bondage in Egypt. Then after the death of Moses God had appointed Joshua to lead the people. Then after this the people of the nation had gone through cycles of gross disobedience and idolatry, oppression by neighbors who were pagan tribes, then crying to God for deliverance, with God responding by raising up judges or military leaders that saved the day. But when these judges died the nation went right back into idolatry and the cycle started all over again.
Now we should not think that God did not know what was going to happen to His people. Do not fool yourself to think that God does not know what you will do and what you are doing. We read in Deuteronomy 17 that God had made provision for the leadership of the people for God knew that the time of the Judges would not last forever. So we read in Deuteronomy 17: 14-20 the clear warning of the great leader and prophet Moses:
“ When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say,’ I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me’, you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.
One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.
Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You shall never return that way again”.
And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away,
nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of the law, approved by the Levitical priests.
And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel”.
That part of the Text of course establishes for Israel Who is King. When they do have an earthly king he will be in fact a vice- regent, operating under the direction and command of the Lord God Almighty.
So if you think that you are a king or queen just remember that this Text is telling you that your responsibility has been established by God and you are expected to be under the control at all times of the Holy Spirit, not showing any pride, but living in humility, and being a servant for the people, not enriching yourself or lording it over others.
After the disastrous period of the Judges God rose up supernaturally Samuel and he corrected the occurrence of the haphazard state of affairs in which the cycle of disobedience and falling into evil, oppression by the surrounding pagans, loud crying and repentance to God, and the raising up of charismatic judges to lead the people generally in the battle for freedom from their enemies.
In chapter 7 we were told that Samuel served as a Judge over Israel all the days of his life. Normally a judge was a leader that God raised up to meet the needs of the people in a time of crisis and when the crisis was over and deliverance had come the judge went back to what he was doing before. But Samuel was a ruler that governed and as well led the people in battle militarily for he had a national mandate ruling over all the regions of the nation. See chapter 3:20; for:1; and 7:3. When the Philistines attacked the people and leaders of Israel came to Samuel and asked him to ask God for help and when Samuel asked God for help, Yahweh answered him as recorded in 7:9, thundering with power and confused the Philistines and struck them down before Israel. Israel therefore again took control of all the cities that the Philistines had taken from them and there was peace between Israel and the surrounding nations.
Chapter 7 tells us “Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.
He went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, and George Israel in all those places.
But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there. There he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord. ‘
One writer therefore comments: “Chapter 7, then, demonstrates that the people of Israel are in good hands with the Lord and a faithful judge. No king is needed.
But “we are more apt to leave God’s ways during times of well-being than in times of need. Prosperity seems to be a more fertile breeding ground for discontent and sin than does poverty”.
(Peterson, 55).
It is very important for us to look at our present life and compare it to the life in Israel and what was happening at the time. Everybody in ancient Israel knew that the nations around them had kings. So in a sense it was not unusual for Israel to want a king especially if there was internal turmoil among the tribes. Not unexpectedly we are told that when Samuel was growing old and he had before appointed his sons as judges his sons did not behave the way that he did and so the elders of the people were upset. We do not of course know if all the elders in Israel were involved but certainly the Scriptures indicate to us that during the rule of Samuel there was some trepidation on the part of the elders in different communities when Samuel would visit them.
Samuel had apparently appointed his sons as judges sending them to Beersheba which was in the South and practically in the wilderness in the Negeb and so we know that they really were not a part of the central government though they were proving themselves to be unrighteous judges. Their behavior would probably make some in the nation afraid that when Samuel had died and his sons were judges over Israel they would be facing a lot of trouble. It is clear that the sons had not followed Samuel’s example of faithful leadership. The question was posed as to whether Samuel’s age and likely declining strength (and we and Israel would remember that God kept Moses to a ripe old age and he still retained his vigor up until the time of his death) and the unacceptable behavior of his sons was good reason for what comes next.
Note that we are not told that Samuel was so old that he did not have several or many years of faithful service to the nation ahead of him. So just maybe there was a little bit more to what the elders of the people did in their request.
Were the elders representative of the elite segment of the tribal society which thought they would benefit more under a monarchy than under the kind of structure that God had set up with Samuel?
Did they think that having a king would open the possibility of significant personal gain with both power and resources for them?
Would they have been totally ignorant of the unrighteous, dictatorial and quite venal and despotic behavior of the kings of the pagan nations that were around them?
What kind of leadership did the elders want? Why did they not think that they were to be different from the other nations?
Is it possible that a system developed and used by pagan nations such as their system of monarchy would be a more reliable system of governance that would give more equitable treatment of the citizens than the one established by God?
How could the elders believe that the thought of having Samuel’s greedy and corrupt sons be worst rulers than they saw in the pagan kings around them?
Did God not act to save them from the oppression brought by the sundry pagan kings? Did they not think that God would deal with these sons as He had dealt with Aaron’s sacrilegious sons and Eli’s corrupt and sexually immoral sons?
Would the king to be crowned turn out to be a false king?
Would God now present us with a case of someone who had been chosen and anointed king of Israel who to all appearances was a believer but who, eventually turned out to be so disobedient to God that God did not answer him when he prayed?
Is it possible that we would now be presented with someone that despite this great elevation was eventually rejected by God, having lost his position as King and came to a tragic death pointing us to the dangers of apostasy?
We will have much to consider as the argument rages as to whether it is possible to go into apostasy or fall away.
THE TEXT
Verse 4. The tribes of Israel had in fact formed a Confederation and Samuel had been the first of the judges to rule and exercise authority over all the tribes in this fledgling state of Israel. At this time it was very different from a central administration which would bring the problems that arise from that kind of system. Samuel is now an old man and his rule had brought years of peace and relative prosperity. The Ark of the Covenant was now back in Israel and God had blessed them in good measure and He had been faithful to His covenant.
All the elders of Israel were local leaders, men who because of their age and good reputation would be representing the opinion of the elite and probably the people. They presented a united front to Samuel who was the undisputed leader for they were concerned about leadership succession. Their idea was that Samuel’s sons were unfit for leadership and to take over Samuel’s rule.
They were of course ignoring the fact that Israel was a theocracy which meant it was a nation governed by God. God had set up that system so that the temptation of leaders to usurp the authority of God and demand allegiance and devotion from the citizens, placing all their hopes and dreams and aspirations on a mere man would be avoided.
We recall that the very successful judge named Gideon who was so loved by the people that they asked Gideon to appoint his sons and future grandson as a judge. But Gideon told them “No, the Lord will be a judge over you “. (Judges 8:23).
Gideon clearly knew the dangers involved in an hereditary judgeship and the elders and leaders must’ve known that the only hereditary position in Israel was the priesthood for the priests were to be sons of Aaron.
Remember also that it was Samuel that had likely appointed these elders and had brought them into unity and so it is rather strange that they were not prepared to trust Samuel’s judgment for they must have known that Samuel had no intention of making his sons take over his position given the fact that Samuel always respected God’s instructions and always did what God wanted.
They should’ve known that it was not likely that Samuel would appoint his rascal sons that he had sent to work in the far north in Beersheba to be recalled to rule over Israel.
We now therefore see once again the failure of the elders of Israel.
The warning to us in the matter of appointing leaders is now crystal clear. Of course, we know that churches rarely follow the instructions of God when it comes to appointing deacons and elders and people in other positions. We tend to appoint who are attractive people and who we like for we have the tendency to forget that the flesh cannot please God and we are not interested in allowing God to be God in us.
The elders made it clear to Samuel that they wanted a king just like the other nations.
Now what is that? Is that not worldliness? Were they not looking at the nations around them and conclude that if they were going to be successful they must be like them? Is that not astonishing?
Do we live by that same principle day after day after day despite our claim that we have the indwelling Holy Spirit
So what is behind all of this? They did not want to be different. They forgot that they were called on to be Holy and that means “to be set apart”. So ask yourself, Are you different from the world and the people around you? What is your agenda and what is your lifestyle? What flag are you following?
Now it must be noted that these elders knew the Scriptures and they knew what was instructed to them in Deuteronomy 17: 14-20. But they did not mention the provisions in those Scriptures when they spoke to Samuel about a king for they knew that the same passage which indicated that God knew that the time would come when Israel would want a king, also put some prohibitions on the king to prevent the abuses that Samuel would outline in verses 11 through 17. One scholar comments on this as follows:
“like all the nations…(goy-im). This is the problem. Israel has long been unlike other nations-distinctive in many ways. Other nations (goy-im a word that is often translated Gentiles) worship many gods or gods of wood and stone. Israel worships just one God, and that God is Yahweh. Yahweh has served as their king, leading them through the wilderness into the Promised Land. Yahweh has given them a set of laws that define their national identity, distinct from their neighbors.
Unlike the men of other nations, Jewish men bear the mark of circumcision. Unlike other peoples, Israelites observed dietary laws as outlined in the Torah. Unlike other nations, Israel observes the Sabbath to keep it holy. In these and many other ways Israel is unlike its neighbors. Their distinctiveness was part of the Lord’s plan for them. The Lord created them as “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation”.
Verse 6.What the elders asked for displeased Samuel. He knew that it was wrong for them to want to displease God’s planning and His working and to promote a human being as their king like the other nations even though they knew that God made them a distinctive people.
He was hurt and felt rejected by the people that he had served so faithfully, teaching them about God and His plan for Israel, and as well giving up his family life to help them.
But note that Samuel has set us an example of what to do when we are hurt and displeased for he instead of cursing them he turned to the Lord.
Verse 7. There is no indication that Samuel was very angry and so he followed his lifelong habit of turning to God.
God was extremely gracious and did not punish these elders or strike them dead for their impudence in trying to do away with Israel’s distinctiveness but instead told Samuel to listen to them.
God in fact told Samuel that the people were not rejecting him Samuel but was in fact rejecting God, rebelling against Him. This was therefore really a matter of idolatry for they wanted to be like the other nations. It was also apostasy for only God is king.
God was willing to give them what they wanted. We call that tough love. They would soon learn that having a king would involve good and bad if they did not do what God wanted. If they did not follow the principles God had laid down for the king and the rulers in Israel their kings would become evil and corrupt and they would suffer tremendously.
Psalm 105:15 is brief but accurate on this matter. It states: “He gave them their request and sent leanness into their soul”.
We cannot therefore add anything to the comment of this writer:
“Be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it and regret it. Be careful what you ask for. Is it worldliness that you ask for? Do you want to be just let the people around you? Do you want to find your fun and your satisfaction and your pleasure and your wholeness into things that other people find their fun and pleasure and wholeness in?
And be very careful, my friend, because God just may grant you your request, and you will rue the day that you ever asked for it.
You have to smile a little in that section from verse 10 all the way down to verse 18 when Samuel gives it to them. Let me spell it out for you, Samuel says
“what it is that you’re asking for when you’re asking for a king just like the nations around you it’s not the kind of king that is spoken of in Deuteronomy 17, a king that God chooses, a king that loves the Scriptures and writes the Scriptures in a book and meditates on that book day and night; a king that doesn’t amass for himself wives and gold and treasures and possessions. No, if you want a king just like the people around you, this is the kind of king that you will get”.
And he describes big government, and he describes multi-layered bureaucracy, and multi layered administration, and conscription into the civil service and into the Armed Forces, and an entourage of people to surround him, and easement of property and land, and confiscation of individual rights and privileges, and taxation, and taxation, and more taxation! It’s death and taxes, is what they’re asking for”.
So what King should you ask for and what King should you choose? Scriptures tell us who is the right King: “Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation”.
WHO IS KING?
It is the one who laid aside His glory, born in a manger, had nowhere to lay His head, who died the excruciating and painful death of crucifixion to bear our sins in His own body, dying for every covenant breaker who would otherwise die under the curse, who was stripped of His meager clothing, who had no possessions. He is the one who is King and the one that we should worship, love and adore.
CHAPTER 10:17-26
God had no intention to abandon His inheritance. He had said it was wrong for them to seek a king like the other nations and they were wrong to reject God as their king. But God would reign through a human instrument and God wanted to retain all the elements of the theocracy in the Monarchy. God really therefore wanted a man who would be under His authority and who would work out God’s righteous rule.
So to meet the people’s state of mind God chose for the people the most attractive and the tallest man in the nation. He was as Chapter 9:1-2 tells us an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites. He looked good. Samuel checked him out and confirmed that he was in fact God’s choice. Saul looked good even to the astute Samuel. But remember God had to warn Samuel that man looked at the outward appearance bt God looked at the heart.
Then came the final step.
But note that this was a man who at the end of his life said “I have played the fool”.
This of course meant that he rejected the truth that he had even though he started with very hopeful beginnings. He had come from a godly family and his father was described as a mighty man of valor. His name meant “asked of God”. God made sure that He pointed out Saul to Samuel and Samuel was impressed.
God wanted the very best for Saul and we read that God provided Samuel to help him, as well as a great and wise son named Jonathan, and of course besides Saul was the sensible and talented David.
God has acted to calm Saul when he went searching for some donkeys that had been lost. Samuel will give him information that set his heart at rest so that he was not anxious and worried.
When Saul did not have any food in his travels three men gave him bread out of their own provisions. And then as he traveled to his home he received divine endowment, the Spirit of God coming on him.,
Then when the lot was cast to select the family, and finally the lot was cast to select the individual to be chosen as King in Israel the people would remember that they had seen something they could not explain and they said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”.
We will of course see that eventually Saul as one writer said, “Squandered his inheritance and lost it. God forbid that we should. We can act on the basis of all that God has given us. We have everything we need in order to face any circumstances that we must face, and we can know that God is with us”.
Verse 17. So when Saul had been privately anointed king by Samuel it is noted that he did not even tell his family what had been done. This gives us some idea of Saul’s personality and character.
But we are now told that there had to be a public ceremony and Samuel will call all the people together to the Covenant keeping God LORD at Mizpah.
Verses 18-19. Saul had been given all the equipment he had needed to carry out his rule as king perfectly. At the public ceremony before all the tribes who had requested that they wanted a king just like the other nations in defiance of their God, the Lord God had Samuel remind the people that their covenant keeping God was the one that had brought them out of Egypt, delivered them from the Egyptians and from the enemies that oppressed them.
They had however chosen to reject their God that saved them from all their trials and tribulations. Now therefore the God that they had rejected had brought them together assembling all their tribes and their clans to receive what they had wanted.
Verse 20.There had to be a formal process where Saul was chosen by the people as king. He had been previously anointed privately on the instructions of God.
But now that the tribes have come together lots were cast since this was the process of choosing… This auspicious ceremony was at Mizpah one of the high places where sacrifices could be offered and where Samuel had previously defeated the Philistines so it was safe for Samuel to gather the tribes together to show them that there should be no fear of Philistine suspicion and intervention
Proverbs 16:33 said, “The lot is cast into the lap but it’s every decision is from the Lord”. So in bringing the people together for a public confirmation of what God had instructed Samuel to-do privately, Samuel was acting to remove any doubt the people might have had that God had chosen Saul as their first King.
Verse 21. God would in this ceremony be opening the door for Saul so that he would be accepted.
The order of casting lots was that the people came first together, then the lot was cast to select the tribe from which the king would come, then another lot was cast to select the clan, then another lot was cast to select the family in the clan, and then a final lot was cast to select the individual that would be chosen from that family as King.
It is clear that God is very wise for God was choosing the first King of Israel from the very smallest of the tribes namely the tribe of Benjamin. This tribe had produced some very powerful warriors. Its small size would make it difficult for the larger tribes to quarrel that God should’ve chosen a king from their tribe because they were a large or influential tribe. God would be demonstrating that He would be able to use the small things to do a great work.
Verse 22. After the lot had fallen on the family of Saul and on Saul Saul was nowhere to be seen and so the people rightly asked where was this person that the lot had chosen. God answered them disclosing that the chosen king was hiding among the baggage.
One can be nice to Saul by saying that he wanted to hide to avoid being chosen because he was well aware that he was the tallest and most impressive of the people and in addition Samuel had already determined that he was to be the new war leader.
One could be a little less charitable by saying that maybe Saul had hoped that since he was out of the sight of the people and not in the congregation the lot might exclude him as the chosen one. He might be in fact getting cold feet because he did not think that he was good enough for that position. Remember that in 1 Samuel 9:20-22 when Samuel met Saul and called him the desire of Israel Saul had answered “But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?”
Saul was saying as one writer pointed out:
“I am a nobody from nowhere; you must have the wrong guy. What in the world are you talking about? Saul is later the guest of honor at a feast, is privately anointed as King and is overcome with the gift of prophecy– yet never seems to grasp what is happening to him. Finally, Samuel will gather Israel to present them with the man who will be their king.
One writer comments that it is strange how often people think that they can hide from God. But like Saul they will discover that they cannot.
Remember however that these were difficult days and the enemies that Israel faced were formidable ones. We should therefore not look down on Saul too much as very few of us would want to be given his role as a war leader and the first king of a relatively small nation.
Maybe Saul was showing a healthy embarrassment and humility and he did not look forward to being at “center- stage” in front of the nation. He did not seem to have personal ambition or a desire for the limelight but in fact seem to dislike the situation in which he was pleased.
But we like Saul should remember that it was God who chose Saul and the choosing of the lot simply confirmed what God had determined. We are warned by one great man of God that we should be careful in what and how we approach Saul’s problem:
“Spurgeon in his sermon “Hiding among the Stuff” showed how unbelievers and believers hide avoiding their crown. There may be some of you here present, who may be doing precisely what Saul did, only you are doing it more foolishly than he did. He did but hide away from an earthly crown, but you hide from a heavenly one”.
Verse 23. Saul clearly was not king material. But the people ran and brought him from the baggage and when he stood before the people he was taller than any of the people.
Verse 24 Samuel therefore presented this most attractive man to the people as their king. God had chosen him because there was no one in Israel that could compare to Saul in appearance. So the people looked at him and all of them shouted “Long live the king!”.
We can be sure that Saul was beaming with pride at that moment for he had gone from hiding in the baggage to Long live the king. God had certainly lifted him up and Saul responded as we would all have responded.
Verses 24-25. Samuel did not let the people off the hook. He reminded them how royalty behaved. Royalty’s behavior would surprise them
Samuel was serious in how he treated the people and how he treated Saul. Samuel wrote everything that happened and what he said in a book and read it before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people as well as Saul to their homes.
Verses 26-27. The newly acclaimed king did not go home to a sumptuous palace. H simply went to his home in Gibeah. God was working for this new king, for God stirred up some valiant men and they went with Saul. Clearly then Saul had continued to have divine help from the start.
But there was a downside for some revelers did not think that Saul was the kind of man that would save them.. They therefore thought little of Saul and did not bring him any gifts as was the befitting practice for a king.
Saul however was wise. He held his peace. He did not feel that he had to crush his opposition for he probably figured out that he would have to take some time to establish himself and win everybody to him. Scholars tell us the full meaning of this verse as follows:
“The Hebrew, as suggested by the margin, is still more striking.’ He was as though he had been deaf’-he pretended not to hear. He did hear; every word had struck deep into his soul, but he made as though he were deaf.
It is a great power when a man can act as though he were deaf to slander, deaf to detraction, deaf to unkind and uncharitable speeches, and treat them as though they had not been spoken, turning from man to God, leaving with God his vindication, believing that God will give him a chance….. of vindicating the true prowess and temper of his soul.(Meyer).
CONCLUSION
Samuel was tested and he passed the test because he went to God with his complaints instead of attacking and cursing the people when they behaved abominably.
The people and the elders were tested to see whether they remembered the commandments of God and whether they understood who God was and what they were.
Some might say that Saul had a problem. The dilemma that he was in was God’s fault for God must have known that he would not be able to perform. But remember that God has a right to put us in the place we don’t want to be and it is His right to give us responsibility that we might want to avoid.
Sometimes He will put us in a family that don’t know how to love us very well. He might even put burdens on us that we wish we didn’t have.
But when God gives us that kind of assignment that we think we are no match for we must acknowledge our need and seek the Lord.
Remember that God is testing you as He tested Samuel and He tested the people and the elders all the time. When you’re tested you have the opportunity to do what is right.
Remember that a believer in Christ has the power to do what is right. God is never going to allow you to be tested more than you’re able.
Testing is important to your growth, your safety, your fruitfulness, your happiness and your faithfulness as a Christian. You must pass these tests one after another. So look at these tests and see them for what they are and make sure you pass them because you know the Lord would have you to pass them.
So humble yourself and let God lift you up. Don’t just go and hide in the baggage. God wants to promote you and He will promote you. You do not need to push yourself to get ahead. God will bring you forward when He’s ready so all you have to do is humble yourself, study the words of God, pray, tell God what is in your mind and let God lift you up.
Be prepared to honor God and His word. God has regulations and it is good to write them down, and place them before the Lord. When you’re in the covenant you are to act as if you’re into covenant for your actions will ensure that you have a sacred agreement between you and God.
It is wise to note that we never read that Saul never fell on his knees and asked God for help. He never admitted that he might’ve been tall and handsome and looked good, but he was not the man he appeared to be.
As King he made mistakes but that did not lead to humility but to further brazenness.
God provided Saul with valiant men to support him as well as Samuel to stand by him as a mentor. God provided a remarkable and wise and militarily powerful son in Jonathan. God also provided Saul with a remarkable friend in David.
All these men could’ve helped Saul to rule well but he refused to admit that he did not have all together personally.
Saul was determined to defend a false image and as one writer said he fought to maintain a spiritual fiction which was something deadly. As a result he ruined himself and others.
So when we are talking about leadership understand that you must begin with the Holy Spirit and 2nd, let God do the promoting. Otherwise you will end up in ruin
Remember that you will have supporters and detractors. Never forget God provides for you when He puts you in the position that He wants you to be in.
This is a serious matter because we live in an age of self-promotion and self glorification. This weakness forself-glory ruined Satan and his followers and it will ruin you if you live according to those false principles.
The only king is God. All that are in leadership whether in secular or religious establishments are really vice- regents and God has established their role and set out regulations for their behavior.
We see from this Lesson several things which one writer points to:
“He was
–Chosen and anointed by God.
–Filled with the Holy Spirit.
–Supported by a great man of God.
-Given gifts appropriate to royalty.
–Enthusiastically supported by most of the nation.
-Surrounded by valiant men whose hearts God had touched.
-Wise enough to not regard every doubter or critic as an enemy.
Despite all these great advantages, Saul could still end badly. He had to choose to walk in the advantages God gave him and chose to not go his own way. The rest of the book of 1 Samuel shows how Saul dealt with that choice”.
So what can we now say to all of us believers? Should we ask you Who is King? Do not you already know that?
You have great advantages. You can look at the life of Saul and other people. You can live according to the Spirit. You can reject pride.
You can decide not to be a fool.
Philippians 3:19 tells us of people who are phony people. They are religious but they are not faithful to the Lord. They live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their God is their belly.
Let it not be said of any of us that we are in that class of persons. As we pass the tests that are placed in front of us so that we will experience spiritual growth, let us look around and help others in humility, knowing that our strengths come from the fact that we are in Christ and that we are led by the Holy Spirit. We have a responsibility for others of like mind,