Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Last week we saw that Saul - through his sin and the sin of the people - lost the kingdom.
God said He was going to take it from him.
And his sin was disobedience.
It was wanting to do things his way rather than God’s - it was deciding for himself what was good and right.
And I think we can all relate to that, because we tend to disobey in the same way.
We can see a little of ourselves in Saul.
But today, we are going to see a new king chosen.
David is going to be anointed and receive the Spirit of God.
And while that is the event being recorded here, and while this is a turning point in the book and the history of salvation, the real hero of this story isn’t David, but Samuel.
And I want us to consider how much of ourselves we see in Samuel.
Because we have the same choice to make that he did.
Now we ended last week with this.
Notice how things end up for Samuel:
Samuel tells Saul that God is taking the kingdom from him, and we see here that Samuel grieved over Saul.
Then here:
Grieved = mourned (usually translated as “mourned”)
Often, it speaks of mourning over the sin of God’s people.
And that’s what’s happening here.
Samuel is mourning over all that has happened.
The people turned their backs on YHWH and demanded a king, and they got exactly what they asked for, and it was an utter failure.
And as we saw, their initial sin of rejecting YHWH only led to more sin.
That’s what we saw last week, the sin of the people and Saul in their disobedience to God.
God gave them commands, and they failed to obey.
So Samuel mourned the disobedience and failure of the people, and the failure of Saul.
But here, God says “why are you mourning?
Don’t mourn over the situation, I have changed it.
I have rejected Saul from being king.”
Basically, God says, “What’s done is done.
Now I’m going to do something about it.”
And what is God going to do? He’s going to provide the king His people need to save them from themselves.
And this, of course, is what God did for us.
We were disobedient.
We did things our way.
We did things that were well worth mourning over.
And there was nothing we could do about it.
So God did something.
He gave us a King to make right what we made wrong.
And notice, God here says “I have provided for myself a king.”
This is about God and what He is doing.
This is in contrast to the king He appointed for the people.
Remember, the people had a King in YHWH, but they wanted a king like the nations around them - like the sinful nations around them.
And Samuel tries to dissuade them from doing such a thing, but God tells Samuel to let it happen.
And notice the wording God uses when He does:
1 Samuel 8:22 (ESV)
And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”
Saul was their king.
They wanted a king like the nations around them - so God gave them a king like those of the nations around them.
And as we saw last week, that includes the fact that Saul - like the kings of the nations - did not follow YHWH.
That was their king.
That was the king of the people.
Here, God says:
1 Samuel 16:1 (ESV)
I have provided for myself a king
This is God’s chosen king.
This is His representative of kingship.
In other words, God is saying of His people: “We did it your way, now we’re gonna do it My way”
Because David was always the plan.
David is held up in the Old Testament as the perfect king - the superlative godly king.
That’s why, as we will see in a few months, God makes a covenant with him and no other king.
I know that because Israel had more land and more peace in Solomon’s day that he is thought by many to be the best king.
But look at his life.
He wasn’t a good king at all.
He was an idolater and a womanizer.
It all goes downhill after David.
There is a decent king here and there, but for the most part, the kings of Israel and Judah were not good kings at all.
David was the prototype and there was no king that could compare.
Until Christ.
He is the promised greater Son of David that would - and does - rule God’s people perfectly.
What God is doing here is typical of what He did when Christ came.
The people sinned, but He provided a remedy.
He provided a king for His people that would set things right.
He anointed a savior for His people when they very clearly couldn’t do anything for themselves.
Here, God tells Saul that He has chosen the real king.
And Samuel has to go anoint Him.
But Samuel is concerned.
He knows that Saul is not a good king or even a good guy.
So Samuel is afraid that if he follows what God is saying and goes and anoints another king that Saul is going to kill him.
And this is how it was done back in the day.
This is what the kings of the nations would do.
We see even in the book of 2 Samuel and the books of Kings how when there is a dispute over who is the rightful king in Israel, that everyone who aligns himself with the losing side gets killed.
Samuel has a legitimate concern here.
Can we see a little of ourselves in Samuel here?
Do we ever hear or read God’s commands and question how we’re supposed to carry them out?
Do you ever have concerns that obeying God might cost you something?
Or that it might make you some enemies?
And these are practical concerns.
There is nothing sinful about realizing the situation you’re in and what the likely outcomes are.
And we should do what Samuel does here and bring our very real concerns to God.
But we also need to realize that God nowhere promises to alleviate our concerns before we have to obey.
So that is not a legitimate excuse not to act according to God’s Word.
Look at how God answers Samuel.
Samuel tells God: “I don’t know how I can do this!
I’m going to make Saul my enemy and even put my life in danger.”
And in God’s answer, notice first what He doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say “don’t worry Samuel, if you do what I say, you’ll be protected from Saul and from death.
I’ll make things easy for you.”
He doesn’t say that.
He doesn’t tell Samuel that everything is going to work out okay from an earthly standpoint if he obeys God.
He just tells Samuel to obey.
Samuel says “God I can get killed for obeying You.”
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