1 Samuel 9-11 - Talk 8
‘Tall, Dark and Dangerous’ (1 Samuel 9-11)
the making of a leader
Every time George Bush appears on TV I am surprised by his physical stature (slide 1) He’s an impressively tall man and I’m told he’s quiet handsome – these features give him a strong and forceful presence which is very helpful if you happen to be the most powerful man in the free world. I know some tall, solidly built people and they seems to have an effect on you right away.
Now look at this man’s physical presence. Do you think he’d make a good leader? (slide 2). Looks can be deceiving. Rowan Atkinson thought of the character Mr Bean while he was studying for his PhD at Oxford University. He’s a very intelligent man but he hardly looks impressive in this photo. People prefer a leader who stands out amongst the nations – for the right reasons. People want a strong leader whose meant to represent their interests (slide 3). A physically impressive man attracts the media and the votes.
Today we tackle a larger section of 1 Samuel – chapters 9 to 11. In these chapters we read about the circumstances that lead to Israel to receive her first king – the king named Saul. The sequence of events begins in 9:2 where we meet Kish whose claim to fame is he ‘had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others’. From the beginning, Saul is described an imposing potential leader – everything a leader needs to have Saul seems to have. He has good looks and powerful presence. A head taller than the others which can be a little intimidating if your standing next to him. Saul was the type of leader Israel thought they needed when the nations around you want to wipe you from the face of the earth.
the choosing of a king (9:1-27)
The circumstances leading up to the identification of Saul as Israel’s first king are profoundly ordinary. The story begins in 9:3 when one day the donkeys belonging to Saul’s father wander away and they become lost. Another not so special day on the farm. Saul gets the job of running after these donkeys. He grabs a servant and off he goes mindful that if he’s away too long his father will begin to worry. After quite a distance with no success the servant suggests they consult a seer and they soon find his whereabouts and they set out for the town. It’s an ordinary chain of events – two frustrated men looking for lost animals with worried parents back home.
Saul has no idea where the seer lives as he enters the town. In 9:17 the narrator says that ‘Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and asked, “Would you please tell me where the seer’s house is”?’. And Samuel replied, ‘I am the seer’. And with those words Saul’s life is changed forever. A chance meeting? The narrator is quick to remind us about the providence of God in verses 15 and 16. The day before Saul and Samuel exchange words, God told Samuel that ‘I will send you a man’. Saul’s wandering around a little lost – God is directing his path to Samuel. The providence of God. In this story we hear the secret of what God is doing in Saul’s life. God wants him to be king. Saul maybe looking for donkeys – but Samuel is looking for Saul whom he will anoint as king.
The ordinary life of a farm boy suddenly becomes quite extraordinary through the providence of God.
I don’t think Saul is the only one to have an ordinary life. We may well wonder whether God directs the affairs of our everyday lives like he did for Saul. Or does God only direct the lives of certain individuals chosen by him? It’s good to hear that God’s sway extends to the individual lives of all his subjects. Wisdom tells us this. Like in Prov 16:9, ‘In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps’. Like Prov 20:24, ‘A mans steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way’?
1 Samuel 9 lets us into the secret of what God is doing in Saul’s life. Usually we are not privy to this information. God may not let you into the secret of how he is directing the course of your life. You are not God and there is a wisdom that belongs to God alone. But you may see traces and more than traces of what God is doing in your life as you look back. But right now you might be just as in the dark as Saul was when he was looking for those donkeys.
I had no idea that what would happen when I moved to Lismore in January 1984. I just decided to go. I had the choice of working either in Lismore, Newcastle or Wollongong – and for no reason other than curiosity I decided upon Lismore. After a year in Lismore I thought it was the worst decision I’d ever made. I was particularly lonely and missing home. The workplace was unpleasant. One thing eventually led to another - I met Janette, we got married and went to Bible College in 1994. I’d often pondered full-time ministry but I public speaking scared me to bits. Having Janette along made the difference. God doesn’t need me in ministry to fulfil his purposes, but with hindsight God was directing my life to reach this point and he is using me in this particular way.
The providence of God is one way he provides for his people.
We can say that Providence is God’s mysterious way of ruling the world and sustaining his people using the twists and turns of life and the bias of our wills. And this he does with Saul whom he calls to be his servant. By the end of chapter 9, the search for donkeys is overshadowed by Saul’s appointment with Samuel. In verse 27 Samuel tells the servant to go home so Samuel and Saul can have a chat. Or as Samuel puts is, ‘so that I may give you a message from God’.
The message follows in chapter 10.
the coming of a king
signs of assurance for the king-elect (10:1-16)
So have a look at 10:1. ‘Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you leader over his people Israel? You will reign over the Lord’s people and save them from the power of their enemies round about. And this will be a sign to you that the Lord has anointed you leader over his inheritance”’. (The NIV has this verse in the footnotes, a good case for following the LXX). Saul receives three signs from God that confirm he is his chosen King. These signs are spelled out in verses 2-8 and Saul will be left in no doubt that God has selected him as king over his people. Not fuzzy fortune-cookie signs, but specific signs revealing the hand of God.
The first sign will come near Rachel’s tomb on the border of Benjamin. Saul will meet two men who will tell him that Kish’s asses have been found and his father is worried sick about him. That’s in verse 2. The second sign is in verses 3 and 4. Near the oak of Tabor, Saul will meet three young men on the way to worship with three young goats, three loaves of bread and a skin of wine. These men will ask after Saul’s welfare and give him two loaves of bread. And the third and most important sign is that Saul will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place playing all sorts of musical instruments. At this time Yahweh’s Spirit will rush upon Saul and he will prophesy with them, and the Spirit will change him into a different person.
The passing of these three signs will assure Saul that he is God’s man. Soon he will be the first king of Israel and the people will say, ‘long live the king!’ Saul will Yahweh’s Spirit to empower him to carry out his kingly duties. The presence of the Spirit upon the king is vitally important. As equally important is Samuel’s role in Saul’s kingship. In verse 8 Samuel says, ‘“Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do”’.
Saul the king who shall soon have God’s Spirit is to submit to Samuel the prophet who speaks God word. Samuel says, ‘I will come to you and tell you what you are to do’. Saul’s gifting of the Spirit doesn’t mean he can go his merry way. God’s Spirit gives power, but that power is to be exercised in obedience to God’s word. We ought to pause and think about this. The Spirit and the Word must never be separated. We cannot be either a ‘Spirit-person’ or a ‘Word-person’. I’ve heard it said that I should live by the Spirit and so there is no need for Bible study for the Spirit alone is my guide. Some Christians say, ‘just let go and let God. Trust your feelings and the Spirit will be your guide’. Others Christians quench the Spirit by their legalism. Some people attempt to fulfill God’s righteousness apart from Spirit of God. This leads Paul to say that ‘the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Cor 3:6).
The most common problem these days is neglect of the word of God. Dale Ralph Davis asks, ‘what right have we to think we can enjoy the Lord’s power and presence when we deny his lordship by trampling on his Word? […] Many crave dramatic signs of the Spirit’s power but have little enthusiasm for common obedience to the Lord’s word’. We need to ensure that the Word and the Spirit have complementary roles in our lives. Indeed, the ‘sword of the Spirit is the Word of God’.
Verse 9 tells us that the signs of assurance to Saul did come true. Verses 10 and 11 recite in detail the third sign considering its importance in relation to Saul receiving the Spirit of God. Since is anointed with God’s Spirit. This echoes Hannah’s words in 2:10, ‘God will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’. Saul is the Lord’s anointed one - the Lord’s Messiah – the Lord’s Christ. And now its time to bring Saul out of the closet and present him to the people.
long live the king! (10:17-26)
This is the reason for Samuel calling the people together at Mizpah in verse 17 – the same place as the Mizpah convention in chapter 7. Reading from verse 17, ‘Samuel summoned the people of Israel to the Lord at Mizpah and said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ But you have now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your calamities and distresses. And you have said, ‘No, set a king over us.’ So now present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and clans”’. And the tribe of Benjamin was chosen by lots, and then Matri’s clan by lots, and finally Saul is chosen’.
Samuel again takes the opportunity to remind Israel that their request for a king is nothing less a rejection of God’s kingship. It’s not that kingship per se is the problem, a new political structure for Israel doesn’t phase God. The problem is that God insists and deserves to be the centre of life, and he will not be displaced by a human leader. With this warning, God’s choice is narrowed down to Saul who proves to be a reluctant king. With a flavour of sarcasm, the people cannot find Saul who is hidden away amongst the bags. Verse 22. Perhaps Israel on her own is no more successful finding her king than Saul and his servant were looking for the donkeys. In each case the Lord showed the way. The people are totally reliant upon the Lord. They find their king shout at the end of verse 24, ‘long live the king!’
Who is the real King?
Saul the successful king (11:1-11)
In chapter 11 Saul has a successful start to his rule. He leads the Israelites against Nahash the Ammonite – I’ll leave you to read the detail – Saul wins the battle which is a great start to his kingship. So is human kingship the answer to Israel’s problems? Samuel has already made it clear that the people’s desire for human king is a rejection of God as king. Victory over the Ammonites came not because Israel have a king, but because the king was empowered by Yahweh’s Spirit. It is not the office of king which saves the people but the power of the Spirit that brings deliverance. And we ought not miss this point. Jesus says to us in John 15:5, ‘I am the true vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing’.
Apart from God’s presence amongst us we can do nothing. This side of the cross, our battles are spiritual rather than physical. As Paul says in Eph 6, ‘our struggles are not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’. If we think we can win this battle on our own ... we can’t! And so we put on the full amour of God and the Spirit figures prominently in our weaponry. ‘Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions’. A Christ-centered church is a victorious church because we fight in the Lord’s strength. It certainly is a struggle, but it’s one that Christ has won for us and so we commit ourselves to him.
allegiance to the real king (11:12-15)
Before we finish this morning there’s time for one more convention. It’s in verses 14 and 15, ‘Then Samuel said to the people, “Come, let us go to Gilgal and there reaffirm the kingship.” So all the people went to Gilgal and confirmed Saul as king in the presence of the Lord. There they sacrificed fellowship offerings before the Lord, and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration’. This meeting is a ‘reaffirming the kingdom’ event – renewing the kingdom – sounds like a strange sort of conference to have. What does it mean to renew the kingdom?
Israel now have a king like the other nations – and at Gilgal they confirm Saul as their king. God can live with this if he remains at the centre of Israel’s national life. It’s not too late for Israel to affirm that Yahweh is there true king. Renewing the kingdom is renewing the real kingdom. It’s making sure that God is your real king. It’s setting aside the demands of this world and affirming the right that God has to be at the centre of your life.
Conclusion
Today is an excellent time to reaffirm the kingship of Christ. The pressure of this world so easily lures us away from the priorities of kingdom living. Repent and trust in the Lord Jesus for he is your King and your Saviour.