Good morning, everyone. This morning, we are in first Samuel chapter 10. You might recall that Saul was with Samuel, the man who was with Saul was sent on ahead and Saul was now going to get to spend some time with Samuel and he is preparing Saul to become king.
Then Saul took the flask of oil, poured it on his head, kissed him and said, has not Yahweh anointed you a ruler over his inheritance. And this is something that he's doing in private right now, but it's going to become more public that Saul is going to be made king. When you go from me today, then you will find two men close to Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zalza,
and they will say to you, the donkeys which you went to search for have been found. Now behold, your father has ceased to be concerned about the donkeys and is anxious for you saying, what shall I do about my son? You might recall that's what started this journey is he went to look for some donkeys and couldn't find them, but God led him to Saul and his father doesn't know even what happened, doesn't know any of this. And now he's about to head home.
and miraculously not only did he not find the donkey so he could find Samuel now he's they have been found. Then you will go on further from there and God is setting up all kinds of things here which is really
cool to see. Like, it reminds me of when, you know, Jesus said, Hey, when you are going to prepare for the Passover, you will find someone with a jug of water and say, you know, we must use your room tonight. And God, you know, Jesus had prepared a place for them to take the Passover and the Last Supper that night. And this is kind of, this is what's happening here.
Then you will go on further from there. You will come as far as the oak of Tobor and there are three men going up to God at Betha will meet you. One carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread and another carrying a jug of wine and they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread and you will take them from their hand afterward.
You will come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is and it shall be as soon as you have come there to the city that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute and leer before them and they will be prophesying. Then the spirit of Yahweh will come upon you mightily and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. Saul at this point is
not doesn't have the spirit and is not really a man of God. He's just a young man. But now God is going to give him the spirit. And back in that day, the spirit wasn't living inside of every person that believes like the spirit does today in the Christian church. We now have the spirit living in us and
It doesn't just come and go willy-nilly and in this day, in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God could come upon someone and provide them with strength and wisdom, but it wasn't necessarily like any eternal deposit. The Spirit could come and go and as we'll see here,
Saul still had a responsibility to walk with God, even though God's going to kind of get him going and inaugurate his ministry to Saul and help him to prophesy and give him wisdom, Saul's still going to have a responsibility to seek God and honor God on his own. And if he doesn't, um, he's going to face consequences for not obeying God. Um, there was a blessing upon him.
And he was given the kingship, but if he turned his back on God, the kingship could be removed or not work out well because of his disobedience. So, but now God's going to give him a healthy start. Now, the spirit of Yahweh will come upon you mightily and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. Now, it will be when these signs come to you, do for yourself whatever
Your hand finds to do for God is with you, and you shall go down before me till Gilgal and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings. You shall wait seven days until I come to you and make you know what you should do.
Now it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart and all those signs came about on that day. All those things that Samuel said, they all happened and they came to the hill there and behold a group of prophets met him and the spirit of God came upon him mightily so that he prophesied among them.
Now it happened that all who knew him previously saw and behold he was prophesying with the prophets so the people said to one another what has happened to the son of Kish is saw also among the prophets and a man there answered and said now who is their father?
Therefore it became a proverb is Saul also among the prophets then he finished prophesying and came to the high place and it's almost like you know in a Before the Christian church. It's like he became born again. You know, it's like the Holy Spirit came upon him and he was a new man Now how will Saul do and will he continue in following God wholeheartedly?
Now, Saul's uncle said to him and his young man, where did you go? And he said to look for the donkeys. And when we saw that they were not anywhere, so we went to Samuel and Saul's uncle said, please tell me what Samuel said to you.
So Saul said to his uncle, he told us plainly that the donkeys had been found, but he did not tell him about the matter of the kingdom, which Samuel had said. He was, he was still figuring this out, even though the spirit had come upon him. As far as taking leadership to be king of an entire nation, I think he was still gaining his confidence in that.
and also he was supposed to wait for Samuel to come so he didn't want to let things out without Samuel's leadership being there. Then Samuel called the people together at Yahweh at Mitzbun. He said to the sons of Israel, thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, I brought Israel up from Egypt and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians. Isn't it amazing how that's always a big deal and it is a big deal that God brought Israel out of Egypt and
You know part of the sea and provided for them, you know in the desert Manner from the sky and quail and gave them victory and gave them the promised land and you know these people are far removed from that I mean it's it's you know decades and decades later and None of them saw that none of them who are alive, you know Who even came to the promised land they're all
They've all ceased at this point, but they're to remember. And that's one of the reasons God had to celebrate the Passover. And we still do it now that we should remember all that God had did to Israel and how He blessed them. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But you have rejected your God who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses.
Yet you have said no, but said a king over us. So now take your stand before why be our way by your tribes and by your clans. And you know, Samuel probably felt a little bit rejected in the fact that even though he was the prophet and leader at the time, that they're like, no, we need a king. And you know, God talked about in back in Deuteronomy 17, that's going to come up again here that they were one day going to get a king, although
in some ways it was a rejection of God that they were not just trusting that God could lead them that they needed an earthly king. Thus Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by a lot. It appears as what they did here is they like even though Samuel knew it was going to be Saul, he still did like a random draw
to see if Saul would be selected, knowing that God would make it work. But in this way, Israel, the rest of the people would see that God miraculously, even through the casting of lots,
saw that Samuel was chosen. So, first Benjamin was taken, so that's a lot of people. Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin nearby its families, and the matriarch family was taken, and saw the son of Kish was taken. So, you know, that's pretty incredible if you think about it. They do this random draw, and sure enough, it turns out Saul is taken.
But they looked for him and could not, and he could not be found. And this is, this is so interesting. Now granted, this was going to be, you know, a big deal for this young man to be king. But you know, it's interesting that even though he got the spirit and even though he was prophesying,
I don't think he was prophesying here. I don't think he was relying on the spirit of God here. I think unfortunately he was relying on his humanness here and not in alignment with God. And we're going to see he's going to have a struggle. And at times the Lord's going to really move through him. And at times he's going to be fleshly and make his own earthly decisions. So they can't find him. You know, he's going to be anointed king.
or proclaimed king here, this is gonna kinda happen over a series of chapters, but.
They inquired further if Yahweh has the man come here yet, you know, or saw. So Yahweh said, so God literally told them where to find them. Listen to this. Behold, he is hiding himself by the baggage. He's finding a way to hide. So they ran and took him from there and he stood among the people. And he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. It's interesting. They say that a couple of times. It's almost like he had a
a long torso instead of really like tall legs. I don't know. It's a couple of times they've said that from the shoulders upward. Then Samuel said to all the people, do you see him whom God has chosen? Surely there is no one like him among all the people. So all the people shouted and said, long live the king. Then Samuel spoke with the people about the legal judgments of the kingdom and wrote them in
the book and placed it before Yahweh, and Samuel sent all the people away each one to his own house, Saul also went to his house at Gibeah, and the valiant men whose hearts God had touched with him.
But certain vile men said, how can this one save us? And they despised him and did not bring him any present, but he kept silent. Well, isn't that true? So right away, you name a king and there's already people against him. And isn't that the way it is today, too, right? No matter who the ruler of earthly ruler we may have, there's going to be people form and there's going to be people against them.
And, you know, that's just the way it is. That's the way of mankind. Mankind doesn't do a good job of getting along. Now, I want to take you back to briefly here, Deuteronomy 17, because God did say one day they were going to have a king. And he doesn't really talk about the curse here if the king does not honor God.
But, but he does say, give the command that, listen, it's important that he does. And you can presume and see and even from the rest of the law that, you know what, if you don't, it's not going to work out well. So let me read this one more time, just about 10 verses here. When you enter the land, this is Deuteronomy 17, 14, when you enter the land, which
Yahweh your God gives you and you possess it and live in it. You shall say, I will set a king over me and you will say, I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me. You shall surely set a king over you whom Yahweh your God chooses. Now God did have a hand in selecting Saul, but I think the point that's being made in Saul as king is this is who this is the kind of king they would choose.
And he didn't really, wasn't really following God. God's trying to help him to follow him.
Anyways, let's keep going. One from among your brothers, you shall set as a king over yourselves. You may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your brother. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. Yahweh has said to you, you shall never again return that way. Don't go back to Egypt. And he, this is regarding the king, shall not multiply wise for himself. God doesn't like that. Or else his heart will turn away.
nor shall he greatly increase silver or gold for himself. Now, it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom that he shall write for himself a copy of this law and a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. I mean, this is what Saul should be doing is soon here writing down all the words of the law and honoring it.
And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life. This and that's something. You know what I want for a king God says? I want someone who's going to read every day, read the law of the Lord. And this is why we study the word of God today. You know, we may not be a king of a nation, but God knows that in order for us to maintain
godliness, right living to stay in God's favor, it is good and right to be in the Word of God on a daily basis. And in order to be a great king, this is what was needed and Saul is not going to be a great king. And it shall be with him that he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear Yahweh's God, Hallelujah, to carefully observe all the words of this law in these statutes.
And man, it's such a good thing to not only believe God, not only to be born again, not only to receive the Holy Spirit, but then learn to fear Yahweh our God and to observe all that he's commanded because it's meant for our good and why that his heart may be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or the left so that he may prolong his days in the kingdom. He and his sons in the midst of Israel.
God doesn't really paint the negative picture here in Deuteronomy 17, but saying if he does this, he will prolong his days in the kingdom. What if he doesn't? You know, what if he doesn't honor the Lord? What if he doesn't read the word? What if he doesn't fear God? What if he doesn't obey? Well, you know, there's plenty of promises in the Old Testament about that and even for the king and we'll see those in the time to come.
that you know what, if the king disobeys and the king does not honor the word, the kingdom can be ripped from them and he can lose his kingship and it can be given to someone else. So God's going to give them a king. He's not going to be a great king. We're going to see some of his successes and some of his failures. His failures are going to be not doing this, not honoring God and not honoring his word.
And may that be just a healthy reminder for us that the way of blessing is first and foremost to become born again, to place your faith in Jesus, to be deposited with the Holy Spirit, but then not to take grace for granted.
And to say, well, I did this once. All is good. No, let's continue to seek him. Let's continue to find him. Let's continue to study his word and obey him. And thank you for listening. This is a way God is going to bless your life and to make it more fruitful because you're steadfastly sitting before God and fearing God and fearing his word in a healthy way. Way to go. Great job. God bless you all.
