Broken Vessels: Saul, Part II

Today we finish a two-part series on the life of King Saul. Actually, last week in a way we finished the life of King Saul, because we saw Saul continue to disobey the Lord to the point that the prophet Samuel, speaking for the Lord, declared that Saul was no longer king, that another would become king in his place. Now we know that this is David. From this point on, the stories of Saul and David intertwine. As we go forward, I will mention David where it is essential to understanding the story of Saul, but I will save an analysis of David’s life for the coming weeks when we focus specifically on David.

Last week I started with an unflattering quote from the New Testament about Saul; this week, I thought I would start with a passage from Deuteronomy that instructs what kings should do.

Broken Vessels: Saul, Part I

Welcome! We are in the middle of a series called “Broken Vessels,” looking at key people in the Old Testament history and examining their faith and their experiences with God, warts and all. We have seen that each person has had their strengths and weaknesses, their victories and failures, and we have also learned a lot about God; His unchanging nature, His holiness, His wisdom, His goodness, His justice, and His mercy. Some of these attributes were always plainly seen from the very beginning; others, such as His mercy, we only saw glimpses of; but all attributes of God are only seen in their complete fullness in Christ. Given that this is true, it is good to be reminded why we are spending so much time in the Old Testament; it is because, as it says in I Timothy 3:16, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness.” And we have focused on people of the Old Testament in part because Hebrews 11 gives examples of people with regards what it means to live by faith, and of course this is something we want to do. And so this week, we begin a two-part “mini”-series on Saul.

Broken Vessels: Ruth and Samson

After a couple of weeks off, we come back to the series of Broken Vessels. This series is a study of the lives of men and women in the Old Testament. The purpose of this story is to see how God works, how God uses us, in spite of our weaknesses, our brokenness.

Today, we are going to discuss a well known man and a well known woman: Samson and Ruth. These stories are full of examples that help us understand God and the meaning of His Word in the New Testament. I worked really hard to shorten this message, and I think I’m going to keep it to less than 90 minutes.

The story of Samson starts with the familiar opening from Judges:

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years. Judges 13:1