A New Hope

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Good morning!  Today is our final message in our series titled “Prophet and King.” 

The Biblical foundation of our series has been the first portion of the book of I Samuel.  In the 15 chapters we’ve covered so far, Samuel, the prophet, and Saul, the first king of Israel, have been at the center of the narrative.

But, do you ever stop and think why people study the Bible?  There are many ways to approach the answer to this question.  The Bible has been and continues to be the most-printed, best-selling book year after year.  There are a lot of amazing facts about the Bible:  how many copies have been printed (~6 billion, ~5 billion since 1815), how many languages it has been translated into (1,275 complete-2,100 in part), how many ancient manuscripts still exist (~24,000), how many copies are printed each year (100 million).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvxVXkCDGNw  Compared to other books, the Bible is unparalleled.  There is no other book like it. 

The Fall of Saul

1 Samuel 15:1-35

Today we come to a very significant low point in Saul’s career as king. The last time I spoke we were in Chapter 13, where Saul failed the test of waiting seven days for Samuel in Gilgal. He became impatient and went ahead and offered the burnt offering on his own. Because he had not kept God’s command, Samuel told him that his kingdom would not endure but that he would be replaced by a man after the Lord’s own heart, someone who put intimacy with God before all else. Still, in our story today we see that God is in a sense giving Saul one last chance, a final test to see if his heart could be fully devoted to what God would tell him to do.

Pseudo-spirituality

1 Samuel 14:24-52

Good morning!  Today’s message is part of our series Prophet and King.  It is also very much like part 2 of a cliffhanger episode or movie.  Carl shared last week about the first half of I Samuel 14.  In this chapter, we saw the faith of Saul’s son Jonathan.

The scene is Saul and his men (now only 600 reduced from at least 3000) are near Gibeah.  At the beginning of chapter 14, it says that Saul was staying under a pomegranate tree at Migron.  Somehow in my mind, I envision a big tree with a tent of war beneath it.  In fact, pomegranates actually grow on a shrub tree.  The trees grow only to 30 feet tall at most.  Saul is not gathered beneath an enormous tree with his counselors.  He’s sitting under a little tree, the kind where you probably have to stoop down to get under it, the kind of place where you would expect to find a little kid, not the king of a nation.

Faithless Father and Faith-Filled Son

1 Samuel 14:1-23

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Samuel and Saul, coming to Chapter 14. I want to back up for a minute to Chapter 10. It was here that Samuel anointed Saul, telling him many detailed things about what would happen to him that day – two men would meet him at Rachel’s tomb, a very specific location, and tell him that the donkeys he had set out to look for were found, and his father is asking about him. Then at the great tree of Tabor, another very specific location, three men would meet him, one with three goats, one with three loaves of bread, and one with wine. They would greet him and offer him two loaves of bread. Then he will go to Gibeah and prophesy along with a procession of prophets that met him. All of these things happened exactly as Samuel explained! This should have given Saul great faith in God, in His care for him, His attention on him, and His power and sovereignty. But when the lots were chosen and Saul was selected as king, he was out hiding among the stuff. Despite these very real and otherwise completely unexplainable examples of God’s power, Saul did not rise to his position that God had given him. Back to that moment of anointing – Samuel gave Saul one additional promise:

A Man After His Own Heart

1 Samuel 13:1-22

I don’t usually start out with a story, but I read a testimony this week that seemed so raw and real that I thought I should share it with you. It was written by a young woman from the country of Bhutan. She said that it is hard for her to tell her story because the wounds still feel so fresh. She feels “abused by life itself.” Born into a Buddhist-Hindu family, she had no desire for anything religious. When she was seven, her mother committed suicide, causing great conflict in her family and ruining her childhood. No one knew what drove her mother to take her own life, but people told stories and joked that her desire to embrace a new religion had driven her mad. Her father abandoned her and her sister and started a new family. “Hatred and bitterness consumed my youth,” she says.

Fear the Lord and Serve Him

1 Samuel 12:1-25

As we begin today, let’s consider, what this chapter is all about. Essentially, it is Samuel's farewell speech. One question that arises is: “Why did Samuel’s first part of his farewell speech sound like it came from a defense lawyer?”  Let’s look at some previous passages describing Samuel’s job.

The Creeds

Welcome! Today we take a one-week break from our series on Samuel and Saul to look at the creeds of the early church. One reason we are doing this today is because this afternoon we will have a family meeting to discuss, among other things, a proposed change to our Statement of Faith. We are proposing this change because Great Commission Churches, of which we are a part, has recently revised their Statement of Faith, and we would like our Statement to mirror theirs.

You may wonder why Great Commission Churches has revised their statement of faith. Well, the short answer is that there is a standing “Doctrinal Team” of elders, and although they did not find any significant errors in the previous version, they felt it was not “wordsmithed” as carefully as it could have been, and so they set on a three-year task to go through it very carefully, revisit everything freshly, and make it as excellent as possible. (The previous version was written about 25 years ago, by the way.)

Rescue in the Power of the Lord

I Samuel 11:1-15

Good Morning!  We continue today in our series Prophet and King with the unusual story of the unveiling of the first king of Israel.  Two weeks ago, we saw how Samuel pulls Saul from an obscure activity (looking for lost donkeys) and gives him VIP treatment.  Last week, the story continued in that same meeting, and Samuel anoints Saul with oil in private, saying to him, “Has not the Lord anointed you leader over his inheritance?”  After an amazing sequence of events which Samuel prophesied to Saul in advance, Saul arrives home.  When his uncle asks what Samuel said, Saul does not tell his uncle about the kingship.

Then, Samuel summons the people to Mizpah and begins the process of publically revealing the chosen king for Israel.  Keep in mind that Samuel has already anointed Saul at God’s command.  Samuel knows exactly who’s supposed to be king.  Then, they begin to choose which tribe the king will come from by lot, by “chance.”  The tribe of Benjamin is chosen.  Then, the clans  within Benjamin come forward, and Matri’s clan was chosen and so on all the way down to Saul.  It seems like the craziest activity. 

The Hidden King

1 Samuel 9:22-10:27

Welcome! Today we continue in our series on Samuel and Saul, and last week we were finally introduced to Saul. That account was given from the point of view of Saul. I want to give you a recap, but I am going to do so from the perspective of Samuel. To do this I need to go back to I Samuel 8. Samuel is now an old man, and so his sons are also full-grown. Samuel had appointed them as leaders, but unfortunately, they did not take God seriously or follow in the ways of their father. It says they turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

But Am I Not Small?

I Samuel 9:1-21

Good morning!  Today we are finally going to read and study some about the man who will be king in our series Prophet and King.  The first King of Israel will be Saul son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin.  Last week, we heard how the people of Israel had come to Samuel and rejected the leadership of the judges, and asked for a king so that they would be like the other nations around them, and they would have a leader to go before them and fight their battles.

Samuel tried to explain why this wasn’t a good idea.  God told Samuel to warn the people solemnly.  But, the people did not accept Samuel’s reasoning, even though it was the truth.  A king would take their sons and daughters as soldiers, workers, and servants.  He would take the best of their produce and crops and flocks.  At a minimum, the king would take 10%.  “But the people refused to listen to Samuel.” (8:19)

In his discussion with the people, Samuel did skip over the thing which had prompted the people to ask for a king.  That was the failure of his own sons to rule justly.  Their perversion of justice and taking of bribes in part pushed the people to think they would be better off with a king.  It is funny though how we have a hard time reasoning and making decisions.  There is no more likelihood that a judge would be corrupt than a king.  We have all fallen short, there is no one righteous, all have sinned.  It is only by God’s grace that we can live and act rightly.