Samuel Presents Saul to the People (1 Samuel 10:17-27)

5/12/2010 7:40 AM

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY

 

My Worship Time                    Focus:  Samuel presents Saul to the people

 

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  1Samuel 10:17-27

 

            Message of the verses:  “17 ¶  Thereafter Samuel called the people together to the LORD at Mizpah; 18  and he said to the sons of Israel, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ’I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’ 19  "But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, ’No, but set a king over us!’ Now therefore, present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your clans." 20  Thus Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. 21  Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the Matrite family was taken. And Saul the son of Kish was taken; but when they looked for him, he could not be found. 22  Therefore they inquired further of the LORD, "Has the man come here yet?" So the LORD said, "Behold, he is hiding himself by the baggage." 23  So they ran and took him from there, and when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. 24  Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? Surely there is no one like him among all the people." So all the people shouted and said, "Long live the king!" 25  Then Samuel told the people the ordinances of the kingdom, and wrote them in the book and placed it before the LORD. And Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his house. 26  Saul also went to his house at Gibeah; and the valiant men whose hearts God had touched went with him. 27  But certain worthless men said, "How can this one deliver us?" And they despised him and did not bring him any present. But he kept silent.”

            Saul from the beginning of being king over Israel showed his emotional side, and that emotional side was not a consistent thing, but kind of a roller coaster ride all of his life as will be seen in the coming chapters.

            As stated in a previous SD I believe that the Lord was giving the children of Israel a king of their own choosing even though it was God who chose Saul to be the first king of Israel.  It is stated here that Saul was taller than any other man at this assembly and this was probably pleasing to the children of Israel for they wanted a king who would fight for them and win the battles, but they left out the most important thing and that was that their king would by a godly man and Saul was not a godly man, but only seemed to use the Lord as a kind of a good luck charm when the time was right to use Him.

            When Saul was chosen as king he could not be found, for he was hiding, and there are some who would think the reason was because he was humble, and yet as I write the following from Dr. Wiersbe commentary on 1Samuel it will be made clear that Saul was certainly not a humble person:  “—true humility accepts God’s will while at the same time depending on God’s strength and wisdom.  As Andrew Murray said, ‘True humility isn’t thinking meanly of one’s self; it’s simply not thinking of one’s self at all.’”  This was not the case of Saul.

            God chose some men to work with this new king and they went with him to assist him and some gave him presents, while others showed that they did not want him as king even though they heard from Samuel that Saul was the one the Lord had chosen, however Saul did nothing about this situation, and yet there would come a time when he wanted to kill his own son for tasting some honey.

            Samuel, at this meeting in Mizpah, again told the people that they had sinned in asking for a king, and then he went on telling them how a king should act as was written in the Law of Moses.  “14 ¶  "When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, ’I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,’ 15  you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman. 16  "Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, ’You shall never again return that way.’ 17  "He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. 18  "Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19  "It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, 20  that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.”  This is from Deuteronomy 17:14-20 and after reading over this section of Scripture it becomes clear that none of the kings seemed to follow all of these laws that God had given for the king.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think that after reading over this section of Scripture and some of the one’s before this that I surely agree with Warren Wiersbe in saying that I must be careful in what I ask the Lord for, for many times the Lord will use what a person asks for to discipline or punish them because they are not asking with a pure motive or other wrong reasons. 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

 

1. Trust the Lord to align my hearts desire with what is His plan for my life and then pray for that desire He gives me.
2. Give myself to the Lord for worship and service today.
3. Trust the Lord to guide my path today.
4. Trust the Lord to search my heart to see if there is any unconfessed sin that needs to be confessed.

 

5/12/2010 8:21 AM