Saul Steps Up! (Part 2 of 3)

When Israel finally got the king they had been asking for, it didn't take very long before they started to lose faith, both in their king and in God. So what was necessary for their faith to be restored and for Saul to be empowered to finally step up as king?

That's what we're investigating today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is teaching from 1 Samuel chapters 10 and 11. Let's start at the beginning then. At the end of chapter 10 and this question, how can this man save us? Well, the man in question, of course, was Saul himself. Now, it doesn't appear that the question is posed in light of any inadequacy in Saul.

Well, how would we know that? Well, because Saul hasn't done anything. He hasn't done anything.

You know, it's like most people elected to public office. I mean, there's no reason to start criticizing them. They haven't done anything yet. They haven't had a chance. He hasn't had a chance. He's tall.

He's handsome. He has been looking for donkeys. He's been hiding in baggage.

And he's done nothing. And he's gone home. That's what it says at the end of verse 26.

Saul also went home to his home at Gibeah. So the reason for their reaction, the reason for their concern, their disappointment, how can this man save us? Has to lie somewhere else. Now, how would we know where?

Well, by paying attention to the text. You will remember that in verse 25 of chapter 10, Samuel had made it clear to the people, telling them the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Now, Samuel, in reminding these people of the rights and the justice of the kingship, has made it clear to the people that Saul's kingship is going to be subordinate to God's kingship.

Ah, there's the problem. We wanted a king to be like all the other nations. If you're going to give as a king who is still subordinate to God as king, then we're not going to be like the other nations. And therefore, the kind of salvation that we want, which sets us free to be unlike what we really are, is not going to be ours. Therefore, how can this king save us?

Now, the underlying issue is straightforward. Verse 19 of chapter 10. Samuel says, Today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses. When you reject God as the Savior, you don't have a Savior.

It's straightforward. There's only one in whom to trust. Well, let's get into chapter 11, because the story advances, and it is in the third verse of chapter 11 that we have this next statement concerning saving, if there is no one to save us. The context here is quite dramatic. In fact, I heard some people who was a significant intake of breath when we got to the story of this gentleman, Nahash.

There's a crisis in the community of Israel, particularly amongst those from Jabesh Gilead. The problem is that a warlord by the name of Nahash, who is an Ammonite—the Ammonites were cousins of the Israelites—he is an arrogant, cruel, intimidating, Stalin-esque figure. And he has built a reputation for terrorizing his enemies, and his favorite fiendish expression of brutality is in gouging out the right eyes of his enemy. Now, unless we know something about warfare at the time, we may regard that as bizarre as well as being cruel.

But it was strategic. The soldiers, taking their shield to their left hand and their implement of destruction to their right hand, would almost inevitably find that their line of sight was obscured in the left eye, and therefore the right eye was crucial. Because with the right eye, we could see our enemy and we could advance upon him.

He knew this. Therefore, he understood that to gouge out the right eyes of the enemy is to incapacitate them completely for battle, to neutralize them, and to humiliate them. And so, he comes to intimidate and to humiliate Israel.

Now, let's just pause and acknowledge something that is important for us to recognize. Throughout the history of man, brutality, hatred, vengeance, continues. Every utopian dream eventually has to collapse before the fact that, despite history suggesting to us that a previous war was the war to end all wars and so on, to quote Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, Man's inhumanity to man makes countless millions more.

And it continues. From the very genesis of man's rebellion, the first thing you have is murder. And it is murder within the family. And the history of the world confirms this. So I refer to him as being Stalinesque, and purposefully so, because I've found this quote of Joseph Stalin himself. This is Stalin. To choose the victim, to prepare the blow with care, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed, there is nothing sweeter in the world.

Well, Nahash is right up there with him. And when he appears, notice from the text that the people are immediately ready to capitulate. Make a treaty with us, they say, and we will serve you.

And they ask for seven days to try and figure out a plan. This is not strange. I mean, is this not the same group of people that were declaring long live the king? Weren't there at least some men of valor who had accompanied Saul to his home in Gibeah that would actually stand up and say, Excuse me, we're gonna poke you in the eye or something like that?

No. What's happened to them? Well, they have forgotten what God has done for them in the past. Well, I hope you're not sitting in judgment. Have you ever forgotten what God has done for you in the past?

Have you ever found yourself in the midst of some peculiar circumstance and find yourself saying, This is unbelievably horrible and unavoidable, and I think I'm just gonna have to capitulate? What? Don't you know who God is and what he's done? You see, what God had done for them in the past, as we saw in 10, is he had been the one who brought them out of Egypt and delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. So why doesn't somebody stand up and say, Hey, wait a minute.

We've faced stuff like this before. Remember, our forefathers, they were in Egypt. They had to make bricks, and it was a horrible situation, and God did that.

But nobody says. In fact, in Joshua in chapter 5, when the people have now crossed the Jordan, remember, they set up the stones as stones of remembrance to remember God's goodness to them in the Exodus from Egypt, and now at the entry point to Canaan itself. Interestingly, in Gilgal, Joshua says to the people, he says, Today God says, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. I've rolled away the reproach.

This is a great day. Referring to the Exodus, the day is going to come when in the exile the reproach will return. When Nebuchadnezzar and the forces of Babylon come in and gather other people and take them away into exile. And the psalmist writing, By the rivers of Babylon we hanged our harps on the willow trees, and we just sat down and wept, because how could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? That day is about to come. And this day is a low point.

Is there nobody to stand up and say, Don't you remember that it's only a matter of a short time? Since Samuel took that big stone, the Ebenezer stone, and he set it up, and he said, We're gonna put this stone here so that we will be able every time we see it or every time we think about it to say what? Thus far the Lord has helped us, or up until now the Lord has helped us. Think about where you would be this morning if you're a believer, were it not for the intervening hand of God so many times helping us, so many times coming into our distress, so many times protecting us in our foolishness? Because he helps, because he is the God who saves. And yet how prone I am, how to take these foolish paths, how much do I need the reminder of the psalmist who says, You need to talk to yourself, and this is what you need to say, Bless the Lord, O my soul—so we're talking to ourselves—and forget not all his benefits.

All his benefits. When I remember what you've done for me, when I realize your purpose is for your people, when I recognize that you are the God who delivers from calamity and restores, that you are the God who's committed to redemption and to restoration and to renewing your people. How can I forget you, Lord?

That's where they are. Newton, who's known best for amazing grace, but that's not his best hymn for sure. In one of his hymns, he writes these words. Speaking of God as the subject in this, determined to save—that is, God—determined to save, he—that is, God—watched over my path. When Satan's blind slave I sported with death.

Those are graphic words. What he's referring to is the fact that he's brought up in a Christian home, he turns his back on it, he goes off his rocker, and in the midst of the storm-tossed reality as a slave-trading captain, God grabs him. And what he remembers are the words of his mother, the words of his infancy. And this is his recollection in the hymn. Determined to save, he—watched over my path. When I was Satan's blind slave and I sported with death, and then he makes the deduction—listen. And can he have taught me to trust in his name, and thus far have brought me to leave me in shame? He says, It doesn't make any sense. If he would have intervened in my life when I didn't give a rap for him, if he would come when in my rebellious heart I said, Forget that. I'll get another kind of king.

If he would do that then, do you think he'd leave me now? Now, you see, it's that logic that's missing here. And it needs to be restored.

And if it's not bad enough, look at them. In verse 4, When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul—now, you read that in the text, you go, Gibeah of Saul. We're gonna get the Saul part now.

But no, there's no part. When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matters in the ears of the world, and all the people wept aloud. What? You went to Saul's hometown, to which he'd gone home, after the Long Live the King episode, and nobody ever said, Maybe we should check with Saul.

I mean, it's terrific, isn't it? Well, what do you think had happened? Well, I think the impact of the worthless fellows was greater than the impact of the men of valor.

People like negative stuff. I don't think we can do it. Yeah, chuck it. We won't do it.

No, I think it's a hopeless situation. I tend to agree with you. And so it's pervasive. It runs through them.

And so they report the matter in the ears of the people. There's no evidence that the big, tall, handsome country boy that they pulled from the baggage hold could ever save them. And so verse 4 ends, And all the people wept aloud.

How's it going so far? Huh? We wanna have a king. We got a big, tall one—handsome.

All the girls love him. Tyde is about to turn, to which you say, Yes, I know it is, and the service is about to end. Well, let me just take you to the turning point.

At least we'll have this in mind. So, in verse 9, the word is gonna go out amongst the people, Tomorrow, by high noon, you shall have salvation. Now, actually, when you turn—in my Bible, it turns a page, so you turn the page, and it says, Now behold Saul. And so you're like, Good.

But then it's like, No. Now behold Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. Oh, good old Saul.

That's nice. Yeah. It's an interesting trajectory, isn't it? So, seeking the donkeys, hiding in the baggage, following the oxen. It would be difficult to find someone who looks less like a Savior. So there is some ground to the initial question. How can this guy save us?

He's surely gonna be able to do it on his own, that's for sure. But you remember Brutus the Cassius, in Julius Caesar there is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken of the flood leads on to fortune. And here the tide rises. And Saul, who has now arrived in the town, says, What's wrong with the people, that they're weeping? How passive is this fellow? Don't you think he ought at least know?

Would he have some people? You know, like he's got a small team like you have if you're the president or something, somebody who watches out for him, gives him a little word, he said, you know, you can at least say, I believe we have a problem here in town, and, you know, I'm Saul, I've been doing the oxen thing, and, No, there's nothing! Here he comes. What's going on here?

What's all the crying? So, they told him the news. Now, here we go. So the news dawns, and the Spirit of God rushes upon him.

Now we're about to make progress. Because what follows in the story is not as a result of human initiative, but it is a result of a divine invasion. And without that divine invasion, then Saul would be aware of what Jesus made his followers aware of when he was present, when he said to them, Apart from me, you can do nothing. And it is in the awareness of that nothingness. And in the provision of that somethingness, in the divine rush of God, that this story resolves itself.

There are a number of ways in which I could conclude, and here's my decision. If this is a point or two of the story of salvation that God who saves, if God comes in Jesus to save, that presupposes that men and women need to be saved. That then makes it clear to us that either I have embraced that salvation or I have rejected that salvation. So, if it is a gospel story, the gospel is, first of all, to be believed. Question, do I believe it in a not intellectual assent way, but in a sitting-down way? And the gospel that is to be believed is then to be proclaimed.

And it is to be proclaimed in such a way that an alien world is made aware of the fact that we have good news to make known. And if you find yourself uncomfortable with the battle stories of the Old Testament, realize this—that in the New Testament, the apostles pick up the battle metaphor and they apply it to the proclamation of the gospel. They say, We do not wrestle against flesh and blood. They say that the weapons of our warfare—because it's not a physical battle, it is a spiritual battle—in other words, they would be perfectly comfortable by singing onward Christian soldiers marching as to war. It's a very unpolitical picture, isn't it, now?

Unpolitically correct picture. The gospel is not a business venture. It's a battle. The preachers of the gospel were not marketers. We're messengers.

We're town criers. The message is an unpalatable message. If you compromise the message, you can increase your crowd. If you stay with the message, you diminish the crowd, because the people don't want to face the message.

And if you and I this morning are uncomfortable with that metaphor, it is probably—because we have never understood the enormity of the task and of the essential requirement not only on the part of Saul to fulfill the role of king but on the part of each of us to invite our friends to Community Day, the essential part of the divine rush of the Spirit of God. For us, Zerubbabel said, it's not by might. It's not by power. It's not by being tall. It's not by being handsome. It's not by the acclamation of the people.

It's not by any of that. But by my Spirit says the Lord. And in that is our confidence.

It's fantastic. So you want to say to one another, hey, church, arise and put your armor on. When we face trying times and we will, our faith is restored as we recall who God is and what he's done in our lives and throughout history.

That's Alistair Begg. You're listening to Truth for Life. It is a privilege for us to open the pages of the Bible with you each day on this program to learn what God's Word has to say. We trust you're growing in your relationship with Jesus as you listen and we hope that your children and grandchildren are growing in their understanding of the gospel as well. Biblically solid storybooks are a great help in that regard and today we want to recommend to you a bundle of three hardcover picture books designed to teach young children about Jesus. The first book is titled The Storm That Stopped. It tells the well-known story of Jesus calming the sea. The second book is Jesus and the Lion's Den. It introduces young children to the story of Daniel and teaches them how the book of Daniel points forward to Jesus. The third book is a seek and find book.

It's a book your preschooler will enjoy searching for more than 400 hidden pictures while you teach them eight important stories from the New Testament. You can view the inside pages and purchase the three book bundle for our cost of just ten dollars when you visit truthforlife.org slash gifts. And when you add a donation to your order today we want to send you Alistair's new book Truth for Life 365 Daily Devotions volume 2. The book is our way of saying thanks.

It's a brand new release. It presents another year of daily reflections on passages for more than 50 books in the Bible. Again visit truthforlife.org slash gifts to request Truth for Life 365 Daily Devotions volume 2 when you add a donation at checkout today. I'm Bob Lapine. So what is it that changed Saul from a reluctant young man hiding in the baggage to a fearless leader in battle? We'll take a closer look tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.