Man, it was just so final, so cold. But that's what truth is! The truth is it just doesn't care. Doesn't say, well let me bake you a cake and see if we can, you know, try to convince you.
So, as I mentioned earlier, some prefer kindness over God's truth, and as such, They don't come into the truth. They do not become carriers of light. They actually work against it. They think they know better because of their feelings. You're listening to Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 1 Samuel chapter 9 as he begins a brand new study called Meeting Saul. 1 Samuel chapter 9.
Meeting Saul I intend to be fair in my analysis of Saul. But fair in Uh I don't know, positive. are not the same thing. And truth and facts are not changed by our feelings, regardless of how passionate we may be. Be about those feelings.
Saul turns out to be a fool. This chapter is laced with Hints About just how shallow this man is. And I'm not sure it's intentional, the writer, the historian, Samuel being a part of it. The Holy Spirit is certainly intentional on his part. Other evil characters in the scripture come to mind just from this book of Samuel, these two books.
There's Nabal the Fool. Wouldn't want to be married to him. Doe egg, the savage, wouldn't want him in my neighborhood. Amnon, the rapist, the incestuous rapist, certainly wouldn't want him in my family. John Adab, his sickening friend, Don't need friends like that.
And then of course Absalom. what we would probably say a narcissist. but a dangerous one at that. Yet, all those men did not cause as much grief. unnecessary grief, as did Saul.
though Absalom comes close. And so we'll be spending The rest of the book of First Samuel, considering this man. Who His character loaded with lessons for us. Young men don't be this way. Old men don't be this way.
Be on guard. Verse 1. There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish. Benjamite A mighty man of power.
Now if you wanna go read those difficult names uh You can. But Kish is his father's name. He was a man of influence. He was a man of wealth. The Bible says in the Hebrew, he was a gibor.
He was a mighty man. A man of power. Nimrod was a mighty hunter and a gee bore, And Kish is a man of wealth. Boaz was said to have been a gibor, a man of wealth and means. And Saul was from a rich And powerful family of the tribe of Benjamin.
Okay, that's his background. We know that he's uh A rich kid. That's not bad in itself. There are others in scriptures who are rich kids, and they turn out to be quite fine.
So that. Does not Excuse his behavior that we'll come across in the following chapters.
Now, if you've never read about Saul, if you never heard about him, and you come to this ninth chapter, you may miss. All of thee. Lessons that are attached to some of the things about him in this early stage. And looking at verse 2 now, and he had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsome person Than he among the children of Israel.
From his shoulders upward, he was taller than. any of the people. And so the son of Kish, Kish, this mighty man, had this handsome, tall son. This is his external Appearance Visually, he will satisfy the profile of what the people think a king. I should carry.
And they had great expectations for one such as this. And when we get to the next chapter in chapter 10. In twenty-four we'll read the people when they see him, long live the king. But then in verse 27, I think it is, of chapter 10.
Some of the men said, We don't like this guy. Who's he? He's not going to deliver us. And so that's what he'll be up against. But here he is, tall, handsome, rich, but.
Already a series of clues concerning his shallowness are starting to show up. There's no mention here in verse 2 of any care for God. It's all external. There's not, you know, he was tall, he was handsome. And he loved the Lord.
None of that. Says from his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of the people.
Well, this would impress the pagan kings, the people who clamored for a Jewish king, and he will be their first king. They would have loved this part about him, his stature, satisfied their imagination. They were confident. in his looks and his appearance. In fact, so much so when Samuel goes to anoint Saul and he stands in front of David's eldest brother and he's tall and he's impressed.
Surely this is God's anointed. And it was not.
So by the time this is over, Saul will make it easy for us to dislike him. Because he starts out with these appealing you know, external features that he could have used for the king. He could have used for God. Instead, he turns all of them to himself. No one else.
It was all him. David will make it easy. to love him, but Saul will not do that. Saul's sins were spiritual in origin. That's with his problem.
You know, all our problems are. Are spiritual, sin-related. That's why God is so against sin. And you preach it, and people come to church, some of them come to church, they don't want to hear about the sin. But God is saying, this is the problem we got to work with.
And you know, I don't want to hear it. I like my sin, leave me alone. You're making me feel uncomfortable. God is saying, I'm not telling you you can be perfect, I'm telling you to try to be perfect. When it comes To your spiritual walk in Christ.
And we all know one of the most difficult things to be. As a Christian, is loving towards those we don't find so lovable. And it is Still, the demand placed upon us.
So, appearances can be deceiving. You can come to church and you can sit through sermons and you can act like you're interested, you can take notes, but what are you going to do with those notes? Are they going to enter the heart? You go back and look at them and say, Lord, what do I do with this? And some seem to get away with fooling.
Everyone. Because everyone seems to be looking on the outside. But then now and again, there are those that are frustrated because they can see beyond the outside appearance, they know. No one at this point is detecting anything wrong in Saul. We know 'cause we know the story.
In the book of Genesis, when The angels were to get Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah because God said, you know, the. Time for judgment. Genesis 19.
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, Get up and get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy this city. But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.
So he knew judgment was coming, but they wouldn't receive it.
So sometimes you can come across a person like Saul and you see this guy is no good and no one else can see it. Another example of this kind of human behavior, on a positive note, is at the resurrection of Christ. When they came back and they said, He's risen, Luke 24, verse 11. Their words seem to be like idle tales, and they did not believe them. And so, all this says to us: discernment is necessary, the ability to see what is going on.
Because God, you're working, you're in fellowship with God, and He's revealing these things, and you're responding to them. That's what a discernment is. It's not natural. Spiritual discernment is something that comes from a relationship with God. There are other types of discernment for sure.
But spiritual discernment is supposed to run deeper. You're supposed to be able to tell: okay, you know, there's a devil involved here, this is demonic.
Well, this is the full-blown sin.
Something's not right.
Now, it doesn't want to make us all paranoid and judgmental of everybody. I'm watching you, buddy. I got a bad feeling about you. That's not discernment.
So God looks at the inside. Because he knows 1 Samuel now. Yahweh said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance.
Now, this, for those of you who don't know, I'm reading from 1 Samuel chapter 16.
Now, fast forwarding to when Samuel will be sent to replace Saul and anoint David. The replacement. won't happen instantly, but he will be anointed king right away. And so Samuel goes to the sons of Jesse, to the house of Jesse, to look at his sons, which one he's going to anoint. As I mentioned, he gets in front of the eldest brother.
And Yahweh said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For Yahweh does not see a man. as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, But Yahweh looks at the heart.
So there's Samuel, the great prophet. At this point in chapter 9, before Saul, he's looking at the outside. Yeah, he's just like he's going to be the king. That's where it's going to go. But later, when he gets in front of David, God corrects him.
Who said, I gave the people the king they were looking for.
Now I'm giving you the king that I'm looking for. That one was built By the people's imagination, this one, this one has a heart after me. The same, a similar thing happened with Absalom. That rotten son and David had a bunch of them. As I mentioned, Amnon, the incestuous rapist, that was one, and then there's Absalom, the The murderous who tried to kill his father.
2 Samuel 14.
Now in all Israel there was no one who was praised as much as Absalom for his good looks. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him. Not on the outside, but inside he was rotten. And of course That long luxurious G Q hairdo that he had. left him hanging between heaven and earth on a prime target for Joab the chainsaw.
who skewed him.
So What is inside is what counts. Yet, even what's on the inside can be deceitful. The heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Who could know it? And so we have to be on guard for everything, always giving it our best.
Verse 3.
Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost, and Kish said to his son, Saul, please take one of the servants with you, arise, and go look for the donkeys. And so we've we've met Sa uh Kish, his father. He was a a wealthy man. Gibor in the Hebrew. And then we've met Saul, taller than everybody else and handsome in appearance.
And now the father says to the son, I'm sending you on a mission. My donkeys are gone, which is an indication of his wealth. And He says, take a servant, another indication that he was wealthy. And take a servant with you.
Now, Jewish tradition says that this servant was Doag. I disagree with that because we're going to find this servant is on the ball. He's he's sensitive to spiritual things. Doag was a monster. And an Edomite, not he wasn't a monster because he was an Edomite, a non-Jew.
But he was a monster because he was a monster. And he had no problem killing the priest, and we'll come across that much later. But verse 4 now.
So he passed through the mountains of Ephraim and through the land of Shalisha, but They did not find them. And then they Pass through the land of Shalalim and And they were not there. And then they passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they did not find them. And so, what the historian Samuel, of course, involved in this history is setting up for us is that. They are looking for these donkeys, but God is in this.
This is going to be a divine arrangement. God is steering Saul and his servant to Samuel. And we read this story and we say, well, if God can do it for a man like Saul, He can still do it for us who believe. And of course, the Bible is filled with this kind of. Lesson.
The difficult part is he doesn't do it moment by moment. These great moments of spiritual intervention are spread out. Paul the Apostle had more than his share, and he said, because of that, God sent a messenger from Satan to buffet me, to keep me from getting. becoming full of myself.
Well, verse 5 now: when they had come to the land of Zuf, Saul said to his servant, who was with him, come let us return. Lest my father cease caring about the donkeys and become worried about us.
Now we're getting to some of the meat of this. This is the first time we hear the voice of Saul. and he's concerned for his dad. This remark indicates that it he has some Goodness about him in his character. He's not a He's not a you know, he's not a creepy at.
he will evolve into that. No man suddenly becomes base. although I did have a nephew. That's another story. You know, he's going to have every opportunity.
By the time we get to chapter 10, Samuel's going to say, The Spirit of God's going to come on you, and He's going to be with them singing songs to the worshiping the Lord. And then he's going to forget about it and go back to being what he wants to be. But this is decent enough. He's a caring son. He's worried, I don't know, my dad's going to not be worried about a donkey.
He's going to be thinking, what happened to us? But it's not enough. It's not enough to be caring if you're going to serve God. That's a a good it's a you need to have that. But that alone is not sufficient.
There are many who serve humanity and don't serve God, and they are kind. One of the big problems with The so-called Mother Teresa, she had a kind heart for humans, but She was uh a heretic. She believed always led to heaven. Jesus said, What does it profit a man if he gains the world, loses his soul?
Well, she was saying, I'm making people comfortable to go to the next life, even though they don't know about Jesus Christ. I'm not telling them. It's essentially how it went down. A lot of people don't like to hear that. Because they don't they think That truth is secondary to kindness.
God's truth is secondary to kindness. God says they go together. Truth and love, they don't get separated, and kindness is a part of love. What use is love if you're mean? It's indicating you're not loving.
Had Saul shown God the Father the care he showed his earthly father? It would have been a different story. Caring for the feelings of those nearest to us. is still not enough. Gangsters can be very kind to their family.
I mean, they are drug lords that are very kind to their children.
Well, they're getting other people's children strung out on all sorts of drugs. and other vicious things. Thug love. Nobody needs that. It's hellish.
But On the surface, this is still a good start. God is not altering his truth because someone doesn't like his truth. And that's, you know, the facts really aren't interested. I mean, what your opinion is of them. They're going to remain the facts whether you protest or not.
It is up to us to decide what truth. Truth makes a demand on us when we hear when someone comes to the church and they've never heard the gospel, and we tell them you're a sinner before the eyes of a holy God and you can be forgiven, but you've got to come through Christ, that is a fact. And you don't have to like it, you can like it. But it's not going to change. Matthew 22, verse 16, they're sending those to Jesus.
He says, And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, they're addressing Christ. We know that you are true and teach the way of God and truth. Nor do you care about anyone, for you do not regard the person of men.
Now it makes it sound like he's just this insensitive brute. while he's healing people and changing their lives, right? But what they're saying is that Christ sticks with the truth and he does not move from it because people don't like him sticking with the truth. Yeah, I heard a I don't know, fifth North High School sometime. Ninth grade, or something, she was an older lady, an English teacher, and she would say, And it was It was not original, but coming from her at her age, if you don't like it, you can lump it.
What does that mean? I thought I'll lump you. But essentially, he was saying it's too bad, there's nothing you can do about it. My mom would say tough. Oh man, that was like what's for dinner, Mom.
Cereal What? Tough. She said, You had to live with this. Yeah, see, I hated it. There's something inside of me.
I mean, I didn't let her know. She throws something at me. But. Man, it was just so final, so cold. But that's what truth is.
The truth is it just doesn't care. The husband said, well, let me bake you a cake and see if we you know, try to convince you.
So, as I mentioned earlier, some prefer kindness over God's truth, and as such, They don't come into the truth. They do not become carriers of light. They actually work against it. They think they know better because of their feelings. That doesn't feel right.
Well, but is it right? Others suppose that they are exempt from kindness because of truth. That's the flip side. I have the truth. I don't have to be kind to you.
I know the gospel, and too bad for you if I'm mean. That's wrong, too. Again, Christian kindness is built on truth and love, and those two are not separated.
Well, verse six And he said to him, Look, Look now, there is in this city a man of God, and he is an honorable man. All that he says surely comes to pass, so let us go there perhaps he can show us the way. that we should go.
Now this is the servant. that is speaking to us now. And He knew where the man of God was. Saul did not. The servant is initiating this.
And that, of course, is attracted to us. The servant knew that this man was reliable. That he was honorable. Saul did not. The servant was ready to make an offering to the man of God.
Saul was not. These are the little hints that are coming out, this contrast that are built into the story. The servant becomes a dominant figure while Saul is disconnected at this point. As the man of God is introduced But to the story. And the man of God is an honorable man.
Those two should not be disconnected, going back to truth and love. That's the honorable facet of our faith. The men of God fail. But they retain Honor through perseverance, through pursuing nonetheless the things that God has put before them. This is what makes David so special over Saul, is David failed also.
which say David persevered in paths of righteousness.
So here's Israel's future king. And he doesn't recognize that there's Samuel around, and the Bible has already told us that Samuel was known in 1 Samuel chapter 3. And all Israel from Dan to Bathsheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of Yahweh.
So why doesn't he know about him? Later on in chapter 10, we'll find out that his uncle, Saul's uncle, knew about Samuel. Why is Saul so removed from the whole thing? Is it because? His house was rich enough, but they really didn't need a spiritual leader.
Were they that self-important and so successful that Who needs the help of a prophet? We're doing pretty good with all of our. Possessions.
So let us go up there. Perhaps he can show us the way to go. Then Saul said to the servant, But look, if we go, What shall we bring the man? You see? He's supposed to be the next king.
He's supposed to be the master. The other one's the servant. He's acting like he's the follower. He says, For the bread now vessels is all gone. And there is no present to bring The man of God.
What do we have? And so of course he's thinking on Carnal plane. He's not thinking about the spiritual man. It's just somewhat common to bring a gift of gratitude. Pay your way.
But let's be careful of this proverb found in Ecclesiastes 10. Money answers everything.
Solomon said that. He had a lot of money. Of course, he found out money does not answer everything, but it answers a lot of things.
So you have to be careful. The Bible comes and tells us right out, yeah, money is an excellent tool. but it is a vicious master. If you use money as a servant, then that is a good thing. But if you become its servant, that is a bad thing.
Verse 8: Then the servant answered Saul again and said, Look, I have here. At hand, one-fourth of a shekel of silver, I will give that to the man of God to tell us our way.
Sort of treating him like fortune tellers, the prophets like fortune tellers. But here we have the empty-handed Saul. who was also empty headed, but the servant is ready. See, these little hints, if you know the story, you say, Well, you're reading into it. No, I'm not.
So It is there on purpose. Warning us not to be so shallow when it comes to spiritual things, to be more in tune, not so insensitive. A person that uh Can scarf down Philet Mignon like he can scarf down, you know, baloney. Doesn't even chew and make it A distinction between the two. Would you serve that person in Philemon if they give him bologna?
Keep the good stuff for me. I don't know if you all get that.
Some of you, I know, got it, but I don't know if there's younger ones, maybe you didn't get it. Be sensitive to what God is doing. Don't miss it. You won't grow shorter. By being sensitive.
to things of the spirit. And if you don't have it, if you say, I've tried, I just don't get it.
Well, have you asked God? Usually, well, not usually, but I've heard them say, yes, I have, and I know they really.
Well, if you have. then you have the lesson is to persevere. to push through. to not abandon. to not dictate to God.
Okay, I've asked, you've got now two days to answer me, or else I'm moving on. Call out to you. Yeah. Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia.
Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel. If you'd like to listen again to this or other messages or share it with someone you know, please visit Crossreference Radio.com. Here, you can also listen to interviews with Pastor Rick to learn more about his life and ministry. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast so you'll never miss another edition. All you have to do is find us on your favorite podcast app.
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