The prophet's saying, listen. You have a responsibility. When you see these prophecies fulfilled, don't play the fool and act like, ooh, what a coincidence. Do what you're supposed to do. Enter into them.
Take hold of this yield salt yield. Yield to God. God helped Saul to be good. But it always faded away, and Saul never seemed to do anything to help bring it back. he could have built a fence around himself.
This is 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. The Anointing of Saul is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in 1 Samuel 10.
Samuel is calling the shots in the nation. He is the overseer. And he has a direct line with God. He is a man of prayer and effective prayer. He gets a lot done, and that comes out in this first book of Samuel.
And so the scattered worship is permitted. These men are going to Bethel and they're carrying these items with them to offer. How does one carry three goats at one time? Seems very busy to me. A lot of squirming going on.
I've never carried three goats. I don't know if they cooperate. Of course, it's kind of like a fish riding a bicycle. There's a lot of stuff going on. But the carrying, of course, is not limited to holding them off the ground.
They are in his custody. The other two are carrying the The wine and the bread, and that's not on a leash, that is in their hands, or else who wants to have the bread after it was dragged on the ground? Verse 4, and they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall receive from their hands. Again, remarkable details. The features of this prophecy just insist that, as it's said of Samuel earlier in chapter 3, none of his words fell to the ground.
And he said it had happened. That's why when Samuel showed up, people were nervous. Are you here to judge us or bless us? What is this going to be? You can't blame them.
Well, the men had these loaves With them intended these the loaves that they carried, as well as the goats and the wine. They were intended to be given to an anointed priest. But here they're being given two of them are, to Saul. And his receiving them is symbolic of his receiving the blessings and the anointings that were issued by. Samuel It is God saying, a prosperous people will support their king.
I will make them prosperous. And I will have them support you. But. No Jew that was of the word would lose sight of man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, according to Deuteronomy eight three. And Saul lost sight of that all the time.
He is again, he is the postal boy for how not to do it. Sad story, but you can't let up on him. You try to find a time to be, I'm going to be kind-hearted. Even if my approach is that I'm all right, I'm going to go easy on Saul.
Well I can't. He's not helping. We'll bring it out. Verse 5: After that, you shall come to the hill of God, where the Philistine garrison is, and it will happen when you have come to the city that you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with stringed instruments, a tambourine, a flute, a harp before them. And they will be prophesying.
Evidently they're going to a known place of worship. And Where it mentions the garrison of the Philistines. Evidently, the Philistines had an outpost there. It may have been abandoned, it may not have been, but that was one of the markers for Saul when he got to this place. He would also see these men coming and they would be singing songs, prophesying in the sense of worshiping the Lord.
As we see in the book of Acts, the daughters of Philip, you know, they were all prophesying.
Well, they weren't. God's not a chatterbox. You know, He's just, oh, and this is going to happen, and that's going to happen. These are. Acts of worship, and this is how the Old Testament primarily presents it to us.
It was inspired praise. And Saul gets Caught up in it, wondrously so. In fact, it was something that remained a part of his life. With stringed instruments, tambourine, flute, harp, Later, we're going to see Samuel leading the prophets. 1 Samuel chapter 19.
Then Saul sent messengers to take David. There he is, hunting David like a partridge. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.
So here these men are, they're scouting out, they're looking for David, and they come across Samuel leading the prophets in worship, in Psalm, and they're overtaken spiritually. They start praising God too. I will cause the wrath of man to praise him, says the psalmist. Music arrested Saul, but it would only do it for a while. And we're going to come to I, verse 6.
Then the Spirit of Yahweh will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.
So, the two different exhibitions of prophecy. One is predictive, and this other one here is, of course, full of praise and exhortations. Saul will join them in praising Yahweh. Which was brought on by the prophets in Psalm. And if Saul could be moved into the spirit, anyone can.
That's a lesson for us. If this guy can be moved in the spirit, I have no excuse. I can be moved in the Spirit. But he never cared to develop it. He never cared to seek the potential that was in him to worship God.
He never allowed God to fill him to capacity. As did In contrast, King David. and be turned into another man. And he needed that desperately. And we don't know this at this time.
It develops through the story that we wish he stayed another man. This happened when he was singing songs to the Lord. Afterwards, he just wouldn't seek God. We have no real knowledge. Even when Saul made an altar, it was about him.
When he brought worship into the situation, it was really about him. How did he look in front of the people of God? It really was never about God. 1 Samuel 16. Verse 14, but the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul in a distressing Spirit from Yahweh troubled him.
Yeah, that void, that vacancy troubled Saul.
So he has this religious experience. Uh but Unlike David, it did not stay. It did not stick because he really didn't want it to. God got in the way of what Saul wanted. Saul quenched the Spirit through his consistent, blatant disobedience.
How many people were fooled? How many people saw Saul saying, Oh, he's such a righteous man? Even when he became a full-fledged monster, there were those reluctant to say he's a monster. They couldn't call it. We see this sometimes in ministry.
You see some pastors just doing this not, in fact, not only is it unbiblical, it's antichrist. Yet, people still continue to go to that kind of church. We're going to praise the Lord. I love Jesus.
Well, claiming you love Jesus while you're trampling his word is a bad idea. Acts chapter 2. We are all his witnesses to these things. And so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. We're not talking about those who struggle with sin.
We're talking about those who don't care about struggling. They just. Want God? They just don't want His interference. They want information about God.
But again. Not his interference in their life. Saul will take no less than 24 attempts to kill David. What kind of madness is that? Here's the twelfth attempt.
Where he becomes overwhelmed in the spirit. Again, 1 Samuel 19. He went there to Naoth and Rama. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, And he went on and prophesied until he came to Naoth and Ramah. That's where Samuel was.
And he also stripped off his clothes, and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all day and night. Therefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets? Yeah, in his twelfth attempt to kill David. They just can't See it because they like him. He's tall, he's handsome.
He's just got, you know, everything that you would want. Carnally speaking, yes. These kind of bizarre events, they still take place. We find people have genuine experiences in Christianity, but really they never enter in. They go opposite.
And here's precedence from the scripture. Saul is in church just worshiping away. He's not even mindful of David at this point. If he would only stay here, he should have bought himself a banjo and just stayed in this place, but he does not. See the lessons coming off the pages.
How many times has someone claim that they've given their life to Christ and they just won't let go of the old life until finally they just give up altogether? And they're not interested in coming back most of the time, it seems. Verse 7. And let it be when these signs come to you that you do as the occasion demands, for God is with you.
So there's the prophet saying, listen. You have a responsibility. When you see these prophecies fulfilled, don't play the fool and act like, ooh, what a coincidence. Do what you're supposed to do. Enter into them.
Take hold of this. Yield, Saul. Yield. Yield to God. God helped Saul to be good.
But it always faded away, and Saul never seemed to do anything to help bring it back. He could have built a fence around himself. Three signs promised, three signs will be granted. Peter. It wasn't enough that God had given him a vision, When it was time for Peter to reach to the Gentiles and lead them into Christianity without trying to get them to become Jewish.
And so God gives him this vision of the sheet and the unclean animals in it, and God's saying, Slay and eat, Peter. And Peter said, Not so, Lord, that stuff does not touch my lips. You know, I'm a good boy. And then, of course, he sends the three men to the door from Cornelius. They knock at the door while Peter is up in prayer.
And they say, you know, the Lord comes to Cornelius' house, and Peter goes, and still he's not really he starts preaching to them, and it evidently was kind of a mundane sermon. Because the Holy Spirit interrupts his sermon and falls on them. And Peter says, Who can deny these men? Be baptized. There's a powerful series of events there in the book of Acts.
And here Saul is getting the benefit of sign after sign after sign as Peter got the indication after indication. Anyway, all of this is taking place at Mizpah, where Samuel is giving him this prophecy. We don't know how much time elapsed between the confirmations of these prophecies and the formal presentation to the people of Saul as king.
Now remember, the scriptures are really not caught up in chronology. They they will give us chronological events, but oftentimes they will Go in a different direction because steam now becomes paramount And we have to look for it. It just takes a lot of work to do it. Verse 8. You shall go down before me to Gilgal, and surely I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and make sacrifices of peace offerings.
Seven days you shall wait till I come to you and show you what. You should do. Evidently, Samuel is establishing a protocol to bring the king to the people, and there's going to be. offerings and sacrifice involved. And Samuel is pretty much saying, We're going to make you king in front of everybody, but we're not going to do that without worshiping the Lord with whole burnt offerings.
It's beautiful. moved by Samuel, of course. I don't think this is directly linked to 1 Samuel 13. We're at war with the Philistines. In fact, I'm sure it's not.
It's not to think of, I'm not sure, it's to think of I am. In this mind, that this is not connected to. Chapter 13, where he will not wait for Samuel and problems begin to arise. That probably takes place at least two years later or close to two years later.
So let's review some of this. His ascent to the throne. He is anointed here in chapter ten in the land of Zuf. Publicly, he will be proclaimed king to the people at Mizpah. In beginning in chapter 17, this is your king.
But in chapter 11, in the fifteenth verse, he is now crowned the king. in front of the people. This mention of Gilgal, Gilgal significant to the people, should have been. There are places in this nation's history that should be, you know, significant to us: Gettysburg, Concord, Yorktown. We should understand what something that took place there, other than they opened up some nice ice cream shops eventually.
We should know some of the history.
Well, the same thing with the Jews in Gilgal. That's where. God rolled the shame away from Israel's wandering in the desert because of their disobedience. They finally crossed into the promised land. And Gilgal was where they set camp up after crossing Jordan.
Eventually, as I mentioned, he will be crowned at Gilgal. Prin announced at Ms. Book, crowned at Gil Cal. He will Offer a sacrifice to God in chapter 13 at Gilgal without Samuel, which is just. Really bad.
We cost him his throne. And there also at Gilgal, Samuel will hack King Agag into pieces. Verse 9.
So it was when he had turned back to go from Samuel that God gave him another heart and All those signs came to pass that day, the spiritual. Confirmation. That he is indeed anointed by God. This is not a man thing, this is a divine thing. But God, it doesn't mean that God's gonna force him.
To serve as a godly king. No more than Jesus Christ forced Judas to serve as a godly apostle. Free will runs on. And The historian does not say he received a new heart, as he received another heart. I'm not saying it was one of the old ones left up on the shelf, and that's not certainly not the meaning.
But it is a distinction. that is not easy to get away from knowing the life of this man. That it is possible to have another view, another experience without it really touching the whole person. And when the Hebrews used the word heart, and even the Greeks, they meant the whole person. We tend to mean our feeling, you know, with all my heart.
It's an emotional thing most of the time. But for the Jew, it was. The feelings It was the brains and it was the will. And that made up the heart. You shall love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Your whole heart. Not a portion of it. And So it's significant. intellectual change. It's just not enough.
Jesus said this, remember Lot's wife? She made it out. And angels came, took her out of the city, prophesied to her: this place is going to burn out. You got to get out of here. Don't look back.
That's all we ask. Just don't look back. It was too much for her. And there she was turned into a pillar, a monument. of almost out.
So what did Saul do with this? Oh, their heart that he got.
Well, he did sing. It did show that he had the capacity for God. Later Samuel is going to turn his back on Saul because of Saul's disobedience. 1 Samuel 15, and Samuel turned around to go away. Saul seized the edge of his robe and tore it.
All those signs came to pass, That day. Saul's servant is with them the whole time. Verse 14 will tell us that. Why? God is going to put a witness to these things.
He doesn't know all that's going on. But he's going to see Saul prophesying.
So Samuel grew And Yahweh was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 1 Samuel 3:19 is happening here in chapter 10.
Now, verse 10. Then they came there to the hill, and there was a group of prophets to meet him. Then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. That's the guys with the flutes, the harp. No, it's a little harp.
It's not the big grand I don't know, did they have baby grand harps? You know, I have a grand harp, a baby grand, a console harp, upright harp. I'm harping on it, I know. From the instant Saul met Samuel. till the day of his death.
He was encircled by Godly men. Again, verse 10, when they came to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him. Then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. These were godly men. Always Saul could just reach out and touch a godly man.
Throughout his life. And he opted out. When he couldn't get godly men to kill the priests, he got Doag the Edomite to do it. Saul gave no real evidence that he hated his sin, that he hated the flesh. That he hated evil.
Instead of warring against the flesh, Saul warred against the spirit. He did. He did just that. He didn't fight his own sin. When God tried to grab hold of him, he fought that.
And this comes out when David is singing to him, and he chucks spears at David. There's a little bit more to the story, but not much more. How do you have these schizophrenic, they would say? Flips. In the presence of Worship music.
Galatians 5:17: For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But again Saul offered no resistance. Then the Spirit of God came upon him, it says here at the bottom of verse 10, and he prophesied among them, singing songs, praising God. But it was like iron mixed with clay. It would not stand, it would collapse under its own weight.
Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh? You know who does the know-it-alls? The know-it-alls in the church. They start off in the spirit.
But then they think they know more than everybody else. They're smarter than everybody else. Things aren't working out for everybody else, but it's going to work for them because, after all, they're smarter than everybody else. And then they think they're going to be made perfect in the flesh. They think that kind of attitude, God's going to somehow.
Be chummy with. And it's not true. Verse 11. And it happened when all who knew him formerly saw That he indeed prophesied among the prophets, that the people said to one another, What is this? that has come upon the son of Kish.
Is Saul among the prophets?
So the people are blown away. You kidding me, this guy? They're surprised. It's out of character with this current behavior. It appears to be a noble beginning because it is.
Ignoring Saul's ending, we just don't trust anything the guy says. It's like a guy who lies so much that his own dog won't come to him when he calls. But that's solid. You see any flare up of Okay, maybe he's getting it. Oh, you're setting yourself up for a letdown.
It's hard to minister like that because you've got to always leave the room for God to do a miracle. When, on all likelihood, the person's never going to let God do a miracle. That person has become so in rhythm with wickedness and carnality in the flesh. that they are now irretrievable. In the New Testament, we would still have to.
guard our hearts from hating a man like Saul. But we would also have to guard wisdom and not allow him to harm us, spiritually especially. Verse twelve. But who is their father? Therefore, it became a proverb: is Saul also among the prophets?
Well, you couldn't be a Levite or a priest if you just wanted to be, but a prophet, you could join the school of the prophets, so God could speak through you, and you could then become a minister of righteousness in that sense. And so one of the men of Gibe is just saying, Well, you know, the prophets, their fathers were just common people, so it's not surprising to find Saul amongst the prophets. That's fair enough. But again, wisdom is known by her children, so is righteousness. Verse 13: And when they had finished prophesying, he went to the high place.
Again to sacrifice with the prophets, more than likely. Verse 14. Then Saul's uncle said to him and his servants, Where did you go?
So he said. to look for the dockies. And when we saw that they were nowhere to be found, we went to Samuel. And Saul's uncle said, Tell me, please, what does Samuel say to you? And I don't know if this uncle just I don't like Saul.
He's a nephew I never liked. I don't trust him. I've always catched him just with the enough crumbs around us. Or if he's just a nosy uncle. But he's putting some heat on him.
These are reasonable questions. It would be prudent for Saul to not answer. Unless he's ready to r back it up. A guy like David could back it up. David just had the right comeback.
You've come to see the fight. David could have said, what fight? I don't see a fight. I see a bunch of men shaking in their sandals. He doesn't do that, but he just sort of disregards it.
Who is this Philistine? And everybody's like, boy, this guy is really laying it on Goliath. And it gets to Saul. Let me go forward because we've got some other things about Saul on that very note, about his. fears that he had.
Saul He leaves out. He's not going to tell. Verse 16.
So Saul said to his uncle, He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found, but about the matter of the kingdom, he did not tell him what. Samuel had said.
Now, I read that as though there were no quotation marks there. I'll reread verse 16.
So Samuel said to his uncle, He told us plainly. that the donkeys had been found. And then end of quotes. But about the matter of the kingdom, he, that is Saul, did not tell him what Samuel said. Yeah.
Um 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.
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