Welcome back to a year in the Bible. If this is part of your daily rhythm listening to
this podcast, then we are so glad you're here. We're in first Samuel, chapters 10 through
12 today. We talked about Saul yesterday, but today we're really going to see him emerge
as King. Right, CJ? Yep, good word. So at the very beginning, chapter 10, Saul's anointed
by Samuel. Again, we learned about the word anointed in Hannah's song, the idea of pouring
oil on someone to set them apart for the Lord. So we see that here. And then after being
anointed with oil, the Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Saul. And this might remind us of
people like Samson or Gideon, how the Spirit of the Lord, all of a sudden, comes upon them.
And that's not necessarily, that doesn't necessarily say that everything they do is good
and God ordained. It simply suggests that what they're doing is acting on behalf of God
and their capacity as being an anointed one. So then we get to the next chapter. And
Samuel again, chides Israel for rejecting God and selecting a king, the type of king
that they want. And eventually they were Samuel reveals Saul through the casting of lots,
which is sort of like fancy, God ordained, prayer, supercharged dice or something like
that. I don't know. But God uses them to convey his answers to their questions. And
Saul was hiding, which doesn't really seem to be the best first impression for a king.
But somehow the people are still impressed with his height. Again, this is going back to God
doesn't judge kings or people the way we do. They see a tall guy and they think he'd be
a powerful warrior, but God looks at the heart. So obviously that's a theme that we're
all familiar with. And that will see more and more throughout Samuel. So all right. So
Saul is now the people's king. How does he do as king? He does pretty good to start. So
the Ammonites start to bother the Israelites and the spirit of Lord rushes upon Saul and
he leads an army against them and destroys them. And then those who have been pro-sale from
the beginning, they become really zealous. And they say all those who didn't want Saul
to be king, we're going to go and kill them or whatever, harm them, beat them up. And
Saul says, well, let's not do that today. There's a victory for the Lord. Let's not do something
like that and act rashly. So in this case, it seems like Saul is acting well.
Okay. But he said he did good to start. Does that continue? Well, we're going to see
him start to mess up here in the coming chapters. Yeah. All right. So how do we conclude
our chapters today? What happens next? Yeah. So one thing that Samuel says when he's
about to, you know, when he after he annoys Saul and as people are starting to embrace
kingship, he says, fear the Lord and serve him. And that's the key that Samuel leaves Israel
with at this point. And I think that that is sort of a way to summarize the heart behind
the Old Testament, but really the heart of the new and the heart of the Christian is the
idea is to fear the Lord and follow him. And as we're going to see, Saul doesn't exactly
stay on that plan. Whereas David does his best and at least as repentant in his actions.
He doesn't always stay on the street now either. But David at least has a heart this after
the Lord. And even though we're getting ahead of ourselves, we need to see that Saul somehow
fails. But David ends up being successful and that he follows the Lord and that ultimately
points us to the one who does fear the Lord and obeys commandments in an ultimate sense
just as Samuel asked. And that leads us to Jesus who is our ultimate king. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Like you said, David is to come. I still think that gives us a picture of how
word of view, Saul and to view David. So what do we see about the Lord in these chapters?
Yeah. So again, he uses people of mixed motives to work his plans in the world. The
spirit of the Lord rushed upon Saul. And even though as we see, he's going to make a
lot of mistakes, the Lord still use those mistakes to his ends. And I think this also gives
us a reason to sort of pause and reflect on our own lives. Do we fear the Lord? Do we
try to obey his commands? Are we listening to Samuel's advice as Christians who are now
trying to follow Jesus as best we can? Yeah, I think those are really important things
for us to consider. I think my takeaway here is something that I saw drown out in the
ye study content for today. And that was from first Samuel 1222. And that verse says,
the Lord will not abandon his people because of his great name and because he has determined
to make you his own people. And so in the midst of, you know, the people making this choice
with Saul, Saul seemingly starting out great, but we know what's to come here. The Lord is
just saying, I will not abandon you because I have determined to make you my people. And so I
love that. I thought that that was a really great thing to hold on to as we continue throughout
this book. If you're reading along with us and you want to go a little bit deeper into portions
like that, we encourage you to grab a study as you can find those at a link in the show notes.
But of course, we'll be back here every day to break down as much as we can of the chapters
in just a few minutes. So we'll see you back for that tomorrow.
