Let's turn to 1 Samuel.
I mentioned that Samuel was the last judge
of Israel.
And after that, we have the first king.
And the story begins with his mother, who
was barren, not having children.
And it's interesting to see how in scripture
there were many women like this in the
Old Testament.
Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and now Hannah.
From all of whom, after a period of
barrenness, they sought God in prayer and they
had a son.
Each of them gave birth to a son
that had a unique place in God's purpose.
They did not accept their barrenness and let
it go like that.
They began to seek God earnestly about it.
And that's how God's purpose was fulfilled.
And there's something in this, when a woman
is barren, in those days it was considered
very disgraceful not to have a child.
That drove them to God.
So we can say that all these children
born to these women were born in prayer,
intense prayer.
Most pregnant wives will pray for their children,
but for these people, it was very intense.
And it's very wonderful when a child is
born into the world in an atmosphere of
intense prayer that the mother has gone through
over a long period of time.
And that's the beginning of Samuel's life.
He was born with perhaps years of prayer.
And we find Hannah going up and praying
to the Lord for this child.
And finally, she says in verse 11 in
chapter 1, she made a vow and said,
Lord, if you will indeed look upon the
affliction of your maidservant and remember me and
not forget your maidservant, but will give her
a son, I will give him to the
Lord all the days of his life.
See, there's a shift in her focus there.
First of all, she was thinking of her
need.
I need a son.
And then she thought, well, if I have
one, I'll give it to the Lord.
The Lord has need as well.
You know, when the focus of our prayer
shifts from our need to God's need, that's
when we can get an answer to our
prayer.
Just like we were considering in an earlier
study, the Lord taught us to pray, Hallowed
be thy name.
There was a great need at that time
in Israel.
And if Hannah was a person who was
alert to her surroundings, you know how it
was in the time of the judges.
It was chaos.
God's people were backslidden so badly.
There was a great need for someone who
could be raised up as a prophet.
And Hannah began to think of that and
said, Lord, not just I will dedicate my
son to you, but a razor will never
come on his head.
He will be a Nazirite dedicated to you.
And if you can use him to restore
this nation back to you, he's yours.
Her whole prayer shifted from her own need
to God's.
Very often our prayers are not answered because
it's focused so much on ourselves.
And it's wonderful that Samuel was born into
such an atmosphere.
And we read that when she did conceive
in verse 20, she was very faithful to
her promise and brought her son to the
temple there to Eli, the high priest, and
said in verse 27 of chapter one, for
this boy, I prayed and the Lord has
given me my petition.
And so I have dedicated him to the
Lord as long as he lives.
He is dedicated to the Lord.
I'm never going to take him back.
And she taught that little three-year-old
boy to a four-year-old, whatever he
was to kneel down and worship the Lord
there.
It's wonderful to have a godly mother like
that.
If you have had one like that, you're
blessed.
Samuel was.
And she praised this wonderful prayer in chapter
two.
See, Samuel grew up to be the man
who changed the face of Israel from the
chaotic situation that there was in the book
of Judges that we considered into the glorious
reign of David.
Samuel was the link between the book of
Judges and the kingdom of David.
And Hannah's prayer was what led to Samuel
being born.
Now, the leader at that time was a
man called Eli, the high priest.
And it says in verse 12 that his
sons were worthless men, godless men who had
no fear of God.
It's very sad when a high priest has
children who are godless, who have no fear
of God.
And what is worse, when they begin to
take part in the ministry.
I mean, if they are godless and go
and do something else, that's okay.
But these people were godless, and they were
there in the temple, helping their father in
the ministry with absolutely no fear of God.
They did not know the Lord.
And they would steal from the sacrifices, and
they would commit adultery with the women in
the temple.
And Eli's response to all this was very,
very weak.
It says in chapter 2 and verse 22,
Eli was very old, and he heard all
that his sons were doing.
And what does he tell them?
He doesn't turn them out of the ministry
and say, get out of here, don't dishonor
the Lord, if you're going to live like
that.
No, he says in verse 24, my sons,
it's not good what I hear.
And he's so spineless and weak in the
way he corrects his children.
I mean, forget correcting his children as far
as his family is concerned.
Here, God's people were involved, and he would
not correct his children.
But in contrast to those godless children was
Samuel, who grew up, it says in verse
26, in stature and in favor, both with
the Lord and with men.
And we read further in chapter 3 how
Samuel's ministry begins.
Because God was fed up with Eli, and
he sent a man of God to Eli
in verse 27 of chapter 2 and told
him that your ministry is finished, because your
children are dishonoring me and dishonoring my sacrifice.
And verse 29, the middle, he says, Eli,
your sin is that you honor your sons
more than you honor me.
And then we find this wonderful verse, which
is a very good verse for us to
remember all through our life.
In the middle of verse 30, the Lord
says, those who honor me, I will honor.
And those who despise me will be lightly
esteemed.
It's a wonderful verse to live by.
If you honor God, you can be sure
that he will honor you.
Eli did not honor God in the way
he dealt with his children, and therefore he
suffered, and his children suffered too.
But Samuel was different.
In the midst of all this godless surrounding,
Samuel, this little boy, grew up, and he
did not allow himself to be influenced by
the godlessness around him.
And that's the example for all of you
and us who are living today, particularly if
you're young.
If you can not be influenced by the
godlessness you see around you, you may go
into a church situation and find compromise.
But you should not allow yourself to be
influenced by that.
And if you can be like Samuel, steadfast
in your devotion to the Lord, without being
corrupted, God can raise you up to be
a voice in that situation.
And that's what we see in the case
of Samuel.
When he was asleep one day, he heard
a voice saying, Samuel, Samuel, and he thought
Eli was calling him, chapter 3.
And a number of times that voice came,
and then Eli realized that the Lord was
calling Samuel, and he told him to ask
the Lord to speak to him.
So in verse 10, the Lord came, chapter
3, verse 10, the Lord came and spoke
to Samuel and said, Samuel, Samuel, and Samuel
said, speak, for thy servant is listening.
It was in the middle of the night.
Here is an attitude that all of us
must have all through the day, all through
our lives.
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
God didn't give Samuel a warning saying, tonight
at midnight, I'm going to come and speak
to you.
He had to be alert.
Throughout scripture, you find that the prophets, suddenly
they would hear God speaking.
On such and such a day of such
and such a month, God would speak.
And then for two, three months, there'd be
nothing.
And then you read that on such and
such a day of another month, God again
spoke to them.
They were in that state of alertness all
the time.
And God speaks only to those who are
eager to hear his voice and who always
have this attitude, speak, Lord, your servant is
listening.
You know, your life and your ministry can
be totally different.
If you have that attitude, God may speak
to you directly from your, in your heart.
In the middle of the night, he may
speak to you as you're reading his word.
He may speak to you in a meeting.
He may speak to you through a brother
or a sister.
He may speak to you while you're in
the midst of other people.
He may speak to you when you're alone.
There are many ways in God, which God
speaks, but we must always have this attitude
of Samuel, speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
And that's what enables Samuel to grow up,
to be a prophet of God.
When he listened, he could speak what God
told him and God told him, I'm going
to judge Eli for his sin.
And in the morning, when Eli called Samuel
and said, what did the Lord say to
you?
Samuel told him verse 18, everything, even though
it was bad news for Eli, he told
him everything.
A true servant of God is like that.
Even though Eli had been very kind to
Samuel, Samuel did not hesitate to tell him,
God says, he's going to judge you for
the way you have brought a curse upon
yours, the way your sons have brought a
curse on themselves.
And you did not rebuke them.
And it says in Samuel grew verse 19.
This is a wonderful verse.
It's a great challenge for those of us
who minister the word.
It's, it says here that Samuel grew and
did not, and the Lord did not allow
any of his words to fall to the
ground.
Isn't that a great challenge for you and
me that we seek the Lord so that
when we minister God's word in the different
situations, God calls us to whether to unbelievers
or believers, that not one word we speak
falls to the ground, wasted.
Every word should go straight home to people's
hearts, not just in the ministry of the
word, but in private conversation as well.
Think if in our private conversation, and we
have a lot of conversation every day with
each other that we are so godly that
the words that come out of our mouth
are not wasted words, but words that go
straight home to people's hearts.
The Lord was with Samuel.
That was the secret.
We saw that earlier too.
The Lord was with Joseph.
The Lord was with Samuel and did not
allow a single word that he spoke to
fall to the ground.
I want to encourage you to yearn for
such a form of ministry and conversation.
And all Israel, verse 20, knew that Samuel
was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord.
Now this was a time, as we read
in chapter 3 verse 1, the last part
of it, when word from the Lord was
very rare and visions were infrequent.
There was no prophet for years.
And when there is no prophet, it is
an indication that God has given up on
his people.
Throughout the period of the judges, there were
kings, but there were no prophets.
The last prophet was Joshua, perhaps.
And he too was more of a military
warrior, Moses perhaps.
And since that time, there was no prophet
who came forth with a word from the
Lord for years.
And then, at last, Israel knew.
God had finally raised up a man.
They could listen to him.
He was a young man.
And that's the thing that encourages all of
you young people.
Samuel was not an old man.
You don't have to wait till you're 50
years old to serve the Lord.
Samuel started serving the Lord when he was
so young, less than 10 years old, and
grew up.
And by the time he was 20, he
was a prophet.
What was the secret?
He was listening.
His attitude always was, speak Lord, your servant
was listening.
He had a serious attitude towards the word
of God.
In chapter 4, we read of a time
when the Israelites were fighting the Philistines.
And there's just one thing I want to
point out here in this chapter, which is
interesting.
That when they were defeated, verse 3, Israel,
the elders said, why has the Lord, chapter
4, verse 3, defeated us today?
Perhaps it's because we have not brought the
Ark of the Covenant here.
They didn't realize that they were defeated because
of their sin.
Now when you live in sin and worship
idols and live for the things of this
earth, even if you have the Ark of
the Covenant, that's not going to bring any
victory.
That's only a symbol.
You can have the symbol without God.
You can break bread and drink the cup
and not have fellowship with the Lord.
That's only a symbol.
And here we read that, so they brought
the Ark.
And when the Ark came, they shouted so
greatly, verse 5, that the whole earth began
to tremble.
Now some people think that if you shout
a lot, God will be there.
No, not necessarily.
The first time, it says, the Philistines killed
4,000 people, verse 2.
Then Israel brought the Ark of the Lord
and shouted hallelujah and praised the Lord and
all that.
And then they went into battle.
And this time, verse 10, 30,000 Israelites
were killed.
It was much worse.
Now there's something we can learn from that,
that you can't bring God into a situation
by bringing the symbols and the rituals and
by shouting and praising.
Now there are a lot of churches where
it's the ritual and the symbol and the
shouting, that's the main thing.
But they had all this, and they were
more defeated at the end of it.
It's a good conscience that God looks for.
It's a freedom from worshiping other gods, from
living for this world that God looks for.
Then only the symbols that God has established
have meaning.
Then only our shouting and praising the Lord
has meaning.
So that's just in passing that we see
there.
Now we finally read of a time when
the Philistines captured the Ark and they got
into a lot of trouble because of that,
and then they sent the Ark back.
They placed it on a cart, we read
in chapter 6 verse 8, and sent it
back.
Now we read in chapter 7 verse 15,
we move towards the end of Samuel's life.
Samuel judged Israel all the days of his
life.
And we read that he was frequently traveling.
He used to go annually on a circuit
to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, and he
judged in all these places, and he was
traveling so much that he had not much
time for his family.
Now I hear it's a warning for those
who are serving the Lord and who are
traveling so much that they have no time
to bring up their children in the ways
of God, particularly when the children are small.
And I want you to see what happened
here.
Samuel was traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling.
He was serving the Lord, he was doing
so many things, and he didn't have much
time for his wife and children, and there
he was traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling.
And then he would return to Ramah for
his house was there once in a while,
and then he traveled again.
And what was the result?
His sons, it says the next three verses,
you must read those three verses together, Acts
1 Samuel 8.
It came about when Samuel was old, he
appointed his sons as judges over Israel.
That was a big mistake.
Samuel made mistakes too.
He had no business to appoint his sons
as judges.
God never called him.
And apart from that, it says in verse
3, his sons did not walk in his
ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and
took bribes and perverted justice.
What do we see there?
Samuel had preached to Eli how to bring
up his children.
And now he failed in his own house,
in the way he brought up his children.
Now, okay, if his children had grown up
and they had left the home and then
they went astray, at least he should not
have appointed them as judges.
He was a man of discernment, a tremendous
discernment.
He was a prophet.
He was listening.
And here is one time he stopped listening.
Did he listen to God?
Did God tell him in the middle of
the night, appoint your sons as judges?
Did he say, speak Lord, your servant is
listening.
Whom shall I appoint as the next judges?
He stopped listening.
This is what can happen to people who
start so well when they are young, that
they grow older and they stop listening to
what God is saying because they have a
partiality towards their own children.
And even though their children are godless and
have no fear, at least if those children
were godly, appointing them would have been okay.
But imagine appointing corrupt children who had no
fear of God, who took bribes and perverted
justice and not having the discernment to see
that.
And you are a prophet of the Lord
and appointing them as judges.
Now I want to say this.
See, there are many servants of God today
whose children are not following in the ways
of the Lord.
I want to tell you, be very careful
not to judge them.
You do not know the pressures under which
many of God's servants live and work and
how much they are the targets of Satan's
attack.
I would not judge them.
I would not judge people whose children have
gone astray because I say, I don't know.
The Bible says, don't judge.
If you want to do something for them,
pray for them.
If you can't pray for them, at least
don't judge them.
What the Bible does say in 1 Timothy
3 is that when your children are at
home, if you cannot control them, you have
no business to be an elder in God's
house.
You have no business to preach God's word
to other people because if you cannot run
your own home, how can you run God's
house?
If you cannot control three or four children
in your own home and make them obey
you, how are you going to control 100,
200 people in God's house?
That is what 1 Timothy 3 says.
But when those children have grown up and
gone away from home, they have to make
their own choice whether they want to follow
the Lord or not.
There are many outstanding servants of God whose
children have gone astray after they left their
home.
They controlled them when they were in their
home, but once they left their home, they
chose their own way.
And that does not disqualify that servant of
God from ministry.
It would disqualify him if when they were
in their home, like it says in 1
Timothy 3, he could not control them.
The mistake in Samuel's case was that he
appointed those people as the ones to follow
him as judges in Israel.
And there we see the danger of how
partiality and love for your family can blind
you from what God is trying to say
to you.
We can stop listening to God when it
concerns our own family members.
Even such a wonderful man like Samuel made
that mistake, and that is a warning for
all of us.
We don't have to judge anybody else, but
we certainly can judge ourselves and learn a
lot from that.
And yet I would say this in Samuel's
favor.
Many, many good things about this man.
It says in chapter 12, verse 23, Samuel
said to the people, when the people were
going astray, he says to them, moreover, as
for me, 1 Samuel 12, 23, far be
it from me that I should sin against
the Lord by ceasing to pray for you,
by stopping praying for you.
See, Samuel's sensitivity to sin was so great
in his own life that he felt if
God has appointed me as the leader of
this people, and I don't pray for them,
I have sinned.
That's what he's saying in this verse.
You are the people over whom God has
made me a leader.
And if I don't pray for you, I
sin.
How many Christian leaders believe that?
I hope you, if ever God gives you
the responsibility to lead others.
Many people like to lead many people.
It's great to be a leader of so
many people.
Do you realize that if you become a
leader and you don't pray for those people,
you sin.
Many people think only of murder, adultery, bad
thoughts, anger, and all that sin.
Here's another type of sin, not praying for
those you lead.
Jesus prayed for those 12 disciples regularly.
All the time he was praying for them.
And Samuel understood that too.
He was a man of prayer.
All of God's great servants have been men
of prayer.
Paul was like that.
I want to show you what God himself
testifies about Samuel in the book of Jeremiah.
Many years later in Jeremiah 15 and verse
1, the Lord says concerning the backslidden state
of Israel at that time, and he says,
even if Moses and Samuel stand before me
and pray, I will not change my mind
about these people.
What is that saying?
Doesn't God listen to everybody's prayer?
He certainly does.
But the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous
man avails much.
And from that entire Old Testament period of
Israel's history of 1,000 years, from the
time of Joshua to the time of Jeremiah,
God picks out two people, not Elijah, not
Elisha, not David, Moses and Samuel.
He says there are two men in the
history of Israel who were men of prayer.
God says that.
And he links Moses and Samuel together as
men who had power with him in prayer.
Samuel was one like that, an outstanding man
of prayer, just like Moses.
It's a pity that he failed with his
own children in appointing them as judges.
Moses did not make that mistake.
Moses had two sons too, just like Samuel
had sons.
But Moses did not appoint his sons to
take over from him.
He appointed the one God told him to
appoint.
So even men of prayer can make mistakes
because partiality and love for our flesh and
blood is very close to us.
That's why Jesus said we've got to cut
ourselves off from that attachment to father, mother,
wife, children, brothers and sisters if we want
to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Now these are warnings for us and a
wise man will learn from the mistakes of
others.
A foolish man will make the same mistakes
himself.
And we find multitudes of people making the
same mistake that scripture has warned us about
again and again.
Now we come to the ministry of Saul.
Saul reigned for 40 years.
And we read of Saul, the first king
of Israel in chapters 8 through 15 primarily.
And I want you to see a number
of things here concerning Saul.
Saul did not go around wanting to be
a king.
The people of Israel wanted a king.
And one day Samuel chapter 9, 1 Samuel
9, the Lord revealed something to Samuel verse
15 saying, tomorrow at this time, chapter 9
verse 16, I will send you a man
from the land of Benjamin and you must
anoint him to be the king over my
people.
And when Samuel saw the Lord, verse 17,
the Lord said to him, this is the
man.
And Samuel went and spoke to him and
he brought him inside and we read that
in chapter 10, Samuel took a flask of
oil, poured it on his head and said,
the Lord has anointed you as a ruler
over his inheritance.
Saul was absolutely surprised.
He was just an ordinary man, young man.
And for God to pick him out and
say, that's the man I have found means
that that man had so many good qualities.
And so we see here the Samuel telling
Saul in verse 6, the spirit of the
Lord will come upon you, chapter 10, verse
6, and you will prophesy and you'll be
changed into another man.
This is a wonderful promise for all of
us to take.
Lord, I want the spirit of God to
come upon me in such a way that
I will be changed into another man.
I want to point out to you one
more thing before I come to that.
Finally, the time came for Saul to be
publicly acknowledged as king.
And so Samuel called the people together in
verse 17 and he says, okay, we're going
to select a king now.
And Samuel did not say, okay, Saul, come
here.
It's very interesting to see there that they
cost lots.
There was a thing called the Urim and
the Thummim, which the high priest had in
those days.
There's no description in scripture as to what
it was.
Maybe it was some type of stone, which
indicated yes or no.
It was a yes, no type of thing.
And it was God ordained.
And the meaning of Urim and Thummim is
lights and perfections.
And it was in some way, and I
don't want to guess how it was, but
when they threw it down, they discovered whether
God's answer was yes or no.
And they threw the lots and picked, picked,
picked, picked, and finally the lot fell on
Saul out of all the thousands of people
there.
And when they looked for Saul, they couldn't
find him because he didn't have any prominence
there.
He hid himself.
I want you to see a number of
good qualities and advantages that Saul had.
First of all, notice in chapter nine, verse
three, the situation in which God called him.
We read here that there was a man
called Kish, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin, whose donkeys were lost.
His son was Saul.
And verse three, chapter nine, verse three, Saul
said to his son, go and search for
these donkeys.
And Saul went searching, verse four, through the
whole hill country of Ephraim, the land of
Shalisha, the land of Shalem, verse four, and
traveled all over looking for the donkeys.
That's the first thing I want you to
notice about Saul.
He was a faithful young man.
He was thorough.
His father gave him a job to do
and he did it thoroughly.
He didn't just go out for five minutes
and say, I couldn't find it.
God picks such people who are faithful in
small things like looking for donkeys.
It's very interesting how the Lord looks for
people who are working faithfully where they are
before he picks them up.
The second thing I want you to notice
is that when a long time went and
they couldn't find the donkeys, he says to
his servant in verse five, let's go back
because of my father will now be more
concerned about me than the donkeys.
He had some wisdom there.
And the third thing I want you to
notice is when the man said, Hey, there's
a man of God in the city, let's
go and meet him.
And Saul said, okay, let's go and meet
him.
But let's take a present for him.
Verse seven, let's take a present.
He was a man who knew how to
honor God's servants.
Number four, I want you to notice in
chapter nine, verse 21, when Samuel picked on
Saul, Saul said, who am I?
Am I not a Benjamite of the smallest
of the tribes of Israel and my family,
the least of all the families of the
tribe of Benjamin.
He was a man who had a very
humble opinion of himself.
I'm trying to tell you the reasons why
God picked on Saul.
Number five, we read that God's, when Saul
spoke to him, it says here that God's
presence was with him and the spirit of
the Lord.
Verse six came upon him.
Verse seven, it says God is with you.
The presence of God was with him.
Chapter 10, verse 10.
The next thing we see here, his advantage
he had was the spirit of God came
upon him.
God was with him.
Number five, the spirit of God came upon
him.
Number six.
And when he went home, he told his
uncle in verse 16, that somebody told Saul
said to his uncle, he told the plane,
the donkeys had been found, but he didn't
tell him that he had been anointed king.
He was a man who did not boast.
Number eight, we read that when they selected
him to be the king, he was, it
says in verse 22, hiding himself in the
baggage.
He was a man who remained in the
background.
He didn't want to come up in front.
And number nine, we read that when Saul
went to his house, there was certain worthless
men chapter 10, verse 27, who said, how
can this man deliver us?
And they despised him and didn't bring him
any present, but he kept silent, even though
he'd been publicly anointed as king long suffering.
That was another qualification he had.
The 10th quality I see in him is
in chapter 11, verse one to seven, when
certain people of Israel were being attacked by
their enemies and they sent messengers to Gibeah
of Saul in chapter 11, verse four, saying
what had happened.
Saul, you find a zeal to help these
people who were in distress.
The spirit of God, verse six came upon
Saul and he was very angry.
And he took a yoke of oxen and
gathered people to go and help these fellow
believers, brothers of his who were in distress,
zeal to help others.
And chapter 11, verse 11, you find Saul
went and fought.
You see his courage there.
He was a man of courage.
He went and struck down the Ammonites verse
11 of chapter 11.
And the last one is his forgiving his
enemies.
And when Saul came back victorious from the
battle, some people said in verse 12, bring
those men who didn't want Saul to rule.
Let's kill him.
And Saul said in verse 13, no one
is going to be killed today.
This was the man whom God chose with
all these wonderful advantages and qualities.
And yet in a few years, he had
lost the anointing, lost the kingdom, lost grace
and lost everything.
A man who had such wonderful qualities when
he started.
This is the sad story of many, many,
many, many servants of God.
And that can be the sad story of
some of you if you don't become wise
by learning from the mistakes of others.
We read here in chapter 13, the first
reason why Saul lost the kingdom.
Number one, Samuel had told Saul to wait
until I come and I will offer an
offering before you go into battle.
And it says in 1 Samuel 13, 8,
that Saul waited for seven days and Samuel
didn't come.
And Saul said, bring the sacrifice.
I'll offer it.
Now he knew he was not a priest.
He had no right to offer an offering
to God.
And he went into a ministry that God
never gave him.
There are many people who make this mistake
going into a ministry that God never gave
them.
We have to recognize the ministry God has
given us and stay within our boundaries.
Many years ago, God, I recognized that God
had not called me to be an evangelist.
I realized that and I've stayed within my
boundaries through these years.
There are other people who do that.
I value them.
I respect them.
We must recognize in the Old Testament, there
are warnings like this.
Uzziah was a king, tried to be a
priest.
He got leprosy.
Saul was a king.
He tried to be a priest and he
lost his kingdom.
Recognize your ministry and stay within the boundaries
God has given you.
Let other people fulfill their ministries and you
stay within the ministry God has given you.
So that's how he and his impatience.
That's the other thing we see here.
And a few minutes later, we read in
verse 10, Samuel came.
If he had just waited a few minutes,
how different the story would have been.
So impatience and going into a ministry God
never called him for, he lost everything.
But yet he sat for more than 30
years after that on the throne.
There are a lot of people who sit
on thrones today in Christendom who've lost the
anointing and lost the ministry God initially called
them for.
But because they got authority, they sit for
30 years without the anointing as rulers over
systems and organizations.
That's exactly what we see in Saul.
A man who had gradually degenerated from a
wonderful young man who started out with great
humility and degenerated to become one who was
useless to God.
We see in chapter 13 and verse 14,
Samuel tells Saul, your kingdom shall not endure
now.
Verse 13, you have acted foolishly.
The Lord now seeks for somebody who's a
man after his own heart.
Notice the emphasis on heart.
The thing we read about Saul in chapter
10 verse 23, when he was initially anointed
as king, is that when he stood in
the midst of the people, he was taller
than everybody else.
If you saw a huge crowd of Israelites,
you'd see one head sticking out about all
of them.
He must have been about six feet, 10
inches tall or something.
His head stood out.
The thing that stood out about Saul was
his head.
The thing that stood out about David was
his heart.
He was a man after God's own heart.
There is a difference.
There is a Christianity of the head, there's
a Christianity of the heart, and there's a
world of difference between the two.
Saul represents one, and David represents the other.
One Samuel 13, 14, the Lord has sought
for a man after his own heart, and
he's found one.
That's what God told Samuel.
Our head represents our brains, our cleverness, our
intelligence.
A heart represents our devotion and our worship
of God.
That's the point.
That's what God looks for.
If you're not a worshiper, if you're not
devoted to Jesus Christ, no matter how much,
however much brains you may have, you can
ultimately end up like Saul.
David finished his course triumphantly, even though he
made mistakes, because his heart was right.
And we read further in chapter 14, verse
35.
Many years later, we read, Saul built an
altar to the Lord.
It was the first altar that he ever
built.
Saul was not a worshiper.
Abraham was a worshiper.
Wherever he went, he built an altar.
Saul was not a worshiper.
He was a clever man, a smart man,
a handsome man, a tall man, but he
was not a worshiper of God.
Jesus said, thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God, and then serve him.
We cannot serve without being worshipers, and that's
where Saul lost out.
Beware of a Christianity which is only in
your head, which does not lead you to
devotion to Jesus Christ and worship of God
the Father.
I want you to turn now to chapter
15, where we see the second mistake that
Saul made.
God told him to go and kill all
the Amalekites, and he didn't kill all of
them.
He spared some of the sheep, and the
reason he spared was because he feared the
people.
It says in verse 9 that Saul and
the people spared Agag and the best of
the sheep, but when Samuel confronts him, he
blames the people, saying in verse 15, the
people spared the best of the sheep.
Verse 15.
Verse 21, the people took the sheep.
You see, he was the one who along
with the people spared the sheep, but he
puts the blame on the people, and when
you don't know how to take the blame
yourself for your sin, you're unfit to be
a leader.
Saul could have said, I'm sorry, I made
a mistake.
He didn't say that.
He put the blame on the people, and
it's in these small things that you see
disobedience.
He killed most of it, but he spared
the good sheep.
But he says to Samuel in verse 13,
I've carried out the commandment of the Lord.
Verse 20, I did obey the voice of
the Lord.
He thinks he has obeyed, but in the
small things he has disobeyed.
It's the small things that determine whether you're
qualified to be a leader or not.
Finally he admits it.
Why did he do it?
When Samuel keeps on confronting him, he says
in verse 24, the last part, yes, I
was afraid of the people, and I listened
to their voice.
A man who is afraid of people and
listens to the voice of people is totally
unfit to be God's leader, the leader of
God's people.
And notice one more thing.
One last thing I want to point out
about Saul is in verse 30, he tells
Samuel, I'll tell you privately I have sinned,
but please don't let me down publicly.
Please honor me in front of the elders.
Please come along with and worship with me
and act as though nothing is wrong.
And Samuel said, nothing doing.
You go alone.
He went behind him.
He sought honor.
He was more interested in appearance.
Don't let it look as if I've lost
your support, Samuel.
He wanted people to think he was still
anointed.
Now we have seen the good qualities with
which he started and the reasons why he
failed.
And a wise man will learn from those
mistakes.
Finally, we read in chapter 31 and verse
5 of Samuel that Saul commits suicide.
Before that, you find the spirit of God
has left him.
An evil spirit took charge of him.
He became jealous.
I don't have time to show you all
that.
You can read that in chapter 18, verse
9 to 11.
He became jealous.
An evil spirit possessed him.
He threw a javelin at David to try
and kill him.
He contacted witches in chapter 28, verse 8,
mediums.
You see the degeneration.
Once you start, once you have lost the
anointing, he became jealous of somebody else whom
God was blessing more young David.
He tried to kill him.
He tried to kill his own son, Jonathan
with a spear.
Saul was another person who wanted to promote
his son, even though he knew the anointing
was not upon Jonathan, God.
The anointing was on David.
But he tried to promote his son and
he degenerated, degenerated, degenerated.
Finally, he chased David.
Many times he chased David.
And we read that David spared his life
more than once.
David could have killed Saul many times.
He didn't kill him.
All of those things.
Saul did not repent.
He could not see the grace of God
on a younger person.
He was chasing him and after him for
his life because he wanted to establish himself.
You know, it's possible for a person to
be like that.
There are many people like that.
Somebody else is a threat to them and
they eliminate that person.
And they themselves feel uncomfortable in that position
of leadership on their throne, like Saul.
And they try to establish themselves, but they
go down and down and down and down
and that character is gone.
Finally, in chapter 31, verse 5, they commit
suicide.
He commits suicide.
It's a sad end to a man who
started with all these wonderful qualities that I
described.
In contrast to him, we read of this
other man in Samuel, this other young man,
David, the man after God's own heart.
And he was a person whom God again
selected.
The Lord said to Samuel in chapter 16,
1 Samuel 16.
How long are you going to grieve over
Saul?
Stop praying for him.
I'm going to anoint somebody else.
You go to the house of Jesse.
I've selected a king from among his sons.
And I don't have time to show you
all that.
You read the rest of the chapter.
The interesting thing is that when Jesse, when
Samuel told Jesse, bring your sons, because the
Lord is going to anoint one of them,
he called all his sons except David.
David was the youngest.
Why didn't Jesse call David?
He called all his other sons.
And David was still looking after the sheik.
He was the youngest.
And one by one, smart, handsome Eliab, the
first one comes before Samuel.
And chapter 16, verse 6, Samuel thinks, yeah,
that must be the Lord's.
And there we have this wonderful verse again,
which is good for us to remember.
1 Samuel 16, 7.
The Lord does not look as man looks.
Man looks on the outward appearance, but God
looks at the heart.
Again, the emphasis on the heart, not the
head, the heart, not the brains, the heart.
Man looks at the outward appearance.
God looks at the heart.
And then Jesse called Abinadab, next son, verse
8.
He said, no, like that.
He let all his sons pass before him.
And God said, no, no, no.
And Samuel was confused.
And he said, Samuel said to Jesse, verse
11, are these all your children?
Did I make a mistake in hearing what
God said?
And he said, no, there's one younger one.
He's a pretty useless fellow.
He's out there looking after sheep.
I not very clever or intelligent.
It just, we send him to look after
sheep.
Okay, we'll call him if you want.
And young David comes.
He doesn't know what's happening.
He's quite happy looking after sheep, strumming his
guitar and singing songs to God out there.
God had seen that young man, maybe 17
years old, full of love for the Lord.
And the Lord said, this is the one.
You know, the sovereign choice of God who
searched around Israel for a man who loved
him.
Do you think God is searching around India
today for young men who are probably despised
by others?
There are other smarter people, cleverer people up
there in front.
And you may be out there doing your
job faithfully, singing songs of praise to the
Lord.
And God has his eye on you.
Be faithful.
He will call you one day, anoint you.
He picks up people when they are young
and trains them to serve him.
In their teenage years, he picks up his
servants, like David, like Joseph, and trains them
over a period of time and makes them,
leads them into a ministry.
And he was anointed and the spirit of
the Lord, verse 14, departed from Saul and
the spirit of the Lord, verse 13, came
upon David.
Now, notice in the next chapter, when he
goes and sees Goliath threatening Israel, David's concern
for God's name.
In 1 Samuel 17, 26, the last part,
he says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that
he should taunt the armies of the living
God?
His concern that God's name is being dishonored
with this heathen man.
Haven't we heard of what God did in
the days of Moses and Joshua?
Why should this man dishonor the Lord's name?
And he goes against him and kills him.
But before he had done that, there's something
that David had done in his private life,
which nobody knew, which he reveals in verses
34 to 36 to Saul.
He says, when I was looking after my
father's sheep, a lion would come sometimes or
a bear and take a lamb from the
flock.
And I would go after that lion and
rescue the lamb from the lion's mouth and
kill the lamb, the lion.
Now, I don't know how many people, if
they are looking after a hundred sheep and
the lion walks off with one lamb, would
care for that one lamb, say better that
one lamb die rather than I die.
But he went after that lion and killed
the lion to rescue that one little lamb.
It's people who have such a concern for
little lambs who are fit to be shepherds
of God's people.
When they see Satan has got a hold
of some weak brother, they are concerned to
go against Satan in prayer and battle to
rescue that person from the grip of Satan.
That's the type of person God is looking
for.
That's why God picked up and the bear
came and he killed him also.
His servant was killed, verse 36, the lion
and the bear.
This teaches us that we've got to kill
the enemy in our private life first before
we can face Goliath in public.
If you have not overcome the lion and
the bear in your private life, don't think
you will be called by God to face
Goliath in public.
A lot of people like a public ministry
of demolishing Satan's fortresses.
First of all, start in your private ministry
and show a concern for God's name for
the little lambs over there.
And then we read that when he came
to Saul, Saul said, put on my armor
and go.
That was a big temptation to put on
the armor and go.
Shall I trust in Saul's armor or God?
And David takes it all off and says,
I don't want all this.
And he goes trusting God.
And in the name of the Lord, he
tells the Philistine, verse 45, you come to
me with sword and spear.
I come to you in the name of
the Lord.
In the name of Jesus, I come against
you, Satan.
And he brings Goliath down and kills him.
And he uses Goliath's sword to chop off
his head.
That is God's way.
He uses Satan's own weapons to destroy Satan
through death, which was Satan's weapon.
He destroyed him who had the power of
death.
The Bible says in Hebrews two and verse
14.
And we read that once Goliath was killed,
all the other Philistines ran away, teaching us
that if you kill the great sin in
your life, many other sins are conquered too.
Do you find one sin that rules you
more than anything like Goliath defies God in
your life?
Go against it in the name of God
and say, you are not going to dishonor
God anymore in my life.
And when you conquer that, you will find
like it says here in verse 51.
The last part, when the Philistines saw that
their champion was dead, all the rest of
the Philistines ran away as well.
In chapter 18, we read of the tremendous
loyalty of Jonathan to David.
Jonathan did not have the jealousy of his
father.
He was closely knit to David.
He gave David his robe and sword and
both sign of eternal friendship.
And he said, David, I'm totally yours.
Jonathan was a fine young man.
In chapter 14, we read of his faith
with which he overcame the Philistines.
Here we see of his total freedom from
jealousy.
He could recognize there is an anointing on
this young man, even though I am the
son of Saul and I deserve to be
the next king.
When he saw the anointing on another young
man, he says he took off his armor
and his belt and sword and bow 18
four and gave it to David.
He said, you're going to be the next
king.
And he told him that.
That's wonderful when we find a young brother
who recognizes the anointing of God on another
young brother and gives him his ministry.
I'll give you an example of that in
the New Testament.
It says in Acts 13, Barnabas and Saul
went out to serve the Lord.
Barnabas and Saul.
Barnabas was the older man, the senior believer,
Barnabas and Saul.
A little later, it becomes Saul and Barnabas.
Barnabas withdraws into the background when he sees
there's a greater anointing on this younger man,
Paul.
It's wonderful if we can have such people
in the church like Jonathan, who recognized the
anointing on David so different from Saul's jealousy.
And there were a few other people also
who recognized that the anointing was David on
David and they gathered together with him.
We read in chapter 22, they met in
caves.
God allowed David to be chased by Saul
many, many times.
And he had to depend on the Lord
for guidance.
Many times we read, for example, in chapter
23, verse 2, Lord, shall I do this?
Lord, shall I do this?
Verse 12.
Again, he asked God for guidance.
He always lived seeking God for guidance.
You read that in chapter 23.
And thus his life was spared.
Saul was after him.
And through all those experiences in the caves,
running away from Saul, God trained him to
be a man of God.
See, it was all those difficult experiences that
made David a good king.
Saul never had those difficult experiences before David.
Solomon, who came after him, also never had
difficult experiences.
So their reign was ruined.
David was trained to, through a period of
perhaps 10 years at least, in difficult circumstances.
And thus he qualified to be a king.
So when God picks you out in your
teenage years, don't think you're ready to be
king immediately.
If you become a king immediately, you'll be
like Saul and Solomon.
You'll just destroy your ministry.
God is to take you perhaps through a
period of 10 years of difficulty, of trial,
of other people jealous of you, other people
trying to suppress you.
You'll have to learn to listen to God.
You'll have to learn to trust Him.
And you'll have experiences with God in secret.
And then a day will come when God
will establish you on the throne, as we
see in the next chapter.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for warnings from
bad examples in scripture and challenges from good
examples.
Help us to learn from both, that we
can walk in your footsteps and glorify your
name.
I pray that many of these young people
here will grow up to be like young
David, anointed and useful for you in this
land.
We ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.