Humble Samuel

God told Samuel in detail how a worldly king would treat the people to keep his power. He said these things before Saul had even become king, to make known that this world, too, moves by God’s working. From now on an earthly king would rule the people of Israel high-handedly, in a way wholly unlike God’s reign of love.

When the Bible speaks of the world, it means the whole of human thought and action, place and event, that lies outside God. God rules his people within the covenant, and he uses the world as an instrument to fulfill the covenant. So you must think deeply: will you meet God within the covenant, or will you be used outside it as a tool for its fulfillment?

The people of Israel had been guided by God within the covenant, yet they walked out of it of their own accord. They were corrupted to the point of dragging God, who rules heaven and earth, down from the throne, insisting that a man must now be king and rule over them. God had chosen Israel as his elect and blessed them so that they might live as his people. But when they would not give up the world to the very end, and wanted a powerful worldly king like the Gentiles, he released his hold on them. If only the children he has chosen live lives of thankfulness by faith, he protects them forever, so that in Christ they receive and enjoy the blessings of heaven. If his people receive his love and still refuse to obey the word to the end, however, it is God who releases their hand. It was never that people were holding on to God. God first poured out faith and love on them and held them fast; that is why they could go on living in a harsh world.

The moment God releases his hold, the world’s rushing current sweeps us away, and we have no choice but to drift aimlessly, whatever we may want. No one caught in those rapids can get out alone, so we swallow filthy water against our will and are dashed helplessly against the rocks, until we lose every dream and hope and at last meet death. When a man becomes king, the suffering of his people is beyond words. God knew this and tried to the end to dissuade them; but they would not give up, and for their sake he began the work of setting a man on the throne.

First Samuel 9:1-2 introduces a mighty man of Benjamin named Kish, whose son was named Saul, an impressive young man, taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward. Such were the qualifications for a worldly king: a mighty man, someone wealthier than others or strong like a warrior. Saul had every quality the world could want. Born into a wealthy family, he was the heir to his father’s property, and he had a striking appearance, a bearing everyone would admire.

Hebrews 1:2

2has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.

In these last days God has appointed Christ as his heir. He made the world together with Christ, who is the Word, and Christ the Creator became God’s heir. But our Lord had no beauty that we should desire him, no majesty in his appearance; he grew up like a tender plant, and no one esteemed him. As a King who would atone for the sins of all humanity, he seemed to fall short.

For anyone who would become an earthly king, appearance matters a great deal. Those who want to be king must first win people’s approval, so they concentrate on what can be seen. They announce plans they can never carry out, even false pledges, to curry favor, and promise that once they are king everyone will have everything at once. People know that once such a man is king he will not keep his pledges, yet if it sounds good for now, they choose him and make him king. But the Son of God, the heir of all things, did not seek to win people’s approval by what could be seen, because his purpose was not the riches of the world but only to give life to a dark world.

What people want is not Christ, who gives an unseen life, but a powerful man like Saul who seems likely to make them prosper in this life. Today, too, when people look for a good match in marriage, they want someone with plenty of money, the best education, or striking looks. Whatever the person’s character, if the outward conditions are good, they approve. Some who want to be kings by these worldly standards fall into despair when they cannot meet them, and even take their own lives. Not knowing how beautiful they are just as they are, they despise and belittle themselves and sink into the abyss by their own doing.

Nowhere in the Bible, as it does in introducing King Saul, does Scripture dwell on the looks, power, or wealth of leaders who work for the Kingdom of God. On the contrary, the apostle Paul and the twelve disciples gave up good families, education, and wealth and chose the narrow way. This happens because they look to different values. Those who look to the Kingdom of God know that the splendor and riches of the world are not finally theirs, and so they can love God.

1 Corinthians 1:27-28

27but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; 28and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are:

This is what those whom God has chosen look like. God does not expand his Kingdom through the world’s wisdom, strength, or riches. Even if they lack wisdom or power, even if they are poor and ordinary, when God holds them they receive his wisdom, gain heavenly spiritual authority, and may even become rich in material things. Since all this is possible once he holds them, God does not fret over what his people possess. So when we have a whole faith, we have no reason to envy earthly kings. If only you have true faith, you can look on the world calmly, like a landscape spread out beyond a windowpane. Whatever hardship comes, may you cling to God, because the life and blessing of heaven that he gives are eternal, and this world cannot give them.

The making of Saul as Israel’s first king begins when Saul’s father loses his donkeys. His father told his son to go and find them. Taking a servant, Saul searched far and wide, from his home in Gibeah in the land of Benjamin through the hill country of Ephraim and the land of Shalishah. He searched diligently, without cutting corners, but when time passed and still he had not found them, he began to fear that his father would be worried. Judging from the filial love that made him think of his father waiting for him, Saul seems to have been a man who honored his parents and was faithful in the work entrusted to him.

After three days without finding the donkeys, Saul was ready to go home, but the servant suggested that there was a man of God in the city, a man held in honor, and that they should ask him. Let us look at Saul’s life objectively and see clearly how God works through the events and relationships of our lives. The servant knew Samuel was a prophet who had received God’s power, so he was sure that if he brought Saul there, Samuel would find the donkeys for them. You will see God using the lost donkeys and a servant who knew Samuel as the means of sending Saul to him.

Now it is Saul who must choose: will he go to meet the prophet Samuel, or will he go home out of concern for his father? God did not send Saul straight to Samuel. He moved him through the ordinary troubles of life and, over time, made it so that Saul could not help but go to Samuel. This is what life is.

You may think that if God wanted to make Saul king, he could simply have sent Samuel to him. But God never drives a human life along by his will alone. He arranged every circumstance and then set the choice before Saul. For in every event and every person we meet, moment by moment, the choice of which way to go belongs to each of us alone.

I urge you to read the word and to raise your children in faith. The reason is that just as Saul’s choices, and with them his life, turned on the knowledge, faith, and discernment he had, so it is with us. To decide rightly when God gives us an opportunity, we must work at growing in every area of life and be ready.

You all know the navigation systems that guide you to your destination. Suppose you set heaven as your final destination and start out. Whether you follow the navigation or take the roads you know is up to you. There must have been times when, as soon as a familiar road appeared, you stopped following the directions and got lost. But from the very spot where you lost your way, the navigation finds the route again toward the final destination. As long as the destination does not change, it will guide you there. So long as you do not switch it off, it will keep giving you directions as best it can and bring you all the way to your destination.

Our final destination is heaven. But if we do not wholly believe even when the right way of truth is shown to us, or if our hearts are full of the world, we will not be able to choose rightly, and our lives will take the long way around. If heaven is your true home, you will meet many hardships as you keep your faith in this world, but in the end you will come onto the road to heaven. Whether you choose the way of Christ, narrow and hard though it looks, or the broad road that many travel: in the end it is your choice. We must make right spiritual decisions quickly so that we do not throw away time on what is empty. That is why we must pray without ceasing and stay filled with the Spirit; only then can we choose wisely when God shows us two diverging paths.

In verse 16 God told Samuel that about this time tomorrow he would send him a man out of the land of Benjamin, and that Samuel was to anoint him to be prince over his people Israel. God called Israel “my people,” not Saul’s people, and told Samuel to make Saul prince over his people. Though God granted Israel a man as king, as they wished, the word makes plain how grievous a sin this decision was and how deeply it wounded him. God also told Samuel why he was setting Saul up as king: so that he would save his people out of the hand of the Philistines.

Saul was born into Benjamin, the smallest of the tribes, but the blessing Jacob gave in Genesis 49:27 shows that the tribe of Benjamin was skilled in war. When Jacob prophesied that Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, that in the morning he will devour the prey and at evening divide the plunder, he meant that the tribe had the courage of a fierce wolf to carry a battle through to victory. Just as this prophecy said, a king to defend the nation came from the tribe of Benjamin, and Saul, once he became king, did in fact lead Israel to victory in many battles.

Saul decided to see Samuel first, and on the way he asked a girl coming out to draw water whether the seer was there. The girl then explained in detail what Samuel did and how highly people respected him. Ordinarily, when someone asks where a person is, the sensible answer is to say whether the person is there or not, or where to find them. But this girl went so far as to tell them that Samuel would go up to the high place to offer sacrifice, that the people would not eat until he came, and that only after he blessed the sacrifice would those who were invited eat.

God caused the girl to tell Saul all this in such detail; he was working through her to give weight to Samuel’s words. The reason was simple: having heard first about the ministry Samuel carried on, Saul would not be quick to weigh whatever Samuel told him by his own judgment. Can you feel God’s careful heart, attentive to even such small things? Through all of this, before he even met Samuel, Saul would have come to accept him as a seer, and a readiness to obey his words would have risen in him.

God told Samuel in advance that Saul would come looking for him. Saul came without knowing this, but because Samuel had already heard from God, he knew how to receive Saul. In every respect God was helping Samuel fulfill his charge all the better.

In verses 19-20 Samuel told Saul that he was the seer, that Saul would go up with him to the high place that day and eat with him, and that in the morning he would tell him everything; as for the donkeys lost three days before, Saul need not worry, for they had been found. He also told him that all the desire of Israel was for him and for all his father’s house, making known that Saul was the one chosen to be king.

When Samuel said the donkeys had been found, Saul came to trust him completely. God, as he carries out his work, attends to every detail and misses nothing. In the same way, when you plan and carry out any task, you must pay attention to the smallest parts if you are to handle it without missing anything. We see as much as we care about, and we can handle as much as we see.

Those who proclaim God’s word must first win people’s trust, because when the messenger’s life is not upright, that alone lowers the authority of God’s word. This is exactly why Christians must live with more integrity and moral uprightness than the people of the world. For if we tell people to believe in God and our lives set no example, then however much we evangelize, they will never receive the gospel.

As the making of Saul king unfolds, what we must not miss is Samuel’s self-sacrificing obedience to God. Until then he had ruled the people as judge, from the place of a king. But once God named Saul as king, Samuel brought every ability he had to bear, doing his utmost to help Saul become king. He did as God commanded, without envy or jealousy. Anyone with even a trace of worldly ambition could never have acted as Samuel did. Nor is it any easy thing to seat Saul in the place of honor and so humbly make known to everyone that Saul was the chosen king. This is the bearing of a true prophet, impossible without the character of one who knows he is God’s servant and that he bears even this calling only by the grace God gives.

God is still looking for humble people like Samuel today, because, many as the kings of this world may be, he is building his Kingdom together with those who, like Samuel, stand upright in spirit and obey. May you have an obedient heart like Samuel’s. If, like him, you are faithful to God in a lowly place and serve God and his people with a humble heart, God will lift you up as he lifted up Samuel.

Whether God lifts you up or brings you low, he is at work for the salvation of souls. May you believe this and always obey him. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.