Good evening, brethren. Let's
be turning to 1 Samuel chapter 10. As I was reading this chapter
again this week, it struck me just how fickle man is. And fickle means that we change. We're unsettled. We change our
minds. we can change. In one minute,
we're doing one thing one way, then we do it another way, and
just because we don't always even know why. But in this chapter,
Saul does a lot of changing. He's going through a big change.
He's not always consistent. And Israel's going through change. They're going to be a kingdom,
not under the rule of God. directly as they were, but now
under the rule of a king. And as I was thinking about that,
I considered change as a very common aspect of all of our lives. We change a lot. And if you're
a little older and have grown up some, you can remember just
how, when you were children, you thought life would be one
way, and you thought you'd be doing something, and things are
totally different. They're changed from what you
imagined things would be. And change is often forced upon
us. And other times, we force change
ourselves. And we go through changes, a
lot of things that cause change. We change jobs. We have changes
as we grow older. We get married perhaps, or we
don't get married, and we have children, and all those things
change us. And there's loss that we experience
as well. And these things change us. And
it's a fixed part of us. Probably one of the most consistent
things about man is that there's something always changing. about
him, and it happens a lot. The other thing that's very consistent
about us is that we're sinners, and we cannot save ourselves. We need the grace of God. That
never changes. That never changes. As Jeremiah
the prophet said, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard
his spots? Then can you also do good who
are accustomed to do evil? And that's us. and we're not going to change
except God change us. And that's one of the comforting
things about our Lord is that He doesn't change. He's steady. He is the rock. He's as steady
as a rock and He is the He is the Great Rock who does not change.
He's not immutable, or He is immutable as He tells us, meaning
He does not change. He does not change. Malachi 3.6
says, For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob
are not consumed. Because we're always changing
and we're always The heart of man, the mind of man is a fickle
thing, and we do things worthy of death and destruction according
to the flesh, but God is gracious to His people, and He remembers
His promise made unto us, established for us in the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 13.8 says, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today,
and forever. and so we're going to be looking
at this change but there's There's a picture of grace in this and
what the Lord does for his people. And I want to go through the
rest of chapter 10. I didn't want to skip over it,
but this chapter shows us our need for God's grace to us in
Christ and how he accomplishes salvation and what he does for
us. Otherwise, the change that we
do is just a fleshly change. It's just one of many changes,
but if the Lord does it, and what the Lord does, and that's
what I want to bring out, is what the Lord does. that we don't
do, what He does differently in saving His people and working
salvation because it's not just us changing our minds or doing
something different. God does a change in us. He works
a spiritual righteous change in us by the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're gonna look at four examples from the rest of this chapter,
picking up in verse nine, and we'll see what the Lord does
to change his people, the good change that he does and works
in us. The first thing that we see is our need to be made new
creatures. I mention that a lot. I say that
a lot in these messages, that we must be made new creatures
because If we're not a new creature, we're not Christ's. He makes
his people new creatures. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. And so let's read verse nine.
And it was so that when Saul had turned his back to go from
Samuel, he began to turn away from Samuel. God gave him another
heart and all those signs came to pass that day. Now, Saul here
is a type for us. He's a picture of the change
that the Lord works in his people. Because in Saul's case, it's
actually not describing a regenerated soul here. He's not regenerated
in this change that the Lord does. What Saul was given here
was another heart from what he was. He had been a man in husbandry,
meaning he took care of animals. He did that which was necessary
on his father's farm. He was looking for the asses
that had gotten lost. And he now was given a new heart
for civil administration. He was going to be made a king.
He didn't care about what was going on before. He cared about
what his dad told him to do. And now the Lord had given him
a heart. The Lord was maturing him and preparing him for being
the king of Israel. And so God changed him such that
he ceased to care for the asses and now he began to care for
the kingdom. He began to think of the people. And we'll see that in chapter
11. We'll see where the Lord brings an enemy in that brings
that change of heart out in him. Where he goes to battle for the
people of Israel. And so the Lord had worked this
change in him. And it does show us some things
that when the Lord calls a man to service, he's going to fit
him for that service. He's going to give him what he
needs. And it's the Lord who does it. But you can see even
how the Lord changes and prepares his people for the work that
he calls them to do. If you think of not just Saul
here, but you think of the apostles and how the Lord called fishermen. men who were accustomed to catching
fish and they understood and knew how to catch fish and were
told in Matthew chapter 4 that Jesus saith unto Peter and Andrew
his brother follow me and I will make you fishers of men and they
straightway left their nets and they followed him and then he
did the same thing for James the son of Zebedee and John his
brother And immediately they left the ship and their father
and followed him. So that we do see the Lord does
give a heart to his people for the service that he will put
them in. He does that and he prepares
his people for the labors that they'll serve in the kingdom. And that's the Lord's work. Paul
even noted that he was called to be an apostle and he saw the
work of God and the preaching of the gospel, that it's not
of our hand, it's not of my skill set, it's not of my fair words
or my ability. It's not of your ability to hear
in the flesh. It's the work of God, who dispenses
His grace, who gives His grace as He will. And Paul said, who's
sufficient for these things? Who's able to do these things? But God prepares His people for
the labors that He's going to give to them and how He'll use
them in the kingdom. Men and women, He'll do that
as is needed. And it's the Lord who gives that
willing heart and fits his people for what he's called them to
do. But what's different, what I
wanted to bring out here is Saul is a type, it is a picture of
what we all need. We're not all kings. We're not
all preachers. We're not all doing this one
thing or another. We have different gifts that
the Lord gives to each of us, but there's one thing common
that every one of us needs. No matter what our background
is, no matter outward fleshly differences we all need the Lord
to regenerate us we need the Lord to give us his spirit we
need his grace to give us life because we're all dead in trespasses
and sins by nature and so we need the grace of God to regenerate
us and that's regeneration is a new birth right generation
if you went when when you had your children they were your
generation But we all need to be regenerated. We need a new
birth. We need to be born again. We're
all the generation of Adam, but we need a regeneration. by the
grace and power of God His Spirit given to us. Sometimes that regeneration
is described as being given a new heart and a new spirit. Ezekiel
36 says this, verse 26 and 27, a new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away
the stony heart of your flesh. That's the heart that we have
by nature. We have a hard heart. We have a heart that does what
it wants to do, and it's not what the Lord wills for us to
do. We need a new heart. He says, I'll take that heart
out, and I'll give you a heart of flesh, meaning a heart that
is soft to my will. You'll conform to my will, and
you'll do my will and my purpose, because I'll give you that new
heart. I'll give you that new spirit. I'll put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes and ye shall keep
my judgments and do them. And so this is what the Lord
our God does for all his redeemed, meaning all who were purchased
by the blood of Christ They are regenerated in the day of grace. The Lord gives his spirit and
he turns us, he makes us new creatures in Christ so that we
do love the things of our God. We want to know our God. We want
to serve and follow our God. He does that in everyone. So it doesn't matter what member
we are in the body of Christ, whether a finger, a foot, a mouth,
the belly, whatever we are, the Lord is going to regenerate every
one of us. None accepted. None accepted.
That's what he does for his people. Then the second thing we see
relates to our adoption in the family of God. He brings us,
that's one of his blessings, one of the gifts that we receive
in Christ is that he adopts us into his family, making us a
member of his family by the Lord Jesus Christ. What we see here
is let's look at verse 10 through 12. 1 Samuel 10 verse 10. And when they came thither to
the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him. This is the
third sign that Samuel told them about. These prophets met him,
and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among
them. And it came to pass, when all
that knew him before time saw that, behold, he prophesied among
the prophets. Then the people said one to another,
what is this that has come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also
among the prophets? And one of the same place answered
and said, who is their father? Therefore it became a proverb,
is Saul also among the prophets?" Now I'll explain that a little
bit to you because I know when you read it, when I read it,
I wasn't quite sure how they got to it being a proverb but
let me just say A few things on that. The hill is a place
that's very near to Gibeah, if not Gibeah itself. That's what
Gibeah means. It means hill. And so this is
the place. Saul is just about home right
now. in this place where he meets
these prophets and so there's a lot of people around that know
Saul he's grown up around there they know him and they see him
prophesying and they're shocked by it because it's not normal
they've never seen Saul have any interest perhaps the things
of God he never participated in those things perhaps he even
mocked them or made fun of them when he saw them but now here's
Saul the son of Kish prophesying with the prophets and they were
probably shocked because they could tell what this man saying
is the truth it probably blessed their heart what they heard but
they couldn't believe it was coming from his mouth They didn't
understand what had happened to Saul. And remember, our Lord
said, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But what
the Lord was doing, just understand historically, the Lord was preparing
these people to receive him as their king. He was doing something
in Saul that elevated, gave him an honor in the eyes of the people
there. In fact, this has been done before
when Moses was overwhelmed. He was the only one judging all
of Israel and they were coming to him with the hard things and
the simple things. He had to answer and judge the
people for everything and he was worn out and overwhelmed
and couldn't get to it all. And so the Lord gave him 70 men.
And what did the Lord do? He had Moses gather those 70
men, heads of the tribes, and he gave them his spirit, some
of Moses' spirit, and they prophesied so that the people saw and understood
All right, these men have the Spirit of God also, we can trust
that they'll judge us according to righteousness. And so they
were honored by that prophecy. And that's what the Lord's doing.
He's honoring Saul in their eyes. And so what this is showing us
is that he was elevating him in stature. And people question,
like How is it that they, like what happened was anytime somebody
did something that was out of character and impossible to believe,
how could they do that? How could they be so successful
in that? How could they do that and be so right? And what they're
saying, it became a proverb to say, is Saul, what does it say? Is Saul also among the prophets?
And so it became a proverb to say, well, Saul did it, yeah.
Yeah, he did do that, didn't he? I guess, yeah, it could happen. These people can do that because
we saw it happen to Saul, so it can happen to others. And
that's how it became a proverb in that sense. And in the moment
when it first happened, the people weren't very receptive to it.
And we read that someone, well the people said in verse 11,
what is this that has come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also
among the prophets? But someone very wise said, but
who is their father? Who is their father? In other
words, the wisdom in that was saying, you know, we're having
a hard time because it's Saul. Saul's the one prophesying. And
we know Saul. We know Saul's father. And there's
no way that Saul would be a prophet. This is impossible. But who's
their father? We're giving them a pass. We're
seeing that they're prophets. And we accept it. But we don't
know who their father is. It's just because we know who
Kish is. And we know who Saul is. And that's why we're stumbling
over this. And that's what the wisdom was
and what that person was saying. And so the point for us here
is, By nature, our father is Adam. We all come from a fallen
father. And for any of us to be in the
service of God, for any of us to call upon the Lord, that's
impossible for us by nature. And we're hypocrites in our flesh.
And we're not perfect. We don't do everything perfectly. We're sons and daughters of him
who fell and rebelled against the true and living God. And
so some of us, sometimes we're hypocrites like Saul. Sometimes
we're judges of others, just like those who judged Saul. And
we're all sinners and rebels against the true and living God.
So that none of us is earned. We're not here because we earned
it, because we're righteous, because we did works. We're here
because of the grace of God. Now, we've done works, but it's
by His grace and power. It's by His Spirit. We give Him
all the glory and thank Him for what He's done for us. The description
of us by nature in scripture is Isaiah 64, 6 says, we are
all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away. And again, Isaiah 40, verse
6, all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as
the flower of the field. shows us our humiliation. He humbles us. He brings us to
see our sin and our need of His grace, and that's what He does
for us. And so, what our God does here, what I see in this,
is how that He has been gracious to every one of us. Yes, we were
all of that Father Adam, but now by the blood of His Son,
who died on the cross, bearing the sins of His people, to put
them away forever, and has obtained our forgiveness by His death,
and has obtained our justification by His resurrection, He's made
us sons and daughters by His blood, and He's brought us into
the family of God by what He's done for us, so that now we are
of that family, that heavenly family of our Lord through adoption. We read in Romans 8 Verse 14-16
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
of God. That's why we need His Spirit.
That's why we need to be born again, because only then are
we sons and daughters. by His grace and it's given to
us through Christ and what He's obtained for us. He's obtained
life. He's redeemed us so that we're His and all the blessings
of God for His people are given to us through Christ because
of that redemption. Four, ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear. That's a spirit we had in Adam.
But ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba,
Father. And you know who else said that?
Our Lord Jesus Christ. He called his father Abba Father
when he was in the garden and said, Father, all things are
possible for you. If thou will, let this cup pass
from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. And he called him Abba Father. Abba Father, that's what Christ
has done for us in bringing us into the family of God that we
too can say, Daddy, Have mercy upon me. Help me, Lord. Save
me. Lord, give me your spirit. Keep
me. Abba, Father. And so the spirit itself beareth
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now, how does this happen? Because
he's predestinated us unto this adoption by his grace and the
Lord Jesus Christ, according to his good pleasure, the good
pleasure of his will. So who is our Father? We're adopted
into the family of God by the blood of Jesus Christ. We're
in that family. He's our Father. Our God is our
Father now. Now the third thing we see here
is that God chose whom He would. Again, not for any righteousness
in them, but because He would be gracious to them. Because
He chose to be gracious to His people. The time came, now as
you come down a little further in the chapter, the time came
and Samuel gathered all the tribes of Israel to Mizpih. That's where
that Ebenezer stone was, that stone of memorial. And he gathered
them there and they drew lots. And this was done, the reason
why they drew lots, because we know Samuel already anointed
Saul. But the people needed to know
that it wasn't just Samuel choosing him out. They needed to know
that God had chosen Saul. And so they drew lots at that
time. And the tribe of Benjamin was taken, and then ultimately
the family down to Kish, and Saul of Kish was taken. And at that time, once they found
that, it says at the end of verse 21, and when they sought him,
when they sought Saul, he could not be found. Therefore they
inquired of the Lord further, if the man should yet come thither.
And the Lord answered, behold, he hath hid himself among the
stuff. Meaning all the things that were
brought there by the tribes and whatnot. And so they went and
they got him out of hiding. And again, this is what I was
saying about the fickleness of Saul. He had been given those
signs. He saw those signs come to pass,
just like the prophet told him that he would. There was times,
actually, when you read it closely, you see that Saul was a pretty
humble guy at that time. And he was discreet. He showed
discretion. He didn't tell his uncle or anybody
that he had been anointed. When Samuel anointed him, it
was done in private. Even his servant didn't know.
His servant was ahead. And that's when he was anointed.
And he didn't even tell his uncle. When his uncle asked, what did
Samuel say to you? He just said, he told us that the asses had
been found. And said nothing. He was a humble
man. And yet he saw all these things and witnessed all these
things, and yet he still was afraid. And he didn't want to
take the the kingship on he didn't he was hoping that they would
just pass on and take somebody else apparently but here he resorts
to hiding and and and what it shows us is that well one none
of us is worthy of of the Lord calling us into his body. And
it also shows us that it's not because of anything in us. It's
not because of anything in us. We're like Saul, insufficient,
weak, in need constantly of God's strength and of his power. And
our salvation, what we see in this, is truly a work of grace
and it's freely given by the Lord. You that love Christ, you
that call upon Christ, you that pray and see His power and kindness
and patience with you, that's grace. That's grace. And to know
that it's of the Lord, that's grace. Because not all people
see that. Not all people know that, the
grace of God in Christ. And you that know, it's not of
anything of me. It's because He will. That's
His grace. Teaching you that, and keeping
you humble. And showing you the things of Christ. Turn over to
1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1, and we'll pick
up in verse 18. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God. And so we see that the Lord,
that word, that power, that's the dynamo. That's the dynamite,
that the Lord explodes his life in us and gives us life and rocks
our world, takes us out of this world and makes us new creatures
in Christ. And whatever we thought we knew,
we find we don't know anything yet as we ought to know. It's
all by the grace of God teaching us and instructing us. For it's
written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? And so, what our Lord has done
for us is He's taken salvation out of the hands of man. And He doesn't depend or need
our wisdom, our strength, our skills, our gifts. Remember,
He'll fit us for the work. And often it's contrary to what
we are by nature. And he'll fit, he'll do the work
necessary that he receives all the glory. And he strips us down
and he calls the weak. and the humble, and the lowly,
for His honor and His glory. And it says in verse 26, For
ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God
hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. and base things of the world,
and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things
which are not, to bring to naught things that are. that no flesh
should glory in His presence. And so, our Lord is pleased to
humble us, to have things that we thought would be so good to
slip through our hands, to fail, to make mistakes, to go through
hardships and difficulties and trials and not be able to get
ourselves out of them, that we would find our all in Him and
cast ourselves upon Him because it's for our good. And all things
work together for the good of them that love God, to them who
are called according to purpose, His purpose. And we only learn
that being stripped down and going through those trials and
going through those difficulties, that we become nothing in ourselves,
that Christ becomes everything in us. And it's only after that
that He is made that much more precious to us, having gone through
those trials. So it's a good thing. It's good,
brethren. But of Him, the last two verses
of 1 Corinthians 1, but of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of
God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it's written, He that glorieth,
let him glory, in the Lord. And that only comes by the Lord
pressing us, by the Lord putting us in those very trying and difficult
places that we can't get ourselves out of. But it's for our good,
and it's to the glory, honor, and praise of His name. And He's
forming Christ in us, and He's conforming us to Christ in that
sense where we're growing in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now the fourth thing we see is
in the dispensing of His grace. Again, it's a work of the Lord,
and we see how the Lord does put a difference between His
people and them that are not by manifesting faith and manifesting
love for Him, manifesting Christ in us. And we see this in the
last two verses, 1 Samuel 10, 26 and 27. So this is after the public choosing
of Saul. Saul also went home to Gibeah,
and there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched. But the children of Belial, that
is the devil, said, how shall this man save us? And they despised
him and brought no presents. But he held his peace. He acted
as though he didn't hear it or notice it at all. He was, again,
very discreet in what he did at first. What we see here is
that our Savior, we see a picture of Christ in there, don't we?
We see how that Christ came, perfect, just, holy, fulfilling
the law of God in all points, being merciful, being kind and
healing all who came to Him, speaking to anyone, and helping
anyone that needed mercy. Christ was always there for the
people that needed mercy, and yet He was rejected. He was rejected
by wicked men who hated him and ultimately crucified him according
to the will of God. And what he's saying, what we
see here is a picture that you that love Christ and you that
serve in Christ's body and have been made fit to have been made
to know the Lord and made fit to serve in His kingdom you too
will be hated by this world this world will hate you and this
world will persecute you and you'll be despised by this world
and it says in John 15 20 and 21 remember the word that I said
unto you the servant is not greater than his Lord If they have persecuted
Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My saying,
they will keep yours also. But all these things will they
do unto you for My name's sake, because they know not Him that
sent Me." And so, what we see here is that The Lord, in the
preaching of the gospel, the Lord sends forth the savor of
Christ. Wherever this gospel is preached,
the savor of Christ goes. It fills like a perfume in the
whole room. It just fills that room, the
savor of Christ. And that savor manifests in them
that are His. It manifests love. and it draws
the sinner to Christ and it manifests hatred in them that are not the
Lord's because they hate and despise the true and living God
but it's the Lord that makes the difference. As Paul said,
to the one we are the saver of death unto death and to the other
the saver of life unto life. It reminds me of when Mary broke
that alabaster box of ointment, I think it was, and it says the
perfume filled the whole house, and there were some there that
were angry by it. What is that smell? What has
happened? Did they just waste all that
on the Lord? That was their reaction. That
was a savor in them that hate the truth and that don't love
the Lord, but it was a beautiful smell, and it was honoring to
Christ, and it was sweet, and in them that love the Lord, They
had no problem with it. Mary had no problem expending
all that ointment on her Lord down to his feet. And so we see
the Lord puts a difference, manifesting faith in his people. For he sayeth
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Romans 9, 15, and 16. And so
like Saul, we're going to change. There's going to be change in
our lives. But if we're the Lord's, it's going to be for our good.
He's going to draw you to Christ. He's going to make Christ precious
unto you. And he's going to do it. It's
His work. It's His work of grace to do
for His people whom He loved and chose in Christ, and put
you in Christ before the foundation of the world. And so we see in
here, by His grace, that we are made new creatures in Christ.
We see our adoption into the family of God by Christ. We see
that our God chose us out of the world and gave us, chose
us before the foundation of the world and gave us to Christ. And he makes his grace evident
in his chosen people. And so the cause of godly change,
what is that? What is the cause of a godly
change? It's God. God is the one who
changes us according to godliness and righteousness, true righteousness
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We need that change, brethren,
because if it's not godly change and it's just the change of man,
change from one thing to another. But I pray the Lord blesses you
and blesses that word to your hearts and turns us to the true
and living God, to rejoice in Him and worship Him. Amen.