1 Samuel, chapter 9. Let's be turning there. In this chapter, we're given
an introduction to Saul. This is the king that Israel
desired. In this introduction, one of
the things that we see is a contrast between the king that Israel
desired and Christ the king, whom our God has chosen for his
people. And then after we look at that,
I want to show you a picture that we're given here of the
gospel and how the Lord saves sinners by his grace through
the grace of God in Christ. And we have Saul given to us
here as that picture, as that type of how the Lord saves sinners. So let's begin here reading the
first five verses to note that contrast. Now there was a man
of Benjamin whose name was Kish, and then we're given a genealogy
there, verse 2. And he had a son whose name was
Saul, a choice young man and a goodly. And there was not among
the children of Israel a goodlier person than he. From his shoulders
and upward he was higher than any of the people." Now the name
Saul is appropriately asked for. That's what it means. It means
asked for. And that's suitable because Israel
here was asking for a king to judge them. They were rejecting
Samuel and his sons as their judge, and they wanted a king
to be their judge. And the Lord said to Samuel,
don't worry about it, you give them what they're asking for,
because they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. And
so The people wanted a king like all the other nations. And so
the Lord chose for them a man of whom we would think of who
meets the qualifications of a king. By appearance, he looked like
a king. He was a tall man. He was a good-looking
man. He was a strapping man, strong.
And he was charismatic. And so someone could look at
him and say, yep, That's exactly the guy we had in mind. This
is great. Now verse three, and the asses
of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. And Kish said to Saul his
son, take now one of the servants with thee, and arise, go seek
the asses. So there was some livestock of
Kish, and they were lost, and his father sends him out to seek
them. And he passed through Mount Ephraim, and passed through the
land of Shalisha, but they found them not. Then they passed through
the land of Shalem. And there they were not. And
he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they found
them not. And when they were come to the
land of Zuth, Saul said to his servant that was with him, come,
and let us return, lest my father leave caring for the ashes and
take thought for us." So you read this, and all the places
Saul went, and you would say, he sought diligently for that
which was lost. He sought to find it. And what I found when I was reading
this, the Lord uses a very interesting occurrence here, to draw Saul
out of obscurity and to lead him to Samuel, to bring him to
Samuel, and Samuel would know this is the man whom God has
chosen for the people according to their desire. But there is
something foreshadowing about this, about these details that
we just read. There's something in there that
speaks of or reminds us of Christ. And what we find here is that
where Saul failed, Christ triumphed. Where Saul failed, with that
desire of what the people wanted, that was not salvation. That
did not accomplish what they sought to accomplish by their
king. And so we see here that Saul
is not the savior that they thought they were getting. Instead, we
see Christ. We see the beauty of Christ.
We see the preciousness of Christ and what he accomplished for
his people. So for example, Saul's a man who's appealing to the
flesh. When men look at him, they desire
him as their king. They're happy to be ruled by
him. But when we saw Christ in the flesh, we weren't impressed
at all. We would not have that man reign
over us. The prophet Isaiah said, he hath
no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there
is no beauty that we should desire him. And so the Christ of God,
whom God has chosen for our salvation, he's not appealing to the flesh.
He's contrary to the flesh and our expectation. Now, here is
one similarity between the two of them. Both Saul, the son of
Kish, and Christ, the son of God, were sent out by their respective
fathers to seek and to find that which was lost. Saul was sent
out, now here's the difference again, Saul was sent out and
he took one of the servants with him. But when Christ was sent
of the Father, he took upon him the form of a servant. He took upon him the likeness
of our flesh and was made like unto us. So Saul was attended
to by a servant and Christ came as the servant to save his people,
the servant of God to fulfill his will. Saul searched and searched
and looked all over, but he could not find that which was lost. And he looked hard. He looked
high and low and went all around, and he could not find that which
was lost. Christ, however, did not fail
to save all his lost sheep. He comes forth and he seeks the
lost, and he finds them, and he saves them to the uttermost.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was
lost. And finally, the contrast that
we see here is that Saul gave up. Saul gave up reasoning that
his father was going to become worried for how he was, worried
for his safety. But Christ finished the work. And he knew what the father purposed
to do. The father was willing to slay
his own son to put away our sins, to satisfy his holy justice in
order to bring all the lost sheep home. And so there we see this contrast
between the two. One is the king that the flesh
desires and he cannot save. He is not the savior we think
he is. The other is the one whom this flesh rejects and refuses
and will not have, but he saves his people from their sins. He accomplishes that which the
flesh cannot accomplish. Now, with that picture, with
Christ as the sure and certain hope of His righteousness for
every believer, now I want to show you the salvation of our
God by His grace, which is traced out for us in this chapter. Now,
we know Saul's end. We know that Saul's end was a
gruesome end and things don't look good for Saul at all. But we do see a picture here
of how the Lord saves sinners. And Saul is actually a perfect
example for us to look at here because none of us is any different
from Saul. That's the whole point. All of
us are sinners. Every one of us is worthy of
eternal damnation. God is just to throw us into
hell if he wills to do that. Because we're all sinners. We've
all earned the wages of sin, which is death. And so Saul's
a great example for us. The difference between us and
Saul now is God. God's made the difference. Otherwise,
we're not any different from Saul. We're sinners lost in darkness,
bound in sin, shut up in prison, and cut off from the things of
God. But it's the grace of God in
Christ that saves us. As we read in Ephesians chapter
2, verses 4 and 5, but God, who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead and sins hath
quickened us, that has made us alive together with Christ, by
grace ye are saved. So let's see this picture of
salvation. And first, to begin here, we'll
go right back to the beginning of the chapter. Saul was of Benjamin. And we know that we are of the
line of Christ. Now, Benjamin, I mean, of the
line of Adam. Now, Benjamin, that name means
son of the right hand. And if you've ever had a right-hand
man, you know that that person has dominion. That person has
a certain dominion over your things. You trust them. You've
given them a certain responsibility in your trust with them. And
you know that there's a certain uprightness to them. There's
a certain uprightness to them. And in that sense, we see a picture
of how God made Adam. When God made Adam, he was given
dominion over all of his creation. Also, we're told in scripture
that when God created Adam, when God made man, he made man upright. He didn't make man. In sin, he
made man upright. He was innocent. He knew not
sin. God hath made man upright, but
they have sought out many inventions. And so Adam then fell in sin,
and spiritually he died. And that's where sin came in,
and that's where death entered the world. And we come forth
from Adam now, corrupt and in sin ourselves. Well, who was
Saul's father? Saul's father is Kish. And the
name Kish means bent. Bent. Crooked. And that's what
we are in sin. We are crooked. We're not straight. We're crooked. We're bent in
sin. And it also pictures our inclination. We have a bent towards sin. We
have a bent toward evil. We know how to do evil. We don't
do what is good. We don't do that which is pleasing
to the Lord. And so, yes, he was made upright,
Adam, but he became Ben. crooked, ruined, fallen in sin. And that's our Father. That's
a good short description of what we are in Adam. Now Saul is asked
for. He's desired. He's the offspring
of his crooked father Kish. And that's us, brethren, totally
depraved, dead in trespasses and sins, fallen from the knowledge
of God. We don't know the true and living
God. We don't have fellowship with God by nature. And though
We do endeavor at times to do a good thing. At times we seek
to do what is good and what we think is right. We are unable
to fulfill that will. We are unable to accomplish that
which we would do in this flesh. And the Lord shows us by his
grace. He brings his children to know
that there is none good but one, and that is God. We don't know
that by nature. We don't understand those things.
We think that we're pretty good, we generally judge ourselves
to be good, but the Lord teaches us that we're all sinners in
need of his grace and mercy. And so Saul sets out, he endeavors
to do that which is good, but he comes up short. He comes up
short. All of us have sinned against
God and we've come up short of the glory of God. And we are
sinners in need of his grace, and we're not going to work ourselves
out of this. And so what does Saul do when
he comes up short? He goes out endeavoring to do
a good thing, to find that which is lost, and he can't do it.
He comes up short in verse six now. Let's pick up there. He
said unto his servant, Behold now, there is in this city a
man of God, And he is an honorable man. All that he saith cometh
surely to pass. Now let us go thither. Peradventure
he can show us our way that we should go." And so Saul, coming
up short, he's turned to religion, and thankfully the
Lord brings him to a man of God. He turns to the truth, but he's
still full of ignorance. He doesn't have a right understanding
of the knowledge of God, and we see that here. But he turns
to seek God, and that's what a lot of people do. They endeavor
to do what's good, but by the grace of God, unbeknownst to
them, they fall short. And they begin to fall, and struggle,
and not do that which they think they should be able to do. In
keeping the law, in doing what is right, in restoring that which
is broken, or lost, or ruined, we can't do it. And the Lord,
by His grace, will bring His people to fail and to come up
short and to know that we come up short in that sense. And He
turns them from the way of the world to begin seeking Him. And
I encourage everyone to seek the Lord. But, when you seek
the Lord, Many think that in seeking the Lord and in going
through the steps and motions of religion, that that is their
salvation, that that's where God gives them grace. But without
the grace of God, without the Spirit of God, without Him giving
us a new birth, and giving us a new birth in Christ, we're
going to stumble and fall in religious things. Just like we
saw the Pharisees do in the New Testament. They stumbled and
fell over Christ because they thought their righteousness was
in doing religious things. But we always, the Lord shows
us, we need the grace of God. And without that grace, we're
just going to go through a form of dead letter religion that
does nothing for us. and continues to bring us up
short. So Saul does turn. He does begin to seek what the
Lord would say to him. But here's an example of how
the Lord deals with his children. Then said Saul to his servant,
but behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man? For the bread
is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to bring
to the man of God. What have we? What do we have
to bring? You can see here that when we
begin, Even if we stumble into where the true gospel is preached,
when we begin, it's full of sin. It's full of ignorance. It's
full of the flesh, is what I'm saying. We don't have an understanding
by nature of the things of God and what God seeks for. Saul
here thinks that, how can I go to God and expect him to give
me anything of value if I don't give to God first something of
value? That's what he's thinking. I've
got to come to God with something in my hand. Otherwise, God's
not going to give me what I seek. That's what he's saying there.
And so we see here where Saul is fretting. Saul is worried. Saul is thinking, what am I going
to bring to God? And that's where we are. These
are the things that the Lord strikes down in his people. These are the idols we set up.
These are the vain fleshly thoughts that we have, that we've set
up. And it's by the gospel and by the spirit of God making that
word effectual in our hearts and knocking down the idols and
stripping away the flesh and stripping away the confidences
that we have in our flesh It's through those things that the
Lord breaks us and prepares us to hear His precious Word of
the Lord Jesus Christ. So Saul's fretting. Saul's worried
that he's got to have something before he can come to God. And
the Lord does that for his people. We do. And when we set out seeking
the Lord, we do find that we're not fit for the work. And our
ideas are all over the place. And we're running here, and we're
running there to try and please God. And we hear something that
calms us down for a little bit. And then before you know it,
we're back up to fretting and worrying and scared and fearful
and terrified all over again. But this is what sinners need
to hear, and this is the comfort that our Lord gives to us. It's
what he says in Hebrews 2, verse 14 and 15. He said, for as much
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ also
himself likewise took part of the same, that through death
he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the
devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. The Lord is showing us that we're
never going to have what God requires by our works of the
flesh. we're always going to come up
short. We're always going to be insufficient
in ourselves. If we're weighed in the scale,
every time we're going to be found wanting in our own works,
and in our own wisdom, and in our own strength. We're going
to be found wanting. But Christ has satisfied God
perfectly by His righteousness. And He is all the righteousness
of His people. And so the first thing is, He
says, come. Come to Christ. Look to Christ. Seek the true and living God
in the Savior whom He has sent, His darling Son, Jesus Christ,
who fulfilled all the righteousness of the law and went to the cross
fulfilling the will of His Father to seek and to save that which
is lost by His perfect righteousness, by His blood. And so He obtained
our redemption And just like the hymn writer Joseph Hart said,
if you tarry, if you wait till you're better, you will never
come at all. So we come now as sinners begging
God for mercy. And yes, there's a lot of ignorance
when we begin to seek the Lord. There's a lot of baggage and
foolish thoughts. But God, through his gospel,
destroys those and tears down the idols that we've set up and
the vain imaginations that exalt themselves against God. Saul
said something very telling. He said, the bread is spent in
our vessels. And the spiritual truth of that
is we have no righteousness to give to God. We have no righteousness. But Christ, he's all the righteousness
that we need. The gospel says to you that have
nothing, ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. And he
that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine
and milk without money and without price. And so the Lord turns
us from our flesh which is bankrupt and has no bread, no righteousness,
and turns us to Christ who said, I am the bread which came down
from heaven. I am the righteousness whom the
Father hath sent. All that eat me, eat my flesh
and drink my blood, shall never hunger and never thirst." And
what Christ is saying to us, and what every believer is brought
and made to know is, I don't need another righteousness. In 15 years, in 25 years, in
40 years, or 75 years, or whatever it is, 120 years, the believer
will never need another righteousness because he's satisfied. I have no righteousness in this
flesh. He is my righteousness. And that never changes. So that
the believer never after a time says, you know, I need some new
thing. Or maybe I need to go practice
this weird ritual over here that I'm hearing my friends talk about
and say that they get stuff out of. Nope, the believer never
needs that. Because Christ, the righteousness
of God for his people, has satisfied our hunger and satisfied our
thirst. He's everything, everything you
need to stand complete before the throne of God. Faultless,
faultless, before the throne of God. Praise be the Lord for
Christ. Now, the Lord's got to make that
known to us, because just as we see with Saul, this is foreign
to him. It's not in his thoughts. He
doesn't know this. He thinks he's got to come with
a gift in his hand. And so the servant answers Saul. Now, just as Christ took upon
him our flesh and came in the form of a servant, I see the
servant here as a picture of our corrupt flesh. And the flesh
says to Saul here, he said, behold, I have here at hand the fourth
part of a shekel of silver. That will I give to the man of
God to tell us our way. And so that's what our flesh
does. Tells us, oh, you've got it. You're just going up there
to God. And he'll tell you. He'll give
you what you need. Now, verse 9 tells us that prophets were
then called seers. And Saul, liking this strategy
of his servant, he goes forward. Now here we come to verse 10.
Here he is going up to the city. Saul said to his servant, well
said, come, let us go. So they went unto the city where
the man of God was. And as they went up the hill
to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water
and said unto them, is the seer here? Is the man of God here?
And they answered them and said, he is. Behold, he is before you. Make haste now, for he came today
to the city. For there is a sacrifice of the
people today in the high place." Do you see here, as they're going
up, as they're traveling, seeking God, seeking the man of God,
as they're traveling up there, they come across these young
maidens drawing water, a picture of the church, the virgin church,
drawing the water from the well of the scriptures, that gospel
word. And this one comes seeking, and they say, go, flee, fly to
Christ. He's here today, just like we
saw in Luke chapter 5. The power of the Lord was present
to heal him. Go, go to Christ. He is the savior of sinners.
All who come to him seeking grace and mercy and help in time of
need, find grace and mercy and help in time of need. And they said to him in verse
13, as soon as ye be coming to the city, ye shall straightway
find him, before he go up to the high place to eat. For the
people will not eat until he come, because he doth bless the
sacrifice. And afterwards they eat that
be bidden. Now, therefore, get you up, for
about this time ye shall find him. It's such a beautiful picture. You see the virgins, right? The five wise virgins who were
ready. They were waiting because when
Christ comes again, he's going to take his bride into the city
and feast and close that door behind him. Today is the day
of grace. Fly to Christ, look to him, beg
him for grace and mercy, and you shall find it, sinner. You
that need His grace, you shall find salvation in the Son of
God, the darling Son of God who gave His life for us. And they
went up into the city, and when they were come into the city,
behold, Samuel came out against them, for to go up to the high
place. And so now, as we look back here,
you can see the kind providences of God, the sovereign power and
grace of God to lead this ignorant man all the way through and takes
him all the way through these journeys and brings him out on
his way and comes face to face with the true and living God.
declared to him in the gospel, Saul was made to seek that which
was lost. And he couldn't accomplish the
work. He came up short. And so he began to seek unto
God. And though he was ignorant and
in darkness to a great many things, and though he came seeking in
a fleshly manner, as all of us do in ignorance, and to strip
us, to show us that we cannot save ourselves. We see that the
hand of God was in this, and all the difficulties, and all
the failures, and all the coming up short, God was in this for
his good to bring him here, to hear this word from Samuel. Now,
the Lord had prepared Samuel for the coming of his child.
He said, well, the Lord taught him to look. And that's what
the Lord teaches us. We don't know who's coming through
these doors. And that's why I endeavor every
night to preach the gospel, to declare Christ, because that's
what sinners need. And there's days we come in ignorance
and we come needing the refreshing grace of God because we get so
worldly minded and so full of foolish things and the Lord heals
us and refreshes us and restores us in grace through the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's precious to us. And so our
Lord says to us, behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes.
This is what he says to the church and to the preacher. And he says,
behold, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they
are white already to harvest. Sometimes we reap on that which
we've not labored. And sometimes we labor and someone
else reaps it. But it's all to the praise and
the glory and the honor of our God. because we're laboring as
fellow helpers in his kingdom. And we wanted, as Paul said,
I do all things for the sake of the elect. And we want to
see the Lord's people helped and delivered from death and
healed and comforted in the grace of Christ. And so he does this. As we see, the Lord's ordained
these things. He brings his people together
and feeds us with this blessed gospel, and he calls them out
in his grace. And I'm minded of that verse
in Acts 13, 48. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad. And all that were ordained unto
eternal life believed. Melee, the Lord does that, he
heals his people. Now drop down to verse 18 in
1 Samuel 9, verse 18 and 19. Then Saul drew near to Samuel
in the gate. and said, tell me, I pray thee,
where the seer's house is. And Samuel answered Saul and
said, I am the seer. Go up before me unto the high
place, for ye shall eat with me today. And tomorrow I will
let thee go and will tell thee all that is in thine heart. And so we see the grace of God
and all our groping and stumbling and knocking things over and
falling down ourselves and our foolish ways. God is so gracious,
so patient, so merciful and kind to us. And that's why we're merciful
to one another, because that's the grace that He's shown to
us. And in the measure that we show mercy and kindness to others,
He shows mercy and kindness to us in Christ. And we need that. We need that. Because we have,
He strips us of the strength and the wisdom of this flesh,
but gives us more precious things in Christ, who of God has made
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption."
So Christ has made all things to us through this gospel where
he tells them, Sit and hear the gospel. Come and listen to it
and hear what Christ has done for your salvation, for the salvation
of his people. Feed upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's through this gospel
word that all the answers, I mean all the questions of our heart
are answered by that gospel. of God's grace and peace in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it's through this gospel
that all our idols are knocked down and destroyed through the
preaching of this gospel of God's mercy and grace in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And it's through this gospel
that he comforts all our terrors, all our worries, all our fears. That's how he answers and addresses
us and speaks to us comforting words in Christ. Because that's what we need.
And he does it through the preaching of this gospel and he strips
away all these things and what remains in the child of God?
Christ. As Paul said in Colossians 3.11,
Christ is all and in all. And that's what remains. The
Lord strips away all the things of his flesh, and Christ is made
preeminent in our hearts. Now verse 20, here's the gospel.
And as for thine asses that were lost three days ago, set not
thy mind on them, for they are found. And on whom is all the
desire of Israel? Is it not on thee and on all
thy father's house? So what Saul here is that he
heard this news that without any help from him at all, that
which was lost was found. And here's the gospel meaning
in this. All that was lost in Adam's house,
all that was destroyed and lost and ruined and brought to nothing,
in three days, in three days with Christ in the grave, all
that was lost was found. Without any help or input from
us, Christ accomplished our redemption in three days. He did that work. And so he says, set not thy mind
on all your sins and concerns and that which is worrying you
and troubling you any longer. Christ has satisfied the holy
justice of God. Believe him. Trust Him. Rest in Him. He is everything
the sinner needs. Believe Him. After our Lord,
He bore the sins of His people, and on the cross, He put them
away forever, and by His burial, and after three days, He rose
from the dead, declaring that you are justified. You that believe
Him are justified of all your sins. He's accomplished our redemption. The work is finished. So don't
labor in fear under threats and doubts and worries any longer. Christ, the Son of Righteousness,
has accomplished the work that His Father sent Him out to do,
which was to seek and to find that which was lost. And sinner,
we're lost. And we can't find it. We can't
get it right. We can't do it. Christ has done
it all. He's done everything. And he
declares to his word, the curse which was upon us under the law
is lifted, and you're free. Free to serve the true and living
God. in the spirit, in the new man. As Paul wrote to the Colossians,
Colossians 1 verse 10 through 12, that ye might walk worthy
of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Not in fear, not trying
to earn a righteousness for yourselves. Christ is our righteousness.
Walk in that truth. Walk by faith in the true and
living God. Strengthened, he says, with all
might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and
longsuffering with joyfulness. He's saying, this is good news.
This is our good news. Christ is all. He's done everything. Giving
thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet. We didn't
make ourselves meet. God has made us meet in Christ
and sending his son to do this work, to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light. And so this is our comfort,
brethren. Now just to wrap it up, these
final verses here. Saul becomes small in his own
eyes. He answered and said, Am I not
a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? Am I family
the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Wherefore
then speakest thou so to me? This is the comforting word to
the sinner. To you that fail and have no
righteousness, who cannot please God, This is the word of grace
that the Lord speaks to you in Christ. Believe Him. Trust Him. Samuel brings Saul with his servant
to the feast. That is, here we are in our flesh. This flesh is not changed yet,
but it says verse 22, when Samuel took Saul and his servant and
brought them into the parlor and made them sit in the chiefest
place among them that were bidden, which were about 30 persons. And here we see here that we
all have a seat before our Lord and we're all equal here. Every one of us is a sinner saved
by the grace of God in need of Christ. We all need him as equally
as the other. And we see a picture in there,
what Paul wrote in Ephesians 2.6, how that God hath raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. And Paul was included in that
together with all his brethren there in the church at Ephesus.
We're all brethren. We're all Saints together in
Christ, and none of us is above another. Now verse 23 and 24,
Samuel said unto the cook, bring the portion which I gave thee,
which I said unto thee, set it by thee. And the cook took up
the shoulder, and that which was upon it, and set it before
Saul. And Samuel said, behold, that
which is left. And that word left means reserved. Saul was feeding upon Christ
in that picture, and that's what we do here. We feed upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's our, the Spirit of God
is given to us as our down payment. Now as we go about, I'm just
going to wrap this up because it's getting late, but it's just,
that's our down payment of the inheritance we have in Christ.
There's an inheritance reserved for you in heaven thanks to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so that's our hope, brethren. And then he comes down, just
like, we'll go out of here today. and back into the things of the
world, but not without the anointing. And in chapter 10, verse 1, he
anoints Saul with the anointing oil. And it pictures how, well,
he says this. Then Samuel took a vial of oil,
this is 10.1, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and
said, is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain
over his inheritance? And what we see here is that
we've received the Spirit of God being sent of the Father
and of the Son to fill the hearts of us, to raise us from the dead,
to make us new creatures in the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the
Spirit, Christ is anointed our King and the Captain of our salvation. And so that chapter, which is
just an introduction to Saul, really gives us a picture of
the grace of God in saving sinners, and what He's done for every
one of us who were in darkness and ignorance, and reveals Christ,
the salvation of sinners, to us, brethren. I pray He does
that for every one of us here. Amen.