I have a few things to say about
this tonight. You know, God chose the first
king over Israel to be Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite. And the reason he did was because
Israel cried out for a king. They said, we want a king. And
the reason they wanted a king was they wanted to be like all
the other nations. All nations had a king. And they
wanted to be like other nations. Instead of being God's nation,
they wanted to have a king. They weren't interested in God
and His covenant being separate and distinct from other nations.
And what God says is that you've not rejected Samuel, you've rejected me. You've
rejected my word. And you want a king? I'm going
to give you a king. I'll give you a king. And he chose a man
that was head and shoulders above everybody else in all of history.
Incredibly looking man. And God gave him the desires
of the heart. And you remember last week, I
thank you Samuel. was there and Saul was fixing
to come to him and the Lord told Saul said Lord he said behold
the man whom I spoke to you about yesterday he's coming and you're
going to meet him and this is the one that's going to rule
over my people and here we have Samuel anointing Saul to be king
to be king poured oil upon his head kissed him said he's made
you to be captain over his inheritance And I tell you, it's a strange thing here. We
have this man. God gives him three signs. The
first time sign is mentioned. That's why the Jews always ask
for signs. The first sign is mentioned is when Moses sticked
his rod down and it became a serpent. That was the first sign in the
Scriptures. And ever since then, the Jews
have always wanted a sign. They wanted a sign. And God gave
them signs. They weren't living by faith,
they were living by law. And so, here they are. God gives
this man Saul three signs. First thing he says to him, he
says, you're going to go by Rachel's tomb. There in verse 2. And when
you get there, a man's gonna meet you. And he's gonna tell
you they found them donkeys that you was looking for, and your
father's quit worrying about the donkeys, and he's worried
about you. And then you're gonna go on farther, and you're gonna
run across three men. Three of them's gonna be carrying
little old kid goats, three little old kid goats. One's gonna be
carrying five loaves of bread. three loaves of bread, excuse
me, and another carrying a bottle of wine. He said, when you meet
them, he said, they're going to give you two loaves of bread,
and you're going to take that bread and receive it from them.
Then he says, you're going to go on up, and you're going to
go on up on the hill of God, and you're going to meet a bunch
of prophets coming down. School, a whole bunch of prophets
coming down. Preachers, I guess what you'd
call them, but prophets. And they had all the music with
them, and they was coming down, making music, coming down off
the hill. And he said, when you see these men, the Spirit of
the Lord is going to come on you, and you're going to prophesy
unto them. And you're going to turn into
another man. And then it says, when he left Samuel, it says
down in verse 9, Then when he turned his back,
God gave him another heart. The Spirit of the Lord is going
to come upon him. He's turned into another man. And then God
gave him another heart. And then he gets down there and
he prophesies. Prophesies. And I tell you these
three things is to happen to him. You're going to be told
that you know they found them and your dad's worried about
you. You're going to meet these three men. They're going to give
you two loaves of bread. And the third thing is that you're
going to preach and prophesy with all the prophets. But this
is the thing I want to say. These three things. He became
another man. The Spirit of the Lord came upon
him. He became another man. And God changed his heart. Now
this is the thing I want to talk about. Could this man have been
a saved man with those three things? Because this is the thing that
most people think that yes, they would be. And I tell you what,
he says the Spirit of the Lord is going to come upon you and
you're going to prophesy. You're going to preach like everybody
else does. So these three things stand out. The Holy Spirit come
upon him mightily. Changed into another man. God
changed his heart. These describe in regeneration. Well, when you follow Saul's
life, you're going to find out, no, he wasn't a regenerated man
at all. In fact, it tells us in another place that God withdrew
his spirit from him and sent an evil spirit to him. So this
is the thing. People say, well, the Holy Spirit
come on him. He was changed into another man. And God changed
his heart. But oh, listen. That old expression,
all that glitters is not gold, is true. A person, a person,
can give all evidence outwardly for a while. They can imitate
the real thing, but when it comes to standing the test of time,
I remember, there's an old brother of Pounds, Carl Pounds, he went
to Jack Shank's church for years and years and years. He used
to come up here for a while. But this has been 40-something
years ago. And he got converted. And he was talking to Jack, and
they was paying the bill that was up on the ladder. And he
said, Jack, you reckon that I'll be here 20 years from now? And
Jack said, if the Lord done the work, He will. If He didn't,
you won't. And that's the thing, if you know, if the Lord don't
do the work, and I've said this time and time again, if a person
can quit, they will quit. If they can leave the gospel
and go somewhere else, they will. They may find any excuse that
they want. They may disagree with the doctrine.
They may not like a personality. They may not like somebody in
the church, and they may feel uncomfortable. But I do know
this, that a man can shine outwardly, or a woman can shine outwardly,
and they can imitate being a believer for a while. For a while. You keep 1 Samuel. Look over
in Hebrews with me. In chapter 6. Yeah, yeah Hebrews
chapter 6 Look at here. This is this is so evidence to
me and then and Armenians use this to prove that a person Can
fall away, but this just tells us that the person not only not
falls away, but he never was converted to begin with It says here in verse 4 Hebrews
6 and 4 for it is impossible You notice that word impossible
For those who were once enlightened, and God brought the light upon
their mind, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, tasted of
Christ, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted
the good word of God, tasted it, enjoyed it. Jeremiah and
John both said, Thy word was sweet as honeycomb to my taste. And look what he said, and the
powers of the world to come, taste the powers of going into
eternity, taste the powers of entering into glory with Christ.
Now listen to it, it's impossible now if all these things happen.
If they shall fall away, walk away from the gospel to renew
them again unto repentance. You can't get them back. If they
walk away from Christ, there's no hope for them. If all these
happen and they walk away, it's impossible to renew them again
unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son
of God afresh and put to Him in open shame. So if a person
can come back, fall away, forsake Christ, after all the things
that happens to them, No hope for none whatsoever. And so look,
I want to look at the difference of the work that God did in Saul's
life and the work of grace that God does in a believer's life.
And the first thing it says there that the Spirit of God came mightily,
mightily up there in verse 6. And the Spirit of the Lord will
come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy unto them, and shalt
be turned unto another man. And the Spirit of the Lord will
come mightily upon him and he'll prophesy. Now in the Old Testament,
here in the Old Testament, the Spirit of the Lord would come
upon a man. Not in a man, come upon a man. And it would only
come upon him when it was necessary for it to come upon him to do
something that God wanted him to do. It didn't come upon people
indiscriminately like it does today in the believer. But oh
no, people were equipped to prophesy. And I tell you, let me show you
something over here in Numbers chapter 11. Here's a perfect
example of what I'm talking about. I've got two things I want to
show you tonight about the Spirit of the Lord coming upon men in
the Old Testament. Here's Moses. God put his spirit
upon Moses in a mighty, mighty way. Put his spirit upon Moses
in a mighty way. But it says here in verse 24, Moses went out and
told the people the words of the Lord and gathered the 70
men of the elders of the people and set them round about the
tabernacle. and the Lord came down in a cloud
and spake unto him and took of the spirit that was upon Moses
now and gave it unto the seventy elders he took Moses had such
a spirit and he put that spirit upon all those seventy elders
and it came to pass that when the spirit rested upon them notice
it didn't come in them rested upon them they did prophesy And
that did not cease means that they did cease, that they did
cease from prophesying. So that's what happens. It just
comes upon men. And I'll tell you that the Scriptures
tells us plainly. Let me show you another thing
in Exodus. Look here at Exodus 31. Look at this. Now, this is an interesting thing
of how God blesses a man and gives him ability to do things
in this world. Here in Exodus 31, verse 1, look
what it says here. This is an amazing thing that
God took this man and look at all the things he done for him.
And every one of these things had to do with physical labor. Now watch this. And the Lord
spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezalel,
the son of Uri, the son of Ur, of the tribe of Judah. Now listen. And I have filled him with the
Spirit of God, first in wisdom and in understanding. That's
the first two things I filled him with. Gave him. And I gave
him knowledge and in all manner of workmanship. And this is what
he put the Spirit of the Lord on him for. To have this understanding
and wisdom and knowledge to devise cunning works, to work in gold
and silver and brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them
in carving of timber, and to work in all manner of workmanship.
God put the Spirit of God on a man just to teach him how to
do certain things. How to work and do things nobody
else could do. And so listen, and he said, the
Spirit of the Lord is going to come upon you. And that was after
Samuel anointed him with oil. But I tell you, this is far,
far different. The Spirit of the Lord coming
upon him, even mightily. This is so different. So different
than what God does for the New Testament believer, for those
who believe Christ, for those... You know, our Lord Jesus told
His disciples, He says, you go into Jerusalem and you tarry
there till the Holy Ghost shall come upon you. And beloved, when
the Holy Ghost come upon those men, beloved, something miraculous
happen to them. They was already converted men,
but the Holy Spirit hadn't fully come yet. Now everybody in the,
every believer in the church, everybody that's saved by the
grace of God, he could not be saved without the Holy Spirit.
He's got to do more than just come on you. The Scriptures tells
us that when He has come, He will dwell in us and abide in
us. And if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, what does it say? He's none of His. And I'll tell
you, that's what, when Peter and them got up and started preaching
and prophesying and speaking in all them different languages,
you know what Peter got up and said? He said, this is exactly
what Joel meant. He didn't know what Joel meant
in Joel 2.28 until that day he got up. He said, this is what
Joel was talking about. He said, the Spirit of the Lord
would come upon all flesh. All types of flesh. Men, women,
boys, girls, every color. And it would come upon all flesh. And you young men would prophesy. And I'll pour my Spirit upon
all mankind. And that's what happens. I'll
tell you, you know, in our Lord Jesus, Somebody read it the other
day our Lord Jesus says this I will not leave you comfortless.
I'm going away I'm going back to my father. I'm going back
to my throne That's where I'm going. I'm going back where I
come from I'm going back to where I'll be worshiped and adored
But he said I'm not gonna leave you without comfort. I I'm not
going to leave you without, I said, you know who's going to take
my place? In your hearts, in your lives, in your understanding,
in your souls? The Holy Spirit. And when He
has come, as our Lord said, when He has come, He will guide you
into all truth. How in the world do we know any
truth? How do we guide into any truth? The Holy Spirit does it.
And you all, you all sit there and nod your heads. You know
why that's? Because the Spirit of God in you bears witness to
the Spirit and the truth of His Word. And then He says, not only that,
but He'll bring things to your remembrance. You know, you sit
around sometimes, you can't hardly remember it. You walk up to somebody
and say, well, what was her name? What was her name? What was her
name? You can't hardly remember somebody else's name. But when
you get to talking about the Scriptures and things like that,
God brings stuff to your remembrance and you just, the Scriptures
will just come to you like that when you're talking to people.
He brings it all to your remembrance. And not only that, when He has
come, He shall not speak of Himself. That's why Pentecostalism, you
know it's wrong. Whenever they make the Holy Spirit
to be everything in the service, and the evidences of you having
the Holy Spirit is speaking in a tongue, you know good and well
that's not the Holy Spirit. Because when the Holy Spirit
has come, He shall not speak of Himself. No more than we speak of ourselves.
He said, when He has come, He shall not speak of Himself, but
He shall take the things of mine, that belong to me. to my glory,
to my power, to my grace, to my love, to my eternity, to my
deity, to my power, to my sovereignty, to my blood, to my righteousness.
He'll bear witness to me. And I'll tell you where the Holy
Spirit's at. He's talking about Christ. And that's why, here's
the thing about Saul, he didn't even know who Samuel was. Somebody
else had to show him who he was. He wasn't interested in God.
And the Spirit of the Lord come upon him. And the Spirit of the
Lord come right off of him, just as quick as it come upon him.
And I tell you, this is the thing. I tell you, the Holy Spirit,
not only that, but how in the world, where do we get a new
nature? We're born of water and the Spirit. How do we get a new
nature? Saul having a new nature. But the Holy Spirit when He comes,
He gives us a new nature. We are new creatures in Christ.
And when the Holy Spirit comes, there is another evidence of
the Holy Spirit coming. That wasn't on this man. Is that the
Spirit? Galatians 5.22 says this is the
fruit of the Spirit and this is just one fruit don't say nine
fruits fruit of the Spirit where the Holy Spirit is there's fruit
and the first fruit is love, kindness, gentleness, faith,
meekness, temperance, faith and I can't remember all of them
now but that's the thing about it You know, you run across people
that the Spirit of God did, they've got fruit. They've got fruit. Our Lord said, listen, you know,
a good tree brings forth what? Good fruit. Good fruit. And oh my, the Holy Spirit's
the one that comes and moves our heart and moves our affections
when we think about Christ and when we think about one another
and think about the things of God. And I tell you, He's the
only one that can teach us anything about the love of God. And you
can go, as we go through Samuel here, we'll find out just how
awful Saul really was. What an awful man he really was.
Then it tells us again in verse 6, He said, you'll prophesy and
be turned into another man. You'll be turned into another
man. This just means that he's going
to be turned from being a farmer to a king. He was a farmer, and
him and his dad farmed and had cattle and different things,
and now he's going to become another man. He's going to go
from being a farmer to a king. And oh my, instead of him seeking
Saul or Samuel, his servant was the one that led him And they
didn't, he didn't even know who Samuel was, like I told you.
He had no leadership ability. And when he, you know, his servant
once said, there's a man of God up there. Samuel didn't. Saul didn't know anything about
the man of God. But when it talks about he's turned into another
man, that's not talking about regeneration. No, no. He didn't know nothing, nothing
about the holy character of God's grace changing a man from the
inside out. Man can be changed from outwardly,
but God does his work from inside to the outside. I remember years
and years ago, you know, back when I wore real long hair and
a beard, wore red boots with stars on them, and I was a different
kind of a person. Altogether different. But here's
the thing. And I started going to churches
and different things. And everybody told me, boy, I
tell you what, if you clean up, if you clean up, the Lord save
you. If you change, cut your hair,
the Lord save you. If you quit wearing them odd
looking clothes, the Lord save you. They wanted to keep cleaning
the outside of the club. God don't clean the outside of
the club. He goes inside. He starts inside. He does something
in the heart. He does something in the soul.
You know, We're called the old man and the new man. And our
old man was crucified with Christ. And when a man is crucified,
that means he's dead. And what are we dead to? We're
dead to sin, alive under righteousness. We're dead to self, and we're
alive under Christ. We're dead to all hopes in ourselves,
we're alive under only hope in Christ. We're dead to everything
in this world, but the day that we go to be with Christ, the
greatest grief we have is we're not dead enough And we don't
love Christ and don't seek Him as hard as we want to. That's
one of the greatest griefs we have. And I'll tell you, when
Christ died to sin once, when we died in Him, we died to sin
one time. Huh? Oh my. We're not changed into
another man. The Scriptures tell us we're
made new. Pitiful! Just change into another
man! You know what I call people like
that changing into another man? It's a dog that will hunt with
anybody. That's what I call them. And
I've known preachers and I ain't been around them in years. But
I've known preachers and they get up and preach and start on
this thing until they start on that other thing. Start on something
until everybody starts to say, yeah, yeah, amen, amen. And boy,
when they found something that made the crowd start jumping
up and down and hollering and all that stuff, then away they
went. They hunted until they found something that everybody
liked. But beloved, when God gives you a new heart, and makes
you a new creature in Christ, and gives you a new mind, a new
understanding. When God does that, God does
the work. He works in the heart. He changes
the heart. He gives you a new heart. And
He gives you a new wheel. And when that happens, when that
happens, Beloved, I'm telling you, your whole heart is set
on one thing. To be a lifelong seeker after
the Lord Jesus Christ. And like I said a minute ago,
the greatest grief that we have as believers is that we have
this awful flesh to contend with. And one of these days, bless
his name, we'll bury it. And by the time it's buried,
by the time the last breath going out of it, we done gone to be
with Christ. It's like Ruby saying, don't stand around my grave,
I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here. That's why I don't make too much
about going to the graveyard. I like to keep a grave up and
I like to keep flowers on it. But you don't go there and stand
over a grave and weep and things. Because listen, those that we
love, they're not there. They're in glory. Why are they in glory? God gave
them a heart. To want Him, desire Him, have
to have Him. And nothing but Him will satisfy
that heart. And I don't care what preacher,
what he hits on. A preacher can hit on everything
on his son. But the only thing that a believer
wants to hear is about his master. And what his master did for him. That's all he wants to hear.
And here's another thing. Here's a third thing that happens.
Down here in verse 9. And it was so that when he had
turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart. And
every one of those signs that he told about came to pass that
day. God changed his heart. God changed his heart. There's been times in our lives
all of us had a change of heart about somebody or something or
something that happened or something that we was going to do and said,
oh no, no, I wouldn't do that. And then you have a change of
heart. But, well, you know, I thought about that. I believe, I believe
that'd be all right. You know, we'll have a change
of heart about something. But I tell you what, a change
of heart absolutely means nothing. It's no different than a change
turning over a new leaf. And I tell you, the heart The
heart. I don't talk so much about the
heart. But it's a heart. When God does it, it turns that
heart towards Christ in faith. And you know, our eyes are fixed. Our eyes of our faith, the eyes
of our heart is fixed on Him. And let me tell you something.
We don't need just a change of heart. Look over here in Ezekiel
36. We need more than a change of heart. Look what God says
He does. I heard Henry say years ago,
that just, oh my goodness, about to come out of my seat when he
said, I've never heard it said before, he said, you know, all
these preachers say, you know, you need to give Jesus your heart. Henry said, what would He do
with it? He said, it's rotten, it's corrupt,
what would He do with it? They don't want that old sorry
stinking thing. They don't want that old sorry
heart of yours. But you know what he does? He gives you a heart. It's not
you giving him your heart. It's him giving you a heart. Look what he said here in verse
25. Then will I, this is what God
says, then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall
be clean. That represents the Word of God. And from all your
filthiness and from all your idols, I'm going to cleanse you
from them. Now listen to it. A new heart also will I give
you. Oh! Ah! Next time you hear preachers,
I've been thinking this a lot today. You know Samuel, you go
back and before we get through this book, it says God put a
lion's spirit in the prophet's mouth. And I thought about that. You know it said God put a lion's
spirit in the mouth. And God put a lion's spirit in
these preachers' mouths. And the reason He done it, was
to get people to stay moral and stay half way from being so mean
but he said listen a new heart also will I give you now listen
to it also not only a new heart but a new spirit will I put within you and here's
what else has to happen and when I put that new heart and new
spirit in there I'm going to take away that stony heart out
of your flesh That old stony heart. And I'm going to give
you a heart of flesh. A heart that can be touched.
A heart that can be touched. A heart that loves Christ. A
heart that can be touched by the Word of God. A heart that
can be touched by the Spirit of God. A heart that can be touched
by the things of Christ. But the last thing I want to
say about this thing is this. So you see this man had the Spirit
of the Lord come upon him. He prophesied and he was another
man and he had a change of heart. The Spirit of God has got to
come in you. You got to be made a new creature
in Christ and God has to put a new heart in you. Change your
heart. Change your spirit. But here's the last thing. Here's
the last thing. This is what he really, really
lacked. What about your will? What about your will? Is will,
is self, is who demands self to be satisfied? Or does your
will seek to glorify Christ and honor Christ? My will seek to please me and
what will be gained to me will seek what to please Christ and
what will be gained to Christ. I tell you what, here's the thing
about it. There's two things that the Scriptures
tell us plainly. In the day of His power, He made
us willing. And it's God which worketh in
us both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Now is your
will in love God's will? You like, you know, you like
walking with God, talking, you know, that's why I said, how
can two walk together, except they be agreed? I would agree
with God. Even what I don't know, I agree
with. And there's a heapsight in there
I don't know. Somebody asked me a question the other day,
I believe it was Debbie, about Ephraim and Manasseh. I said,
I never thought of it. I never heard that question before.
But I do know this, what I don't know. If it's in there, I believe
it. I believe it. And my believing
it ain't going to make it true. But I believe it because it is
true. Our Father, in the blessed, glorious
name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for meeting
with us tonight, giving us your Holy Spirit, letting us feel
his presence in this service tonight. Let us rejoice in the
truth, rejoice in your precious word. Lord, your word does something
for us that nothing in this world will ever do. Your preaching,
the preaching of the gospel does something for us that nothing
in this world can ever do. And Lord, we thank you for it.
Thank you for the word. Thank you for the truth. Thank
you for preaching. Thank you for the Holy Spirit. Thank you for the gospel. Thank
you, Lord. God, help us and instruct us
and teach us. You teach us. Lord, let us all
sit at your feet and learn of you. Learn of you. Bring thanks to our remembrance.
For Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. Well, good night
and God bless you. I'll see you Sunday, Lord willing.