God’s King Revealed.

I stand amazed in Your presence Jesus the Nazarene, I stand in awe of who You are and Your mighty works.

“I invite you to consider Me, who I am, Yahweh, the Alpha and the Omega, who from nothing has created the entire universe and everything you see. It is right and good that you be filled with awe. It is right and good that you remember Me as I had revealed my presence to My people Israel. So great yet so far removed by my Holiness. Now you are so privileged to have access into My presence, real access where you can communicate with Me and hear My voice. All the glory to My Son Jesus who made this possible. Enjoy it, enjoy Me and My presence and grow in your love and enjoyment of Me even as I continue to draw you closer and closer to Me”

We consider 1 Samuel 9:1 – 1 Samuel 10:8..The people have continually demanded a king: 1 Sam 8:19; We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles” Samuel had been devastated at this, since there were clearly times when God had fought their battles and he felt they were clearly rejecting God. However God had said to Samuel, “Listen to them and give them a king”.9:22

The focus then in ch 9 moves away from Samuel as the central figure to the process of identifying this new king. Although the next number of chapters are now going to focus on Saul I remind you that the real central figure in this story is Yahweh himself as he moves and unrolls history.

Read now through today’s passage and consider what impression you get as this story unfolds. I see an incredible amount of detail. Much of it seemingly insignificant in the bigger scheme of things. Here is a young man. A man with great appearance huge and athletic, the perfect figure of a king. Yet he is humble, coming from the smallest tribe vs 21.

So what does all this detail tell you? Well it speaks to me of the total control of God over every individual and of the affairs of the world. Despite the fact that the people are going against God He is still guiding them in the finest detail. Of course we cannot see at this stage how this king is going to turn out in the long run, but here it is clear that he is God’s choice.

This passage climaxes in 10:6 with his anointing. Notice that Samuel prophecies that the “Spirit of the Lord will come on you in power…. and you will be a changed person.” Now if this was in the New Testament era we would immediately say that this promise was one of being born again. However as history unfolds and we look into the future the Spirit departs from him later and he is ruled by an evil Spirit. This is not part of this passage though, we will face that when we come to it. But we take note this promise is equipping him for the task ahead.

What we have seen so far is God’s intimate guidance in this process and as we meditate on this we should be reminded of Roman’s 8:28, that “God works all things together for the good of them that love Him and are called by His name”. Is that a promise unique to the NT? I don’t think so. However under the Old covenant, God tended to work with His people as a a whole group, rather than in the intimate individual way as in the NT.

Nevertheless He was working for the good of all who love Him down through the ages, as He planned the coming of His new king, the Messiah Himself, our Lord Jesus. The reminder in this passage is the fact that He is involved in every little detail of our lives. Of course when we deliberately go our own way, He will use his discipline to bring us back to Him again. Sometimes this will cause one to go on a wide detoir over many years.

May this passage and this thought bring you a deep peace and comfort in a world which seems to be being governed by evil and chaos. on all sides.