38. Rejecting the King: God's Love for a Rebellious People(1 Samuel 8-10)

G', day, everyone.

I'm Dave Whittingham.

Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God.

What sort of person do you want leading you?

Making the big decisions, setting the agenda?

What do you look for in a person like that?

We're all in some way drawn to leaders, whether in politics or the workplace or in church.

Sometimes we want leaders who'll let us do whatever we want to do.

They become a tool for opening whatever path we want to walk down.

Sometimes we want leaders who can solve the big issues.

They have the wisdom and the insight to see the way forward.

Sometimes we want doers, people who can get on with things, make things happen.

What sort of leaders do you like?

Leadership is built into the fabric of the universe.

God created the world, he owns it and he rules it.

And he created humans to rule over the world under him, under his authority.

Unfortunately, ever since the Fall, every leader that we put in place somehow distorts what a leader should be, even the good ones.

And it comes from them and us.

The leader is sinful and so will always in some way lead in a sinful way.

And from us, we sin.

And so what we want from a leader, what we expect from a leader becomes distorted by our own evil desires.

So what do we do when leadership's a good thing from God, modelled on God?

And yet every leader we see is a distortion of what a leader should be.

This is a problem that Israel had to grapple with just over 3,000 years ago.

And God's told us what happened then to help us understand what we need.

And so, without further ado, I present to you our next episode of stories of a Faithful God.

At the end of our last episode, things seemed to be going really well for Israel.

They had repented, turning away from their fake gods and putting their trust in the true and living God.

God forgave them and saved them from the Philistines.

In their repentance, they were helped by a leader who God had raised up, Samuel, Judge of Israel.

The hereditary leaders that Israel had had, the high priest Eli and his sons Hophni and Phinehas, they had been useless.

They hadn't led the people in trusting God and it had been a disaster.

Thankfully, God provided Samuel to lead and guide them back to trusting God.

Now Samuel's getting old and there's a problem.

He set up his two sons, Joel and Abijah, as judges in Beersheba, which is right down in the south of the country.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

And yet we've already seen one example in the book of 1 Samuel of when hereditary leadership went wrong.

And now we see it again in chapter eight, verse three, we're told this about Samuel's sons.

It says, however, his sons did not walk in his ways.

They turned toward dishonest profit, took bribes and perverted justice.

It's a terrible thing when a judgment goes not to the person who is in the right, but to the person who's given the most money to a judge.

And the elders of Israel don't want that to become a norm.

They want a different sort of leader, a more reliable leader.

And so they get together and visit Samuel at his home in Ramah.

They say in verse five, look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways.

Therefore appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have.

It's worth doing a quick review of how Israel's been led so far up until this point.

Ever since they left Egypt, they've had the hereditary priesthood.

In Aaron's line, the priests are spiritual leaders, but they're not what you call a government.

Local decisions are generally overseen by people like these guys, the elders.

There are elders in towns, there are elders in the twelve tribes, people who are respected and looked to for decisions.

But in terms of the nation as a whole, all 12 tribes together as one Israel, there's no formalised human leadership.

They do have a leader.

God's their leader.

He's their king.

He's their best king, the most loving king.

He's given them the law, he judges them without bribery or injustice.

He leads them in battle and he protects them.

He is faithful in all his promises.

And yet it seems like whenever they don't have a human leader, they turn away from their king, their God.

Throughout the Book of Judges, when they have a human judge who trusts God, they're far more likely to trust God themselves.

When that human leader dies, they go back to rejecting God.

Samuel is one of those judges, one of those human leaders.

The judges have always been raised up by God.

They're given by Him.

Out of his kindness and mercy, he raises up a human judge to bring them back to him, even though it isn't what they deserve.

And through that judge, he gives them his word.

So it seems like there's a goodness in the elders asking for a new leader.

They've enjoyed having Samuel and they don't want evil people like his sons, and yet they haven't asked for a new judge, they've asked for a king.

So what's the difference?

One key difference, strangely, is, is that it's hereditary.

Kingship passes from father to son.

I say strangely, because the issue of hereditary roles is exactly what sparked this request.

It was the problem in Eli's family, it's the problem in Samuel's family.

It's even come up.

Previously in the Book of Judges, the people had tried to make one of their judges, Gideon, a king, but he'd wisely refused.

The goodness of his decision was shown by the fact that his son was a murderous fool.

It was hopeless to have him in charge.

There's no guarantee that just because the father is good and wise and just that the son will be.

And yet now the elders want to institutionalise hereditary leadership.

I guess they're thinking, well, at least then we'll never be without a leader.

We won't keep going for decades waiting for the next one.

But that points us to another key difference between a king and the judges.

The judges have authority like a king.

They do things that look a bit like a king, and yet their role is still to keep pointing people to the true king of Israel, Yahweh, their God, they say, not me, him.

But now the people have asked for a king.

Like the other nations, they want this sorted.

Like the other nations around them, they want a human king who will give them laws, give them justice, give them leadership in battle, give them victory.

What's so sad about that is that they have all those things in God.

There's no one who can do it better than God.

When they last fought the Philistines, it wasn't Samuel who led them in battle.

He spent the battle praying to God.

It was God who led them.

God who terrified the Philistines and threw them into confusion, God who gave Israel the victory to become like the nations around them, nations that worship fake gods, whose kings are evil and take bribes and work for their own glory rather than God's glory and their people's good.

It's ludicrous.

When Samuel hears the request from the elders, he is so angry he can't believe his ears.

He takes his anger to God and God says to him in verse seven, listen to the people and everything they say to you, they have not rejected you.

They have rejected me as their king.

They are doing the same thing to you that they have done to me since the day I brought them out of Egypt, until this day, abandoning me and worshipping other gods.

It's the same old problem, just expressed in a new way.

Despite all of God's kindness, despite all his power, despite everything he's given them, they still want someone Else, which is really the heart of sin when our hearts say anything, anyone but God, despite the fact that he's the best.

Given that what God says next is a little unexpected, he tells Samuel to listen to them.

They're going to get a human king.

In a few verses, that's going to sound like God's punishing them.

They've asked for something foolish and he's handing them over to their foolishness.

And I think that is part of it.

In fact, if you want a simple explanation for God giving them a king, that'd be an easy one to go with.

If you're the sort of person who likes everything black and white, though, you're going to be really disappointed because as well as God handing them over to their evil, he's also blessing them by giving them a human king.

Strange, isn't it?

You see, if you go back to Deuteronomy, a book that was written while the Israelites were still in the wilderness before they came into Canaan, it seems like God actually assumes that one day they'll have a king.

In fact, he even says how they'll ask for a king.

They'll want a king like all the nations around them.

It seems like even though the people's hearts were in the wrong place when they asked, God isn't against the idea of a human king.

But this king isn't meant to be a king like the kings of the other nations.

He should be a king on God's terms, a godly king, a king who loves and fears and honours God.

Listen to what God says in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, from verse 14.

He says this.

When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Take possession of it, live in it, and say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations around me.

You are to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses.

Appoint a king from your brothers.

You are not to set a foreigner over you or one who is not of your people.

However, he must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire many horses.

For the Lord has told you, you are never to go back that way again.

He must not acquire many wives for himself, so that his heart won't go astray.

He must not acquire very large amounts of silver and gold for himself.

When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.

It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction and to do these statutes, then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen.

He will not turn from this command to the right or to the left.

And he and his sons will continue reigning many years in Israel.

So the big thing that the king has to do to be a good king is to read his Bible, to read God's law.

It's a reminder that his kingship sits under God's kingship.

He has no right to stray from the law God's already given.

Rather, he's to enact that law and he's to reflect the character of the lawgiver, gracious, faithful, gentle, just and fair, loving.

And so ultimately, his kingship will point people back to the kingship of God.

Have to wait to see if Israel gets a king like that, though.

There's also another reference to a king that we talked about a couple of episodes ago.

It's in the last few lines of Hannah's prayer.

She had been giving thanks that God had heard her prayer.

He'd given her a son.

But her picture of God's help expands far beyond his help for her.

She has this great expectation of God's help for his people as a whole.

And right at the end, in 1 Samuel 2, 10, she says, those who oppose the Lord will be shattered.

He will thunder in the heavens against them.

The Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

He will give power to his king.

He will lift up the horn of his anointed.

That's a really positive image.

Not just that God will save his people, but that he'll save them through a king.

So again, it's a picture of a king who isn't a separate king to God, but who's working in total alignment with God.

For now, though, the picture isn't so positive.

God wants the elders to be warned about what they've asked for.

They've rejected God by asking for this human king.

They want a king who gives them things.

They want him to give them safety and justice.

But they really need to understand that a king isn't just a giver, he's a taker.

God sends Samuel back to the elders to warn them.

And so Samuel tells them God's words.

He says in verse 11, these are the rights of the king who will reign over you.

He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots.

He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of 50s to plow his ground and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots.

He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks and bakers.

He can take your best fields, vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.

He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and servants.

He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best cattle and your donkeys and use them for his work.

He can take a tenth of your flocks and.

And you yourselves can become his servants.

You can hear it over and over and over again, can't you?

He'll take.

He'll take.

He'll take.

And what'll they do when they feel so crushed by all this taking?

They'll try to get help from the king who's a giver, but by then it'll be too late.

Samuel says in verse 18, when that day comes, you will cry out because of the king you've chosen for yourselves.

But the Lord won't answer you on that day.

So they've been warned.

They have all the information they need.

They've been told about the dangers of going down this path.

But like a child who doesn't think or care about the consequences, the people refuse to listen.

They say in verse 19, no, we must have a king over us.

Then we'll be like all the other nations.

Our king will judge us, go out before us and fight our battles.

In other words, they're asking for a downgrade.

All those things they've just said that they want from a king.

We've seen God do them all perfectly in one Samuel.

It's like you have first class tickets on a plane and you say, you know what?

I'll just jump on the wing and hang on.

And so the Lord says to Samuel, listen to them.

Appoint a king for them.

And Samuel sends them all back to their home cities.

Satan, chapter nine begins by introducing us to a prominent man who has an impressive son.

In fact, he's the most impressive son in all of Israel.

Verse 1 says, There was a prominent man of Benjamin named Kish, son of Abiel, son of zeror, son of Beckerath, son of Apphiar, son of a Benjaminite.

He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man.

There was no one more impressive among the Israelites than he.

He stood a head taller than anyone else.

So Saul stands out in the crowd.

Everyone who sees him notices him.

He's the sort of guy who, if you're looking for a warrior king.

He certainly looks the part.

One day, his dad's donkeys wander off.

The dad says to Saul in verse three, take one of the servants with you and go and look for the donkeys.

So off they go.

And they don't just climb a tree to get a good view.

They do a lot of walking.

They walk all through the tribal areas of Ephraim, which is really hilly, and Benjamin.

Both are just north of Jerusalem.

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Eventually, they get to the land or the area of Zuph.

From way back in chapter one, verse one, we know that Zuph is the great, great, great grandfather of Samuel.

In other words, they've arrived in the area of Samuel's hometown.

Just as it seems like Samuel and Saul are about to have this great meeting, though that's the moment that Saul decides to give up.

He says to the servant in verse five, come on, let's go back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and start worrying about us.

On the one hand, that's a pretty reasonable point.

On the other hand, perhaps it's a hint of how future events will unfold.

Thankfully, the servant has a bright idea.

He says, look, there's a man of God in this city who's highly respected.

Everything he says is sure to come true.

Let's go there now.

Maybe he'll tell us which way we should go.

Suppose we do go.

Saul says to his servant.

What do we take the man?

The food from our packs is gone, and there's no gift to take to the man of God.

What do we have?

The servant replies, here, I have a little silver.

I'll give it to the man of God and he'll tell us which way we should go.

Notice that both times the servant speaks, he says that this man might tell us which way we should go.

At a surface level, they're just hoping to get some information about the donkeys.

Saul's going to get a much bigger word from God, though, about the way that he should go.

They head off towards the city.

The city's on a hill, and as they climb, they meet some young women coming out to draw water.

The men ask if the seer or the prophet is in.

It turns out they've arrived at almost exactly the same time as the prophet, almost as if someone was guiding and directing these events.

The young women urge the men to hurry.

They say in verse 12, yes, he's ahead of you.

Hurry.

He just now entered the city because there's a sacrifice for the people at the high place.

Today, as soon as you enter the city, you will find him before he goes to the high place to eat.

The people won't eat until he comes because he must bless the sacrifice.

After that the guests can eat.

Go up immediately.

You can find him now.

Well, they do hurry into the city.

And as they enter, who should they bump into but Samuel?

This might be a happy surprise for Saul and his servant, but it's no surprise for Samuel.

Just the day before, God had told him something very significant.

He had told him in verse 16, at this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, anoint him ruler over my people Israel.

He will save them from the Philistines.

Because I have seen the affliction of my people, for their cry has come to me.

Interestingly, here we have the really positive picture of a king, the godly picture of a king, a king who God's going to use to save his people from the Philistines.

It's absolutely amazing that even though in the last chapter we heard about the people abandoning God, here we see that God is not abandoning his people.

Their unfaithfulness to him stands in stark contrast to his faithfulness to them.

Just like in Egypt, and just like with Hannah, at the start of 1 Samuel, God sees the affliction of his people.

He hears their cry, and in his powerful, faithful love he acts.

What better king is there than that?

As Saul and Samuel come across each other, just in case there's any doubt, the Lord says to Samuel, here is the man I told you about.

He will govern my people.

Saul isn't party to any of that information.

All he sees is a complete stranger.

He walks up and he asks in verse 18, would you please tell me where the Seer's house is?

This could be one of the first recorded events in history of someone meeting a celebrity and having no idea who they're talking to, Samuel replies with a cryptic but massive sounding answer.

In verse 19, he says, I am the seer.

Go up ahead of me to the high place and eat with me.

Today, when I send you off in the morning, I'll tell you everything that's in your heart.

As for the donkeys that wandered away from you three days ago, don't worry about them, because they've been found.

And who does all Israel desire but you and all your father's family?

Saul had come hoping for some information about donkeys.

Surely that's what's in his heart.

Samuel says, don't worry about the donkeys, they're not even an issue anymore.

I'm going to tell you something far more significant than that.

I. Oh, and by the way, all of Israel is keen to know you.

It raises the question, what is in Saul's heart?

Israelites were told to love the Lord their God with all their heart.

Hannah, at the beginning of the book, had a heart turned towards God when God promised a good priest for his people.

Back in chapter two, verse 35, he'd said, then I will raise up a faithful priest for myself.

He will do whatever is in my heart and mind.

In other words, his heart will be guided by God's heart.

So if Saul's going to be the king of God's people, what is in his heart?

For the moment, Saul's not prepared for this massive news from Samuel.

Even though so many 12 year old boys dream of being the chosen one or the Saviour of the day, most of us grow up to accept the more practical realities of life.

And when Saul hears this, he starts to panic.

He says, am I not a Benjaminite from the smallest of Israel's tribes?

And isn't my clan the least important of all the clans of the Benjaminite tribe?

So why have you said something like this to me?

Samuel's words seem unbelievable.

Saul is a nobody.

Sure, he's tall and impressive, but in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't really count for much.

He's just a country lad from a backwater town and a backwater family from a backwater tribe.

That isn't how Samuel treats him, though.

He takes Saul up to the feast on the hill.

Samuel's invited 30 men to the feast.

And he doesn't just tell Saul to grab a seat anywhere.

He puts him at the head of the table, the place of honour.

It's a daunting place of honour for a young man who's sitting among strangers.

Samuel's also made preparations for Saul's food.

He specifically asked the cook to keep aside a choice cut of meat.

He says in verse 24, notice that the reserved peace is set before you eat it because it was saved for you for this solemn event at the time I said, I've invited the people.

Saul's head must be swirling.

After the feast, they head back to Samuel's house and they go up on the roof to talk.

What they talk about, God hasn't told us.

Far more significant for us is what Samuel says to Saul.

The next day, they get up before the sun rises and Samuel walks Saul and the servant to the edge of the city.

When they get there, Samuel says to saul in verse 27, tell the servant to go on ahead of us, but you stay for a while and I'll reveal the word of God to you.

So the servant walks on ahead.

Then Samuel turns Saul into a Messiah or Christ.

Messiah and Christ mean anointed one.

Samuel pulls out a flask of oil and anoints or pours the oil on Saul's head and kisses him.

It's a sign that he's been chosen for a special task.

And again we're reminded of Hannah's prayer back in chapter two, where it says, God will give power to his king.

He will lift up the horn of his anointed.

Samuel says to Saul, hasn't the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance?

If you're wondering what God's inheritance is, we're actually told in Deuteronomy 32, 9.

There it speaks about how God divided up the world, giving each country their land as their inheritance.

Then verse nine says, but the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob or Israel, his own inheritance.

The people, the Israelites, are his inheritance.

His precious possession, his hope for the future, his love that he'll cherish and will never throw away.

And now he's allowing Saul to rule them.

It's such a weighty gift.

It'd be so foolish to think that God's giving away his inheritance.

So foolish for Saul to think that he can do with it whatever he wants.

The people don't belong to Saul now.

They still belong to God.

Rather, God's entrusting them to his care.

He's been honoured with a massive duty, a duty that God will pay the closest attention to.

When I was a young primary school teacher, 23, 24 years old, I'd talk to the parents of the kids in my class and they always seemed so anxious, so desperate to know everything that's going on for their child.

And I didn't get it.

I'd be like, they're doing fine, don't worry.

What are you panicking about?

It wasn't until I became a parent that I got it, that I understood how precious a child is, or should be to a parent.

It wasn't until then that I understood the tension of handing over my precious child to some young, inexperienced 23 year old teacher.

For six hours a day, five days a week, I wanted to know what happened in every second of my child's day.

And that is nothing compared to the love God has for his people.

It's nothing compared to the task Saul is being entrusted with again.

Saul's head must be reeling.

Kindly God helps him know that this isn't just the fantasy of some old man.

This stranger who he just met yesterday isn't making this all up.

God set some signs to prove the truth of Samuel's words, and they're really detailed signs.

They're almost like code words from a spy movie.

In chapter 10, verse 2, Samuel tells him, today when you leave me, you'll find two men at Rachel's grave at Zelzar in the territory of Benjamin.

They'll say to you, the donkeys you went looking for have been found.

And now your father has stopped being concerned about the donkeys and is worried about you, asking, what should I do about my son?

You will proceed from there until you come to the oak of Tabor.

Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there.

One bringing three goats, one bringing three loaves of bread, and one bringing a clay jar of wine.

They will ask how you are and give you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from them.

After that, you will come to Gibeah of God, where there are Philistine garrisons.

When you arrive at the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place, prophesying.

They will be preceded by harps, tambourines, flutes and lyres.

The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully on you.

You will prophesy with them, and you will be transformed.

When these signs have happened to you, do whatever your circumstances require because God is with you.

Afterward, go ahead of me to Gilgal.

I will come to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice fellowship offerings.

Wait seven days until I come to you and show you what to do.

Did you hear in there?

It was almost said in passing that there's a Philistine garrison at Gibeah.

Put that together with the way God spoke about his people, how they'd cried out to him in their affliction.

And you see that the Philistines have returned as a powerful force.

In fact, Saul's been anointed specifically to deal with those Philistines.

So we'll have to see how he goes.

We're told in verse nine that as Saul turns to leave Samuel, God changes his heart.

In other words, God isn't just throwing him out there to sink or swim.

God's giving him what he needs to rule his people.

The question of what was in Saul's heart is far less significant than the fact that God's given him a new heart.

As he leaves and goes on his way.

All these signs happen just how God said they would.

When he meets the group of prophets, we're told that the Spirit of God comes powerfully on him and he prophesies along with them, which makes total sense, because whenever the Spirit of God comes, the Word of God is spoken.

Sometimes people claim that when people are filled with the Holy Spirit, they somehow become less able to be understood.

That isn't what happens in the Bible, though.

God's Spirit pushes people to speak God's Word.

And that especially makes sense for Saul, who's going to rule God's people, because God rules His people by His Word.

That's how he guides and directs his people.

At the start of the world, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

And then God spoke, and creation sprang into being in obedience to His Word.

When he saved his people out of Egypt, he gave them His Word.

When his people disobeyed His Word, he judged them by His Word.

When Samuel was angry about the kingship request, God spoke to him and told him what to do.

God told him that Saul was coming and what to do with Saul and what signs Saul would see.

Saul's kingship is going to be judged on the basis of whether he listens to God's Word or not.

So of course, you'd expect God's anointed ruler to speak God's word.

But for the people who have known him for years yet who know nothing about Saul's new role, this is really weird.

They say in verse 11, what's happened to the son of Kish?

Is Saul also among the prophets?

In fact, it even becomes a popular saying, is Saul also among the prophets?

It's another reminder of just how insignificant Saul is.

When he finishes prophesying at the point where Samuel said, to do whatever your circumstances require because God is with you, Saul goes to the high place.

Huh?

Is that all?

What about the Philistine garrison?

Is he going to do anything about that?

In a sense, it's up to him.

Samuel had said, do whatever the circumstances require because God is with you.

So he can do nothing if that's how he reads the circumstances.

And he can just wait for Samuel to come again.

But it isn't the exciting crescendo to the story that you might expect.

In fact, he has a little conversation with his uncle that seems to say even more firmly, not gonna do anything.

Yet in verse 14, his uncle asks, where did you go?

To look for the donkeys.

Saul answers, when we saw they weren't there, we went to Samuel, tell me, Saul's uncle said, what did Samuel say to you?

It seems that the uncle knows more about Samuel than Saul originally did.

Saul tells him he assured us the donkeys had been found.

What's more significant than what Saul says, though, is what Saul doesn't say.

We're told.

However, Saul did not tell him what Samuel had said about the matter of the kingship.

God's given him a new heart, he's put his Holy Spirit in him.

And yet there's still a reticence to own this publicly.

That first reaction from Saul when he'd said, hey, I'm from the smallest tribe and the smallest clan, I'm really not that important.

That seems to be still, what's driving him, it hasn't gone away.

And so his family are none the wiser.

His tribe is none the wiser, the nation is none the wiser.

And they continue to suffer under the Philistine oppression.

Ha.

The time's come for Israel to meet their first human king.

Samuel gathers them all together at Mizpah.

It's the same place he'd gathered them when they needed to repent and turn back to the Lord before their last battle with the Philistines.

Samuel speaks God's word to them.

God reminds them that he's their saviour.

Not just in theory, he actually has saved them.

The only reason they're there in the promised Land is because of his salvation.

It's so sad that they've rejected him and asked for another lesser saviour.

He says in verse 18, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought Israel out of Egypt and I rescued you from the power of the Egyptians and all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.

But today you've rejected your God, who saves you from all your troubles and afflictions.

You said to him, you must set a king over us.

And yet, even though their motives are bad, God's going to give them a king because it fits with his good plans.

He's going to do it with a big reveal.

All the people divide up into their 12 tribes.

Within their tribes, they divide up into their smaller clans.

All this is based around family lines.

They are all from the family of Jacob, also called Israel.

The 12 tribes are the 12 families of Jacob's sons.

The clans are smaller family groups within that.

In verse 20, we're told Samuel had all the tribes of Israel come forward and the tribe of Benjamin was selected.

That in itself is a surprise, just like it was for Saul.

Benjamin is the smallest tribe and not where you'd expect a king to come from.

Verse 21 goes on.

Then he had the tribe of Benjamin come forward by its clans, and the Matrite clan was selected.

Finally, Saul, son of Kish, was selected.

You can almost imagine everyone watching this, pairing away, the groups getting smaller and smaller, hundreds of thousands of people straining forward to see, who is this man?

Who's it going to be?

And finally, when the name is called Saul, son of Kish, everyone else from the Matrite clan steps back to reveal an empty space.

They can't find him.

They ask God, has he arrived yet?

And God says, there he is, hidden among the supplies.

It's hard to imagine a more unfavourable start to Saw's kingship.

How on earth is he going to be the saviour, the warrior king, when he's too embarrassed to stand in front of a crowd of the people he's meant to rule?

They drag him out and they stand him in front of everyone.

He stands up and suddenly things look a little more positive.

His size is immediately obvious.

It's a great time to see that he's a head taller than everyone else, because everyone else is there.

Samuel says in verse 24, do you see the one the Lord has chosen?

There is no one like him among the entire population.

Now the people are excited now.

They're thinking, yeah, God's chosen really well.

They all shout, long live the king.

Now there's just that little matter of what it means to actually have a king.

That thing that the elders had so quickly waved on through.

Remember the long list of things that the king can take.

Samuel writes down those rights of kingship on a scroll and places them in the presence of the Lord.

Presumably that means in the tabernacle.

It's locked in now.

There's no room for buyer's regret.

The deal is done and God is the guardian of this new kingship.

The people are bound to it.

And Samuel sends all the people home.

Saul also goes home, this time with the beginnings of a bodyguard or an army.

Verse 26 says, Brave men whose hearts God had touched went with him.

You see that even now, right here at the beginning, God's looking after this king.

He's providing for him, protecting him.

He's touched the hearts of brave men to go with him.

God is still the ultimate king.

Not everyone there is brave, though some are wicked.

They aren't keen to accept the king who God chose for them.

Just like in the wilderness after God saved his people from Egypt, some people begin grumbling.

They say, how can this Guy, save us.

They despise him.

They don't bring him a gift.

They walk off in a huff.

Saul chooses not to do anything about them, though at the moment he just keeps quiet and he goes home again.

There's no call to arms.

There's no challenge to the Philistines.

Last time they all came to Gibeah to repent.

They hadn't planned on a battle, but when the Philistines came, they fought.

How much more now, you'd think when they've gathered to see who God's chosen as a military leader, it still feels like there's this unnerving hesitation on Saul's part.

He's still holding back from taking the reins he's been given.

When is he finally going to leap into action?

It's an awkward place to pause.

I want to go on and tell you the things that Saul actually does do.

But just like the Israelites had to.

We're going to take a bit of a break there.

Before we do, though, I want to do some reflection about leadership.

At the beginning of the episode, I asked you what sort of person you want leading you.

I want to encourage you not to make the mistake that Israel made.

The mistake they made was to take their eyes off the king who they already had to reject the king they already had to think that there's a human leader who can do better than the leader they already have.

Yes, you might think, I'm not rejecting God, but I still like having good leaders.

I want to suggest, though, that we have a tendency to want godlike qualities from our leaders.

Think about it in a church context.

We can expect our leaders to grow the church.

That is an impossible task for any leader.

Paul makes it really clear.

He says in 1 Corinthians 1, I planted the seed.

Apollos, another apostle, he watered it, but God made it grow.

God did that work.

It's impossible for any other leader in any church to make that church grow, either spiritually or numerically.

Only God can do that, and he's really good at it.

Don't expect a lesser person to do what only God can do.

We can also expect godlike perfection from our church leaders.

That can come out in two ways.

On the one hand, we can get shocked when they fail or sin.

Sometimes even our faith can get rocked.

And yet we should absolutely expect them to fail and sin in big ways and small ways.

They're not God.

Thankfully, our hope isn't in them.

It's in the good, perfect, faithful God.

Trust him.

Strangely, the other way it can come out is when we overlook their sin, when we excuse the sexual sin, we minimise the bullying, we explain away the arrogance, because in our hearts we've taken the hope that's reserved for God and put it in them.

Just like with the kingship in Israel, though, any church leadership needs to reflect the God who they're meant to be leading people towards.

It doesn't mean perfection, it means relating to God in such a way, though, that shows other sinful people the appropriate way to come to God, the good, perfect, loving God.

And so I'm not saying don't have leaders in churches.

Leadership is a good thing from God, but it must never replace God or push him to one side.

Its purpose is always to lead people to God.

Of course there is one human leader who is perfect, one human king who does save people, who does grow the church, who is perfectly in line with God, Jesus, the true Christ, the true anointed one, the one anointed as the true Saviour King, who all other kings in Israel like Saul are meant to point towards.

Jesus is able to be that perfect human king because he's also the perfect God.

He's the bridge who perfectly represents us humans and perfectly represents God.

He is the perfect king who our loving God has provided for us.

Make sure Jesus is your true king.

Seek out leaders who point you to Jesus, who don't seek out power for themselves, who don't get you to trust in them and their eloquence or their ability or their charisma or their theological smarts, but who point you to Jesus because in him is our salvation, our hope, our God.

Back in Israel, a major threat is about to strike.

Not from the Philistines, but from another direction, from the Ammonites.

An Israelite city will be besieged and every life there will be threatened.

What will Saul do?

Will he come out as the great Saviour that he's been chosen to be?

Or will he keep hiding?

Well, that's a story for next time.