79: Hiding Behind the Baggage: Where's Our Mighty King?

G' day and welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

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I have to say, every one of the options was voted for, but the one that came through was the clear winner.

So thanks everyone and I hope you really enjoy the new logo.

Now, do you like the idea of being strong?

Do you want to be powerful or mighty?

Lots of people want to be strong with their muscles.

They spend hours and hours at the gym or doing other exercise.

Some of them spend a long time looking at their big muscles in the mirror.

Other people want to be strong with their mind.

They spend ages and ages reading and studying hard.

They become experts and like talking about everything they know.

Other people want to be strong leaders.

They want to know the right decision to make and tell everyone what they should do.

There are all sorts of ways of being strong in the Bible, though.

The people who really understand strength and what it means to be strong, they don't actually care about being strong.

They don't care about looking powerful.

In fact, sometimes they, they get really excited when they look weak.

In today's story, we're going to find out about where to find real strength.

Get ready for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

At the end of our last episode, we'd seen that Saul had been chosen to be the first human king of Israel.

Saul looked like a powerful king.

He was a head taller than anyone else in Israel.

And God gave him lots of good things.

He changed his heart.

He gave him his holy spirit.

But even then, Saul didn't really do anything.

He'd been chosen to be the Saviour king, the powerful warrior king.

But even when he had all the gifts from God, he just went home.

Now Samuel calls all of Israel together at a place called Mizpah.

He wants to tell them who the new king is.

Before he tells them, though, he reminds them that they already have a king.

God is their king.

He's the strongest, most powerful king in all the universe.

And he's used his power to save them over and over again.

And now they've just said, eh, we don't really want him, we want a human king.

Samuel says to them in 1 Samuel 10:18, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says.

I led Israel out of Egypt.

I saved you from Egypt's control and I saved you from other kingdoms that were troubling you.

But now you have rejected your God.

He saves you from all your troubles and problems.

But you said, no, we want a king to rule over us.

It Seems unbelievable.

But even though they've been so silly, God still has good plans.

Plans that involve a human king.

And so Samuel tells them how he's going to show them the new king.

There are 12 tribes in Israel, and in each tribe there are big family groups.

First, Samuel shows them what tribe the king is from.

He's from the tribe of Benjamin.

So everyone starts looking at the people from Benjamin.

Then Samuel shows them that the new king is from the family group of Matri.

So everyone's now staring at the family group of Matri.

Who's it going to be?

Which one of them will be the king?

This is so exciting.

And then finally it's announced the new king in the tribe of Benjamin, in the family group of Matri is Saul.

Umm.

The new king is Saul.

Saul.

Has anyone seen Saul?

This is totally weird.

No one can find him.

So they ask God, who knows everything.

They ask, has he arrived yet?

God replies in verse 22, yes.

He's hiding behind the baggage.

Hiding behind the baggage.

Hiding behind the baggage.

This guy's meant to be the powerful Saviour king.

Why on earth is he hiding?

They go and find him and bring him out.

As soon as the people see him, they start to get excited.

Straight away they see how big he is.

Straight away they see he's a head taller than anyone else.

This guy looks like the powerful, strong Saviour king they want.

Samuel says in verse 24, see the man the Lord has chosen.

There is no one like him among all the people.

And everyone shouts, long live the king.

Samuel explains to everyone what the king is allowed to do, his rights, and what he's supposed to do, his duties.

And then he sends everyone home.

This hasn't been a great start to the kingship.

Even though Saw looks really strong, he hasn't been very strong.

He's been really scared, hiding among the baggage.

But God, who's the strongest, steps in and helps.

He actually gives Saul some really strong, brave men to go with him.

Not everyone's convinced, though.

In verse 27, we're told that some troublemakers say, how can this man save us?

We're even told they hated Saul and refused to bring gifts to him.

The question is, can Saul save them?

Are these troublemakers right?

Will Israel be rescued from their enemies?

About a month later, disaster strikes.

A king from another country, the Ammonites, brings his army and attacks a city of Israel called Jabesh Gilead.

The king's name is Nahash, and his army has surrounded the city.

The people in the city are hiding behind their wall and the gates are closed.

For the moment, they're safe.

But they know they can't keep the Ammonites out for very long.

If they come in, they'll probably kill a lot of people.

So the people of the city decide we'll be much better off if we just give in.

So they send a message to Nahash.

They ask if they can make an agreement with him and they'll become his servants.

That's a pretty good deal for Nahash.

He wins without having to fight his way into the city.

He gets all the people in the city to serve him.

You'd think he'd say, great, yes, of course.

But have you ever met anyone who just likes making life better, difficult for everyone.

Nahash is a bit like that.

If these Israelites in Jabesh give in, he wants everyone to know they were too scared to fight him.

He also wants everyone to know that no one else in Israel came to save them.

And so he says something really nasty and frankly, really gross.

In chapter 11, verse 2, he says to the people of Jabesh, I will make a treaty with you, but I'll only do it if I'm allowed to tear out the right eye of each of you.

Then all Israel will be ashamed.

Oh, that's awful.

It's awful for the people of Jabesh and for the rest of Israel.

They would feel ashamed.

They'd be embarrassed that they didn't come to help the people of Jabesh.

Obviously, the people of Jabesh aren't too keen on having their right eyes taken out.

But they also know they can't keep the Ammonites out forever.

And so they try and play for time.

In verse three, they reply, let us have seven days.

We'll send messengers throughout all Israel.

If no one comes to help us, we will give ourselves up to you.

So the messengers go out, and some of them arrive in Gibeah, Saul's home town.

When they tell people the news there, everyone starts crying out loudly.

And that's when Saul comes in from ploughing in the fields with his oxen.

What's going to happen when he hears the news?

He was chosen to be Israel's powerful saviour king.

But so far he's been a bit of a disappointment.

He hasn't done anything about the Philistines.

And when he was announced as king, he was so scared, he was hiding.

Thankfully, Saul is not the most important saviour of Israel.

Even though there's a human king now, God hasn't stopped being the Powerful Saviour.

And now he uses his power to powerfully change Saul, to powerfully make him the leader Israel needs.

Let me read from verse five.

Saul hears the crying, and he asks, what's wrong with the people?

Why are they crying?

Then they told Saul what the messengers from Jabesh had said.

When Saul heard their words, God's spirit entered him with power.

Saul became very angry.

So he took a pair of oxen and cut them into pieces.

And then he gave the pieces of the oxen to messengers.

He ordered them to carry the pieces through all the land of Israel.

The messengers made an announcement to the people.

They said, this is what will happen to the oxen of anyone who does not follow Saul and Samuel.

So the people became very afraid of the Lord.

They all came together as if they were one person.

Did you hear who they're afraid of?

They aren't afraid of the Ammonites.

They aren't afraid of Saul.

They were afraid of the Lord, afraid of disobeying him, afraid of not listening to their true Saviour king.

And so a massive number of them come to fight.

330,000.

In verse nine, they send a message to the people of Jabesh before the day becomes hot, tomorrow you will be saved.

Phew.

Imagine how relieved they must be.

Help is on its way.

They don't have to give in and have their right eyes taken out.

They send a sneaky message to Nahash, the ammonite.

In verse 10, they say, Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you.

Then you can do anything you want to us.

You can almost imagine them sniggering as they say it.

Oh, yeah, tomorrow.

You can do anything you want tomorrow.

If you're still alive then.

What was that?

What?

Nothing.

Just talking to myself.

So we'll see you tomorrow then.

Early the next morning, Saul divides up his soldiers into three groups.

They break into the Ammonite camp and attack.

And they totally defeat them.

Of the Ammonites who survived the battle, there aren't even two of them standing together.

They've all run away in different directions.

The people of Jabesh Gilead have been powerfully, wonderfully saved.

The people of Israel are really excited.

They don't have any doubts about their new king now.

In fact, they say to Samuel in verse 12, who was it who didn't want Saul as king?

Bring them here and we will kill them.

Thankfully, Saul steps in and says, no, no, no.

He reminds them, what God's done.

God's saved Israel.

Today he's rescued Israel.

It'd be Nuts.

On the day that God saved the Israelites to go around putting Israelites to death.

It's so good that Saul isn't saying, I've saved Israel.

He knows who's won the battle.

He knows who has all the power.

It's the Lord God.

Saul's doing the right thing as king.

He's pointing people to the power and and kindness of the true king, God.

Samuel's like, hey, I've got a better idea than putting people to death.

In verse 14, we read, Come, let's go to Gilgal.

At Gilgal, we'll again promise to obey the king.

All the people went to Gilgal.

And there before the Lord, the people made Saul king.

They offered fellowship, offerings to the Lord.

Saul and all the Israelites had a great celebration.

How wonderful that now, instead of rejecting God, they're throwing a party for him.

They're saying thanks to him and they're remembering that he's their true powerful saviour.

King Saul didn't seem so powerful.

And you know what?

We should kind of expect that very often the people God chooses to do his work don't seem very powerful.

In fact, they often look weak.

The apostle Paul, who Jesus sent to tell people about him, loved looking weak.

He would actually boast about his weakness.

He knew that when people saw how weak he was, they but then saw how God was using him to save people, using him to help people put their trust in Jesus as their king.

They'd all know it wasn't because of Paul's power.

He obviously didn't have any power.

The only possible reason people were being saved was because God is so powerful.

Sometimes you might think, oh, I wish I was powerful.

I wish I could make people follow Jesus.

I wish I could make people stop sinning.

I wish everyone would look at me and say, wow, that person's really powerful.

But you know what?

You can never have that sort of power.

Only God has the power to save people.

Amazingly, sometimes he might do that through you and me.

If he does, I don't want people thinking we're powerful.

I want them to see the truth, that I am really weak.

Most importantly, I want them to see where the real power is.

I want them to see that God's the powerful one, that he is the powerful saviour.

And then they can give thanks to him back in Israel.

Even though things are going really well, even though Saul's done a great job of pointing people to the power of God, that's all about to change.

Saul's gonna forget where the true power comes from.

Thankfully, there'll be someone else there who will remember.

But that's a story for next.