AN EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY STORY
1 Samuel 9:1-10:16

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read the history books, we find that the winter of 1939-1940 in the northern hemisphere was the coldest for fifty years. Perhaps that was the problem; because World War Two simply couldn’t get started. The French and British troops were on the Maginot Line looking across at their counterparts on the other side. Houses in England had to be blacked out; but there were no night bombers. The ship-building yards were going full-steam; but the present navy was rather idly occupied. They called it the Phoney War. Everybody was hyped up for war, but on the other hand, they were just going about their ordinary business. It was, you might say, an extraordinary, ordinary time. 

It was a bit like that at times between Israel and the Philistines in 960 BC. The people had demanded a king, a commander-in-chief with a standing army. They didn’t trust the Lord anymore as they ought. And we read in verse sixteen of chapter nine about the cries of the people and the need for deliverance from the Philistines. Yet, at the same time as you read that sort of thing, the story is full of very ordinary, everyday goings on. You can hardly call them events, they’re too ordinary. Well let’s have a look at it. First of all, 

1.	THE ORDINARY AFFAIRS OF MANKIND 
#	Farmer Kish comes stomping into his kitchen one morning, “Well Saul, I don’t know where those confounded donkeys are. You’d better take a servant and go look for them. And you’d better take what you need for a few days. The brutes won’t move when you want them to, but when they’re off on their own they’ll go for miles.” Murphy’s Law, we’d call it! 
#	Then there was that unnamed servant. He’s a useful fellow, comes up with a very helpful suggestion about going to see a prophet when they didn’t find the asses in Dairy Flat or Kaukapakapa or Makarau, nor Wellsford or Warkworth. It was that kind of distance and that kind of circuit they walked. And he’s still got a few dollars in his pocket when it’s needed and Saul knows when he’s been given good advice. 
#	Then there are these young women going about their daily chore of getting the family water-supply. But my, they’re helpful, aren’t they? One doesn’t get the idea from this story that they were ever so suppressed in those bad Old Testament days. 
#	Samuel too; he’s just going on his regular annual circuit. "The people have a sacrifice at the high place today," the girls say, "so Samuel has come today because he must bless the sacrifice before it is eaten." It’s all regular custom. The young women know what's going on even with the great Samuel. They are au fait with the affairs of the city and they’re not slow to give advice. 
#	Later on Saul meets a couple of men on their way home who have heard about his father’s asses and they pass the information on that they have been found. And a little bit later he comes across three men going to sacrifice at Bethel with the prescribed offerings; kids, loaves of bread for the grain offering and a skin of wine. All everyday stuff. Then there is this group of prophets prophesying. Well, maybe that’s not quite ordinary perhaps, but about as ordinary as prophets get. 
#	And finally, when Saul gets home, there is an inquisitive uncle. "So you met Samuel, did you, Saul? Well, bully for you, young fella. And what did he have to say?"

It’s all very homely. There’s something rather pleasantly Ruth-like about it all. But at the same time as these ordinary affairs of mankind are going on, let’s have a look, secondly, at

2.	THE EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE OF GOD 
So far as all the characters involved in the story are concerned, it’s just another day at the office. None of them knew that anything extraordinary was going on. Except Samuel; because the day before the Lord had had a word in his ear; and Saul; and he only at the end of the day, after getting that prime cut at the feast, and the next day, being anointed. 

But in all this ordinariness the Lord is working. Everybody, according to their duties and circumstances and wisdom and their own wills, made their decisions and they were going about their daily business. But over it all, the Lord was working it together according to the purpose of his will and for the good of those who love him. 
#	Why, for instance, did Saul happen to pick that servant that day? 
#	And that they should end up in that town just on the day when Samuel’s annual programme brought him there? 
#	And these young women with their chattiness? Maybe they were a bit flattered by the attention of Benjamin’s Young Farmer of the Year and were doing their best to stretch out the encounter? Oh well, God has a lot of strings to his bow and he uses all of them as the occasion requires. 
#	And that bloke they happened to ask for directions to Samuel’s house – that he should just happen to be Samuel! 
#	And just exactly when Saul and the servant get to Rachel’s tomb on the way home, there are two men there and these two men had news about his father’s donkeys, just as Samuel told him. And just exactly when they get to the Oak of Tabor, three men on their way to sacrifice at Bethel with exactly the stuff for the sacrifice that Samuel described and they give him just exactly what Samuel said they would. Same again with the prophets – precise time, place, persons, actions. 

It’s all a series of remarkable providences. It is explained for us in verses fifteen through seventeen of chapter nine. "Now a day before Saul’s coming the Lord had revealed this to Samuel saying, 'About this time tomorrow, I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel.'" "I will send you a man." So the upshot of it all is that one morning Saul went off looking for lost asses and ends up finding a kingdom. 

People of God, God doesn’t do this only for kings and important people and in great history-changing events. “God works out all things according to the purpose of his will,” Ephesians chapter one. “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without my Father,” said Jesus. God sent Samuel. God sent the servant. God sent the young women. God sent the two other men, the three worshippers, the group of prophets, Saul, even the asses. And every day he sends you and me out about our daily business and it’s all pretty ordinary and mundane. But it’s all ordered by God. 
In one Thessalonians chapter four Paul tells us, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business.” Now it’s true, Paul said that against the fact that some in Thessalonica were slacking, thinking the Lord would come back any minute and that, therefore, they didn’t need to work. But that’s exactly the point. You see, we can sometimes be preoccupied with the great and dramatic, waiting for things like that to happen. But most of life is getting on with the everyday and the mundane. And didn’t Jesus say, “He who is faithful in a few things, I will make him ruler over many”? So Paul tells us that we are to pray "for all men, kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead tranquil and quiet lives in all godliness and dignity." 

That is the way God works all the time, in all of our lives. Of course, we don’t have an inspired storyteller writing the story of our lives as we go along, to tell us the extraordinary things that God may be doing with our ordinariness. But be sure, brothers and sisters, in your life and in mine, God is working for his glory and he’s working for the growth of his kingdom. It was as Saul was going about his own, ordinary, everyday business that God had Samuel anoint him as prince over his people. So, thirdly, we come to 

3.	A NEW MAN FOR A NEW SITUATION 
There was change in the air. There was this demand for a king and a new way of rule. There was much about those demands that was not right, but they were being made. But underneath there was much that was right, because, and here I want to note four things that we see; first of all, 

i)	God sees and hears. 
So often the Lord’s people say, as we read in Isaiah chapter forty, “My way is hidden from the Lord and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God.” God’s not being kind to me at the moment, he doesn’t even see me. But brothers and sisters, while things may seem like that sometimes, it's not true. Psalm thirty-three says, “God looks down from heaven and he sees all the sons of men. He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. But the eye – the special attention – of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope for his loving-kindness to deliver their soul from death.” 

“I have regarded my people because their cry has come to me,” God said to Samuel. That’s very similar to what the Lord said to Moses when he was about to send Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt. The Lord sees our lives. He sees what’s right and he sees what’s wrong. He knows our joys and he knows our distresses and he hears our cries. So secondly,

ii)	God sends. 
“I will send you a man.” And it may not be the man we might expect. Saul was given the spirit of prophecy. He was actually anointed to the office of king but sometimes in the Old Testament the offices got a little bit mixed up. But anyway, also, prophecy was a sign to the people that God’s Spirit rested on him. So the people said, “Well, blow me down, is Saul, the son of Kish, also among the prophets?” In other words, You never heard the like of it. Wonders never cease. 

The people were amazed. But one man understood and he said, “Why should it not be? Who is their father?” In other words, he was saying, "You people shouldn’t be surprised about this. Can anybody tell whose son will be a prophet?" Because the office of a prophet was not hereditary. "So why should you be asking the question: is anybody’s son a prophet?" God takes a man from here and another from there and he anoints them as he wills. When the Lord’s people cry to him for help you never know how he’s going to give it. You never know whom he’s going to send. And he might send someone to you whose help you might consider a bit below your dignity to accept. Saul answered and said, “I’m just a Benjamite, the smallest of the tribes of Israel.” A few hundred years ago they’d nearly been wiped out, remember – the last couple of chapters of Judges. “And my family is the least of the families of the tribe of Benjamin. Why do you speak to me like this?” 

Well, if God sends us somebody like that, we just better not be proud. After all, it’s a bit of a contradiction to be proud and in need of help at the same time. But God may also take his time and only gradually make his choice known. Listen to how Samuel first broaches the subject with Saul in verse twenty, “For whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and all your father’s household?” What on earth is that obscure statement supposed to mean? And then at the feast, he gives him the choice portion. What is Saul to make of that? Then he talks to him in the evening, apparently still without letting the cat out of the bag. But what did he talk to him about on such an important occasion? You can be sure it wasn't lost asses and the family farm. Only the next morning does he anoint him. And then two men at Rachel’s tomb telling him that the donkeys have been found; and three men giving him two loaves of sacrificial bread – that wouldn’t give much away to his servant. But it would certainly confirm things to Saul. Mind you, the servant must have realized something was up when Saul was struck with the spirit of prophecy. 

Yet Saul gives away no more than he has to. He goes home. His uncle asks him what’s been going on and he only tells him half the story. But what did those people at the feast think? And the people who asked, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” They must have had suspicions. Jesus said, “The seed of the kingdom grows secretly in the earth, you don’t know how.” You don’t know how, you don’t know when, just as you don’t know whom God may raise up a new man for a new situation or a new need. 

God sees and hears. God sends.
iii)	God assures the one he sends. 
In chapter ten, Samuel anoints Saul and tells him that when he leaves him he will find two men close to Rachel’s tomb, which he must pass on his way home, and they will tell him the donkeys have been found. Also, when he gets to the Oak of Tabor, three men on the way to sacrifice at Bethel will give him two of the three loaves they are carrying. And then when you get to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is, you will meet some prophets and the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you. And so it turned out; exactly so. 

When the Spirit came upon the great king, the Lord Jesus; when the Spirit came on the Church in power at Pentecost, signs and wonders followed. Jesus did miracles so that people would know that he was the Son of God. The Church did miracles, spoke in tongues, prophesied, and Hebrews chapter two tells us that these miracles and these special gifts of the Holy Spirit were to confirm to both the hearers and the apostles themselves that the great salvation, the deliverance, in the language of one Samuel nine, that was being preached by the apostles and the Church, was the great salvation of the Lord. So God assures whom he sends. And then, fourthly,

iv)	God equips. 
This was, if you like, Saul’s Pentecost. In the Old Testament, priests were hereditary and received the Holy Spirit to equip them to do their work as a priest from the ordination of Aaron, their first father. But prophets were not hereditary and neither were the kings in all cases. So in the Old Testament, each prophet and king had his own Pentecost when he was ordained and the Spirit came upon each of them with power to equip them for their work. When it says that “the Spirit came upon him mightily,” it means the Holy Spirit rushed upon him. That's just how you read the Spirit came upon the judges when God raised them up in the book of Judges. As you also read about at Pentecost. The Spirit came upon the Church at Pentecost "with the sound of a mighty rushing wind." 

Remember, too, that when the Spirit came upon the Church at Pentecost, it came upon the whole Church "with power" (Acts 1:8), because all members of the Church are prophets, priests and kings. The Spirit did not come upon Saul in our story, nor on the Church at Pentecost, that we might be born again. The Spirit was always working in every believer throughout history to cause them to be born again. And we see quite clearly from Saul's later life that he was not born again. 

But the people had demanded their own king and God was going to go through with this thing to show them their error. So he gave Saul the Holy Spirit to act as a king. What a dangerous thing! The Spirit in power but without the Spirit in regeneration and righteousness. Saul's father was a man of standing – look at his genealogy in verses one and two. Saul himself cut a very impressive figure. He was everything manhood and a king should and could be, humanly speaking. Yet this king, the one most like the kings of the nations round about, had to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

When we are born again today, we come into the Church in which the Holy Spirit already works in power. There is no other way to be useful for God but by relying on the power of the Holy Spirit; in the power of the Holy Spirit and directed by the Word of God. So Samuel gave those instructions in verse eight of chapter ten; "And you shall go down before me to Gilgal; and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings. You shall wait seven days until I come to you and show you what you should do."

It doesn't come out clearly in our translations, but Samuel was not saying that on the day these confirming signs came true, he was then to go on to Gilgal and he would meet him there. For once the Spirit came upon Saul, Samuel didn't know what was going to happen. "It shall be when these signs come to you, do for yourself what the occasion requires (literally, "what your hand finds"); for God is with you" (verse seven). What Samuel is saying is that when any particular occasion has made clear to Saul what actions he must take in response to it then Saul was to go to Gilgal and wait for seven days and he would come to offer sacrifices and give him the Word of the Lord.

Just so today. Not only must the Church go humbly in this world, acknowledging her weakness in her self and relying only on the Holy Spirit to effect any change in unbelievers' – or believers’! – hearts. But she must go to her work according to the Word of the Lord! "Do not call me Lord, Lord, and then not do as I say," said Jesus (Luke 6:46). "Many shall come to me in that day and say, 'Did we not do this, that and the other thing in your name?' But I will say to them, 'Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. '" 

Congregation, there is far to much of what calls itself Church, and far too many who call themselves Christians, who are simply lawless, who do not do the will of the Father in heaven. We need to be very careful. The Spirit works only according to the Word.

CONCLUSION
We have drawn parallels between Samuel's times and ours before. We do live in "times of the Judges" when every man does what is right in his own eyes. We probably always do in some way and so there is always a need for a new man. In some ways nothing changes in the world. But there are new twists and fashions. The need in the Church and the world for God's salvation is certainly very great at the present time and we all know it. 

But do we cry for it? If we don't, are we really concerned about it? Or will there still be, if I may pick up again on that poem of Chesterton's I quoted last week, "naught for your comfort, naught for your desire, save that the sky grow darker yet and the seas rise higher"? Or, to use a NT figure, must we go lower in the pig trough yet? Do we desire new leadership? Perhaps with greater endowment of the Spirit and better understanding the Word and the spirit of our age than we presently have? Would we be willing to listen to such leadership and heed it and follow it if God gave it?

I know Israel's motives here were to a great degree wrong. But they were not wholly wrong. I know it was a false start. But sometimes that is necessary to bring the real man, the right man, the man of God's own heart and choice to the fore. Maybe our motives are also mixed. They probably always are. We ought to pray that prayer, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief" about many things. Lord, I repent; help my unrepentance. Lord, I pray this for your glory and honour; help me to pray for this truly for your glory and honour. 
So our desires are not pure. We are more upset about our children or the prospects for our grandchildren, or lack of success as a Church, than we are about our sin; even if that sin is only the sin of half-heartedness, ease, worldliness, as in preoccupation with the things of this life and this world. They are still sin. Maybe we are still more concerned about the pain our sin causes us than we are about the sin that causes the pain.

But we have to start somewhere. Are we crying to the Lord about these things? Are we asking him to give us pure motives and a genuine concern for his honour and glory above all else, above even our concern for our children? God is gracious brothers and sisters. He heard Israel's cry – and a cry from very mixed motives it was. For he has said, "They will call – even out of the miry clay – and I will answer." Let us cry to him people of God, and who knows what he may do?
Amen.

John Rogers, Reformed Church of the North Shore, 8th August, 2004