Sound Doctrine

Guest (Male): What's standing in the way of a closer relationship between you and God? Well, Pastor Jeff Johnson reminds us today that it's us, not him.

Jeff Johnson: Let's go for it. Let's center our lives in him. Let's seek first his kingdom and let's dedicate and commit our hearts to him and let's go for it. There's nothing stopping us but ourselves of what God wants to do in and through us. There is spirit potential here that's awesome. Now, I would say this: if you are lacking, if you are hiding, if you are running, you need to ask the Lord to touch your heart.

Guest (Male): Calvary Chapel Downey welcomes you to Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff Johnson. Glad you could join us today because we're going to once again see what happens when we make crucial decisions without consulting God or by flat-out ignoring what his will is for our lives. In 1 Samuel Chapter 10, Saul is anointed as Israel's first king. Now, at first, it seemed like a good choice, but as we progress through the next several chapters of 1 Samuel, we'll see just what a mistake it was. Let's join Pastor Jeff now in 1 Samuel Chapter 10.

Jeff Johnson: You ever want to know how to bless the Lord? Bless the Lord with your worship and your praise. Give him thanks for all that he's done. He receives it as beautiful incense into his nostrils. He says, "Yes, that's my people and I love them." Not only do we give him praise and worship, but then he turns around and says, "All right, here I come. I'm going to inhabit the praises of my people." He just comes down to dwell in our presence as we worship him. Don't you feel it and hear it and just know that the angels are with us at times? You just go, "Wow, that last song, that was it. I lost it." And the Lord is inhabiting the praises of his people. He is here and he is near. So it's a two-way street, isn't it? Worship is so important for us.

Verse 11: "And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, 'What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?' And one of the same place answered and said, 'But who is their father?' Therefore it became a proverb, 'Is Saul also among the prophets?' And when he had made an end of prophesying, he came to the high place."

It's the same way with us. When God starts to use you, God starts to bless you and bring you into this whole experience of loving him and he gets a hold of your life, people see it and they don't understand. They say, "Well, what happened to you? What are you doing? Aren't you Jesus of Nazareth? I mean, aren't you a carpenter's son? And you're saying you're the Messiah, the Lord? And you're saying you're a Christian now? That's weird. I don't understand. What are you doing carrying that Bible around?

Oh, you're going to have Bible study. Oh, okay. You're going to prayer meeting now, are you? I mean, who do you think you are? Why don't you become a monk or a father? But you're going to go to Wednesday night Bible study now during the week, not just Sunday, but during the week? Now you're really gone. Now they've got you. And you do what? You witness and you speak in tongues? Okay." They really don't understand, do they? Hey, who's your dad anyhow? You don't have the proper background for all of this.

Hey, listen, all of us have the proper background. And you know what that background is? Like the blind man said when they asked him, "What happened to you?" He said, "All I know is I was blind, but now I see." Is that what you know? Is that where you came from? Is that your background? All you know is that you were living one type of lifestyle before, but now Jesus has touched you and raised you up and now you're living for the king. He's touched your life. He's opened your eyes and your ears.

There's the prerequisite: that you know that you were a sin-sick sinner and you were hurting and dying and you reached out to the Lord and he heard your prayer and he took you out of that horrible pit, out of that miry clay and he set your feet upon a solid rock and put a song in your heart, even praise unto your God. Many shall see it and fear and trust in the Lord because he is the only one that can change physical human beings and make them from children of darkness to children of light, from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God. And there's a transformation there that really is a witness. And this is God's work. Great things he has done.

Verse 14: "And Saul's uncle said unto him," now the family gets involved, "and to his servant, 'Whither went ye?' And he said, 'To seek the asses, and when we saw that they were nowhere, we came to Samuel.' And Saul's uncle said, 'Tell me, I pray thee, what Samuel said unto you.' And Saul said unto his uncle, 'He told us plainly that the asses were found.' But notice, 'of the matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he told him not.'"

So he said, "What happened to you?" and he told him everything except about the kingship that he was coming into. Verse 17: "And Samuel called the people together unto the Lord to Mizpah." Now picture this: Samuel is still rejected and he feels rejected by the people. And they wanted to be like other nations and he was still hurting about this. He wanted to preach at them one more time. He wanted to really let them know that what they're about to do is a great error and it's really wrong, especially after all that God has done for them. And so he would rebuke them one more time.

I'm just getting into the computer age. I'm an old horse, it's hard to teach an old horse new tricks, but I am. I am actually getting into the computer and finding out about the age of computers. And it's weird about the computer that when you want to do something and like trash something, you want to take something out because it's in your way and you want to trash it, it always comes up and says, "Are you sure you want to trash this?" Now, if you're going to trash a whole program, it comes up again and bugs you again. Computers are weird. And it says, "Are you really sure you want to trash this?"

Well, this is exactly what Samuel is doing. "You guys, you want a king. Yeah. Are you really sure you want a king?" This is what he's doing here, making sure that they understand the error of their ways. For to accept Saul, remember, was to reject God. Verse 18: "And he said unto the children of Israel, 'Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of all the kingdoms and of them that oppressed you. And you have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversaries and your tribulations. And you have said unto him, "No, but set a king over us." Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.'"

After all that God has done for you, he says, you still want a king? Okay, then it's time to swallow your medicine. Start lining yourselves up. He says, "Get into line. This is going to be a public reception now of their king." Verse 20: "And when Samuel had caused all the tribes of Israel to come near, the tribe of Benjamin was taken. Out of all the tribes, Benjamin was removed. When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families," lined them all up, "the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the son of Kish was taken out of that family." I mean, it was narrowed down to Saul. And when they sought him, notice, he could not be found.

The process was similar to Achan. Remember when they took Jericho and Achan hid and stole from God and God says, "Don't touch anything, it's all to be burned unto me." Well, Achan thought he could get by with it and steal it and no one would see. He looked around him, made sure no one knew. But God knew, right? And so there was a problem because they went on to the next city and they didn't win, they lost. Joshua said, "God, what is it?" And God just said, "There's sin in the camp. You got to deal with it." He says, "All right, whatever. What do I got to do?"

Get out the tribes. And so they got the tribes. And then get out this one tribe that Achan was in. Get out his family. Lined up his family and Achan, I can see him sitting in that line going, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe they chose our family. Well, there's no way they know it was me." And so Joshua is walking down the line, looking at their faces, right in front of Achan he stops. "Achan." And he's going, "Oh my gosh, how does he know?" God knows everything. You can't get away with anything.

Get rid of the sin in your camp. It is pulling you down. You can't have any victories with that sin that you're dealing with. Give it to the Lord. He came and he died for that sin. He gave his life that you could have victory through this bondage that you're wrestling with. Give it to the Lord. Go on to have victories. And so they singled out all the way down the line. I believe that some, and I've studied this, actually believe that they took the Urim and the Thummim.

Remember those two little stones behind the breastplate of the high priest? There was this little pocket and there's these two stones in there. And remember we studied it in Exodus? And these two little stones were thrown, there were lots that were thrown to find out the will of the Lord. And some believe that they were throwing the lots and that's how they found finally this one tribe and then down to the family and then down to Saul. But now there is no lot casting today. Why?

Because in Romans 8:14 it says to those that are the children of the Lord, they are led by what? Not throwing dice. We're led by the Spirit of the Lord. We don't need lots anymore. God leads us now by his Spirit. But it was narrowed down to Saul, but there's a problem, isn't there? They said, "It points to Saul. Hey, Saul! Where's Saul? Anybody know where Saul is?" "No, we haven't seen him." "Where is Saul?" They couldn't find him.

Here's the day of his coronation, the day that he's supposed to be revealed, this king guy, and he's supposed to come out and everything's supposed to be great. He's nowhere to be found. You see what happened here? Saul lost it when he found out that he was the one. He totally freaked out. Fear grabbed a hold of him and he ran like crazy to hide. Look at verse 22: "Therefore they inquired of the Lord further, 'If the man should yet come thither?'" Is there another man, Lord? Is there somebody else? "And the Lord answered, 'Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.'"

What do you do when you lose something? First of all, I know I taught my kids when they were real young, they'd come crying, "I lost my little toy. I don't know where it is. Oh my gosh, I'm going to die." I said, "Let's pray about it." That's the first thing we'd do. And we'd pray and we'd ask God, "Help her to find her little toy, Lord." And then she'd run back in her bedroom and she'd go, "God found my little toy!" She'd come running out. Right there, answered prayer. Kids, little kids, can understand answered prayer.

When you lose something, what do you do? You pray about it. When problems come into your life, what do you do? You pray about it. They couldn't find Saul. So they said, "Well, let's pray about it." And so they did. "Maybe it's somebody else." No, remember, God is omniscient. That means he's all-knowing. God just said, "You might want to look over with the luggage." Because remember, Samuel called everybody to Mizpah and they brought all of their luggage and they had all their camels parked in one area. They had parking lots back then. And there was all piled up and all the camels and all the baggage. Saul's run over to where the baggage is and he's got a couple suitcases on him and he's hiding in there.

What an embarrassing situation. Like a child, he's hiding like hide-and-go-seek. But God knows those who hide and I'll tell you something else: we read the psalm this morning, he knows where you're hiding. Where are you going to go? Though you make your bed in hell, he's there. Though you take the wings of the morning, he's there. What are you going to do? You're going to run all your life? You're going to get tired. Like Jonah, what are you going to do? He's got a big fish for you.

So here's this huge, buff, good-looking guy hiding beneath this baggage. Full of fear. "I can't do this." You see, listen, he was no king. Come on, this is the first sign now that we're getting of his weakness. You say, "Well, it looks like to me that maybe he's just really a humble guy and he just doesn't want to present himself and come out there and do some flexing and stuff. And he's just embarrassed and he's hiding for a bit. He just doesn't want to come out." No, listen, this is not humility.

This is foolishness. For God to call you to a position, enable you to do it, and for you to run is foolish, let alone speaking about disobedience. But that's exactly what Saul was doing. You see, we really need to seek the Lord, don't we, and his anointing. We do desperately for boldness so we can serve him. And I'll tell you something about Saul: he never did that. He never truly sought the Lord and cried out to him and said, "Lord, I can't do it. Trade my weakness for your strength." He never cried that out. Never. He was too buff. This is why, these guys in the gym, pray for them. They get in front of those mirrors. "I can do anything." It just goes to your head. You might get big muscles, but the biggest muscle's your head.

And that's the same way with Saul. And so he ran, he ran. God's counsel to us, listen to this in Matthew. He says in Matthew Chapter 7 Verse 24, and I'll just paraphrase it, he says, "Listen, no man can have two masters. You'll hate one or love the other. Serve God. Take no thought of your life. Don't worry about what's going to happen to your life. Look at the fowls in the air. Look at the lilies on the field." He goes on to say, "You're much more than these and he's going to clothe you.

So don't take thought of what you're going to wear, what you're going to drink, where you're going to live, or whatever. The heathen seek after these things. But," he says, "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. So take therefore no thought of tomorrow." Tomorrow's not even here. We've got enough evil in today. Just give it to the Lord than to worry about tomorrow. Quit living in tomorrows and quit letting yesterdays bum you out today. You got today, give it to the Lord, ask him for strength to get you through this day. Period.

And that's the direction that God has for us: trusting in him, relying on his strength for our lives. Saul did not do this. In fact, even after the Holy Spirit came upon him, he didn't even appreciate God's power and he looked to himself to get him out of this jam. See, the natural man doesn't understand the things of God, neither can he know them. And so we see Saul beginning to struggle with the things of God here and he's going to continue to struggle with them. He runs where we need to look to the Lord. What a lesson, to look to the Lord.

Verse 23: "And they ran and fetched him thence." And this is an embarrassing situation, I'm sure, the guys that found him. "What are you doing weeping in there, Saul? Hey, don't you know you're being called up as king here?" "I can't!" And when he stood among the people, notice, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders upward, but they didn't see the tears running down. "I can't do this." But he's within himself getting his own strength up. And Samuel said to all of the people, "See ye him whom the Lord has chosen and there is none like him among all the people."

And all the people shouted, "God save the king!" Actually, it needed prayer, I think. He needs to be saved. But I think they should say, "God save us a people." But yes, God save this king. Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom and wrote in a book and laid it up before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house. And so Samuel wrote their constitution and got it all down and really tried to organize things. Told everybody to go home.

Verse 26: "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him, notice, a band of men whose hearts God had touched." I like that. Saul didn't go home alone, but with this awesome support group. There is no greater potential than this. Than what? Than those that have been touched by the Lord, who love the Lord and who have been touched by him. There's no greater potential. There's no more explosive, exciting type of atmosphere than to be with God's people. In a time of worship, in a time of Bible study, a time of afterwards and when we have fellowship, when we speak of the things of God.

And so with these that fear the Lord, with these that have been touched by the Lord, man, there's anything that is possible. And in the New Testament, we know it only took a few that were touched by the Lord to turn the world right-side up. They all heard the Gospel. And we have more than a few here this morning. There's more than just a few here. Hey, listen, folks, let's go for it. Let's center our lives in him. Let's seek first his kingdom and let's dedicate and commit our hearts to him and let's go for it.

There's nothing stopping us but ourselves of what God wants to do in and through us. There is spirit potential here that's awesome. Now, I would say this: if you are lacking, if you are hiding, if you are running, you need to ask the Lord to touch your heart. As these men's hearts were touched to be filled with his Spirit. Some of you have never said, "Lord, I ask of your Spirit. I need your power in my life." You've never prayed that prayer and it says in Luke 11 that if you pray that prayer, God's going to answer that prayer. He's going to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask.

And finally Verse 27: "But the children of Belial said, 'How shall this man save us?' And they despised him and brought him no present. But notice, 'he held his peace.'" I'll tell you this: that as soon as you decide to move out for the Lord, as soon as you decide to be filled with the Holy Spirit, as soon as you decide to let God use you, you're going to have opposition. Just even as Saul here, we see his accusers coming up. They bring accusations against him.

"Who are you? Who's this man? Who do you think you are?" And those accusations will come out to do what? To get you discouraged. To get you saying, "Oh gosh, I tried to give my heart to the Lord, but the attacks came so much and people were angry at me and I don't want anybody angry at me." Hey, it's going to happen. You seek to go God's way? Well, there's going to be people that are going to be upset. Opposition's going to be there. And notice the answer that he gave to them, knowing that they didn't bring him presents, that there was one group that was trouble that could cause trouble for the whole kingdom, he didn't touch them, he didn't deal with them, he didn't bring them out from everybody and just say, "Off with their heads." He said nothing. He just said nothing.

Guest (Male): Pastor Jeff Johnson with a message from 1 Samuel 10. Jeff will be back in a moment here on Sound Doctrine to urge us to just let God be in control. Well, if you enjoyed today's message from Pastor Jeff Johnson from the book of 1 Samuel, I'd like to remind you that you can hear it again on several different venues. First, you can go online to sounddoctrineradio.org where you can hear today's study as well as make a donation to this radio outreach. That's at sounddoctrineradio.org.

You can also listen at oneplace.com and through the Sound Doctrine Radio app. I should also mention Sound Doctrine can be heard wherever you enjoy podcasts, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Now with a reminder of who should be in control of our lives, here's Pastor Jeff once again.

Jeff Johnson: God loves us and we've got to realize that he loves us, that he's cleansed us, that he has empowered us, and that we are his children. And listen, when it comes to the enemy coming up to us, we need to be like Moses who was meek and just say, "Lord, behold what they're saying. You deal with them." Because I'm not going to get in the flesh and try to deal with them. I'm not going to try to do this on my own. Lord, I need your help. Lord, I commit this to you. Lord, hear what they're saying. Look what they're doing. You deal with them.

And remember with Moses as Aaron and Miriam were talking against Moses, do you remember what happened to them? Miriam immediately got leprosy. God began to deal. But it says Moses was a meek man. He didn't wasn't always meek, he learned meekness. We need to learn meekness. We need to learn to call on the Lord and say, "Lord, you deal with them." Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. God help us to stand in his power and in his might because there is spirit potential if we're seeking first his kingdom and God's going to reveal it in us and through us as we are just open and honest to him. As we humble ourselves, he will lift us up.

Guest (Male): Be sure to join us again next time we meet for another encouraging and challenging study with Pastor Jeff in the book of 1 Samuel. That's here on Sound Doctrine, presented by Calvary Chapel Downey.