1 Samuel 10:1-8

Supports to faith and duty.

The facts are—

1 . Samuel privately anoints Saul as the chosen of God.

2 . He gives him four signs of the Divine sanction of the act of anointing.

3 . He instructs him on the completion of the signs to act on his own judgment, with the assurance that God is his helper.

4 . He finally directs him to wait at Gilgal for himself, there to receive further guidance. The course taken by Samuel was the natural completion of his protracted intercourse with Saul. The hour had come in which the symbolism of the recent feast and the foreshadowings of suggestive language must receive definite form in word and deed. As one chosen of God to high office in his government of Israel, Saul is anointed with oil; and Samuel voluntarily gives him what he must have valued above all price, the kiss of homage and of congratulation, thus indicating his perfect readiness to fall in with the new order, and his tender interest in the king s prosperity. A new era of responsibility opened up to Saul. He had to go forth, believing himself to be God's chosen servant, ready for the onerous duties attaching to great honours. But a man could not thus have his faith taxed without craving for encouragement. There were, in the circumstances of Israel and of Saul, obvious reasons for this private announcement and anointing. The deliberate act of such a man as Samuel must go far to banish doubt. But still human nature needs many supports, and God is very considerate of our frame. The day might come when difficulties and disappointments would recall the primary misgivings of the reality of the Divine call. Hence the provision made by Samuel for the encouragement of Saul.

I. THERE IS ALWAYS IN GOD 'S SERVICE A NEED OF SUPPORT TO FAITH AND DUTY . Others have been summoned to a life requiring strong faith and unfailing courage in duty.

1 . There is a call to special service. Abraham was called to be a pilgrim in a strange land, and to thereby secure a seed in whom all should be blessed. Moses was called to surrender the wealth of Egypt, and to lead God's people to freedom. The apostles were bidden to leave house and business for Christ's sake. Every true pastor and Christian worker recognises a voice which, in commanding separation to his service, puts honour on the servant. The instrument by which each is called may be human, as truly as it was a human hand and voice that set apart Saul. The evidence of the call may be clear. But tedious toils have to be borne. Events will not realise the expectations of a too sanguine temperament. Abraham needed the support of occasional manifestations, as well as of fulfilled predictions. Moses could not go without "signs." Christ promised proofs that he was sending forth his disciples.

2 . There is a call to Christian life. This is the most blessed summons to privilege, honour, and obligation. The call to Christian life is endless in its form and manner and seasons. It may come in infancy, when we are unconsciously made new creatures in Christ; or in mature years, by the preacher's voice, the written word, the loss of friends, and the adversities of life, or the still small voice in the heart. There may be instances in which it is as clear as was Samuel's voice and hand to Saul; and a wonder and sense of unworthiness may arise as sincere and deep as was his. But times will come when a horror of great darkness falls on the spirit; the difficulties of one's path will raise the question as to the reality of that call which once seemed so clear, and the possibility of maintaining the distinct line of duty once entered on. A man cannot find support simply in retrospect of what was a marked change in his life; he needs something else to convince him that all is right, that the past change was not an illusion.

II. The SUPPORT GIVEN IS VARIED — ADAPTED TO THE ENTIRE NEED . Saul needed to be assured of the fact that it was God, and not merely man, who appointed him; he had it in the fourfold fulfilled prediction ( 1 Samuel 10:2 , 1 Samuel 10:3 , 1 Samuel 10:5 , 1 Samuel 10:6 ). He needed the sympathy and concurrence of the religious portion of Israel; he was assured of it symbolically by the worshippers spontaneously offering him nourishment. He needed the cooperation of the most important educators of the age ; he was assured of it in the symbolical welcome given to him by the company of prophets, the then rising power, which in years hence was to exert so great an influence on the national life. He needed, moreover, a power and wisdom in excess of that inherited from his father, and acquired during years of private life; he had it given when the spirit of the Lord made him another man. Wisely, therefore, were these arrangements made for the servant of God. They are beautifully congruous with the position of Saul, and the age in which he was called to act. An examination of the lives of Abraham, Moses, and the apostles will show that an equally wise arrangement was made for the support of their faith and duty. So modern servants of God can point to promises fulfilled, in a blessing on their toil, as evidence that they were not mistaken in the call to work; and their once distrustful heart becomes strong in the consciousness of a power not their own. In a different, though not less real, way the individual Christian finds varied support to his belief that God has called him into the kingdom, and made him a "king and a priest;" as also to his discharge of the duties appropriate to his high and holy calling.

III. The REALISATION OF THE PROVIDED SUPPORT ENSUES ON THE EFFORT TO EXERCISE THE FAITH AND TO DISCHARGE THE DUTY . When Saul acted on the belief that Samuel was a true prophet speaking and acting for God, he found all to turn out as he had been promised. The exercise of such faith as he had, in the first instance, put him in possession of the supports to faith for future times; and the discharge of duty, so far as made clear, led to a discovery of the supports to duty that would be his in the more conspicuous acts of life. So was it with Abraham, and Moses, and the apostles. Every true servant gets encouragement, not by waiting, but while "going on his way," and doing the deeds appointed. The Saviour said to the palsied, "Put forth thy hand." In the attempting of the impossible act the faith came and grew. Faith finds nourishment for itself, and waxes strong in proportion as it is exercised.

General lessons : —

1 . We may render valuable service by timely sympathy and cooperation with those called to occupy difficult positions.

2 . The most unassailable Christian evidence is that to be gained in a life of entire devotion to Christ.

3 . Full confirmation of our hopes and beliefs will come in so far as we are faithful to carry into action what confidence we already have.

Another man.

The mind of Saul was evidently overcharged with the great things which had so unexpectedly been brought before his attention. His imagination must have been filled with those pictures of royal state and lofty duties which are over in Eastern minds associated with kingship. But he was scarcely able to frame an adequate conception of what Samuel meant by saying, "Thou shalt be turned into another man." There are several grades of transformation brought before us by ordinary life and by Scripture.

I. " ANOTHER MAN " IS SOMETIMES MADE BY TOTAL CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES . We all are partly subject to our surroundings; but some natures happen to be in circumstances which appear to be quite alien to the development of what is in them. They are repressed; the strong forces of their life refuse to come forth; they are comparative nonentities; if no change occurs in their relative position they will pass away from life unknown and almost useless. There are in some persons mental faculties which, being predominant, but not drawn out by appropriate nutriment and exercise, give to the individual an appearance of stupidity and vacuity. A poet's soul encompassed by everything antagonistic to its development will be miserable as a lark that cannot rise. But when the unnatural restraints are removed, and the dispositions and faculties of individuals are placed amidst circumstances favourable to their proper development, there comes a change as rapid, as fresh, and striking as when the light and rain of spring call forth the bulb from under the dull earth into a form of beauty and sweetness. An observer of life cannot but have met with many cases of this.

II. " ANOTHER MAN " IS SOMETIMES MADE BY SPECIAL ENDOWMENTS FOR OFFICIAL DUTIES . This was the case with Saul. It is the teaching of Scripture that "every good and perfect gift" cometh from God. He gave wisdom and cunning to the men who framed the choice work of the tabernacle ( Exodus 31:2-6 ). Reason is his gift, though too often used against him. The Old Testament speaks of special gifts for men called to lead on the people of God. The endowment of Saul was in harmony with that of Moses and Joshua. The contrast of the men as not endowed and endowed is striking. The figure of Moses after he went forth in the name of Jehovah dwarfs the Moses feeding Jethro's sheep. The timid, questioning, spiritually ignorant men who followed Christ as long as they dared, and "thought" that he "would have redeemed Israel," can scarcely be recognised as the men who, when endowed with power from on high, stood forth on the day of Pentecost, and, with calmness and fearlessness, expounded the spiritual nature of his kingdom who was crucified. Spiritual power works marvels in men.

III. " ANOTHER MAN " IS MADE WHEN THE SOUL IS RENEWED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD . This is the most radical of all changes; it is more than an enlargement of the ordinary powers, more than the gift of discrimination by which ordinary duties can be discharged; it is the renovation of that deep, subtle spring of feeling and willing which determines the character of the entire life. The will of a man is supposed to be the key to his destiny; but the change wrought by the Holy Spirit seems even to penetrate into the mysterious rear of the will, and insure that it shall issue in acts of repentance; of faith in Christ, of supreme love for God, of delight in holiness. The reality of the transformation is seen in the new aims, the new joys, the new acts of the soul, the new outward form of life, the new spiritual discernment of the spiritual and unseen, the new hidden secret which no words can reveal, the new absorption in Christ.

IV. " ANOTHER MAN " IS MADE WHEN WE ATTAIN TO THE COMPLETE REDEMPTION FOR WHICH CHRIST DIED . Relatively to a life of sin, the regenerate life of the Christian on earth is a new creation, he is "another man;" and likewise, relatively to the imperfect, struggling life we spend on earth, that which awaits us beyond is a new creation. When the full stature of a man in Christ is attained, and becomes clothed upon with a body "like unto his own glorious body," then may it be most truly said of each, he is "turned into a new man." How unlike our former selves will be that perfectly holy, tearless, strong, joyous, unwearied life, exercised in a "spiritual body," created in special adaptation for the new activities and joys of the kingdom of heaven.

General considerations : —

1 . Reflect on what the world may lose by careless disregard in our social life of the adaptation of circumstances to aptitudes and abilities.

2 . There is room forevery man to examine himself and see whether his religion is really the product of a radical renewal by the Holy Spirit.

3 . With so lofty a destiny before us as Christians, the inquiry should arise, how it is that we are so little affected by the prospect, and by what means we can more fully live under the inspiring "powers of the world to come."

Limitations of prerogative.

Saul was told that when the promised "signs" came upon him he might do as occasion required, and for the assigned reason that God was with him (verse 7). This great freedom immediately receives a limitation in the command to wait at Gilgal till Samuel came and offered sacrifice, and gave further instructions. The royal prerogative was to be exercised under limitations. Here the question of civil and spiritual power is brought into distinct concrete form as the natural outcome of Israel's history. The analogy between Israel and all other nations cannot be established in detail with respect to this question; but, nevertheless, there are a few truths of general application illustrated in the restrictions put by the prophet of God on the actions of Israel's king.

I. The ULTIMATE ENDS FOR WHICH GOVERNMENTS EXIST ARE SPIRITUAL . There is a difference between the immediate concern of a government—namely, with protection of life and property, the repression of crime; scope for the free action of citizens, and for the development of national resources—and the ultimate end for which Providence designs it and all other institutions. Man's body exists for his spirit. Society, in the mind of God, exists for the spiritual welfare of individuals. There is an evolution progressing towards a worldwide righteousness, and governments are one of the agencies which are to subserve this issue. Attention to the material and intellectual interests of a people may be to rulers an end in itself, but not to God. Governments may subserve this spiritual end without consciously entering into questions pertaining to its nature and varied means for securing it. A faithful discharge of definite functions, on approved principles, cannot but help on the purpose for which God is himself governing mankind.

II. The CHURCH OF GOD IS THE TRUE WITNESS BEARER AND THE MEANS OF ACCOMPLISHING THESE SPIRITUAL ENDS . Samuel was the representative of the spiritual power. He had authority to assert the Messianic truth, to educate the people in harmony with that truth, and to demand that the king should govern in such a way as to allow free scope to the spiritual work. He and the religious community were one in this respect. And the living Church of Christ is the assertor of Messianic truth—claiming to hold what Christ has given, pointing to the spiritual reign of Christ over every heart and home as the goal of all effort and the hope of the world; and the witness bearer, calling upon rulers to observe in their administration the principles of righteousness, truth, and benevolent regard, which God alone will honour with his blessing.

III. CIVIL RULERS ARE BOUND TO ACT IN HARMONY WITH THE WITNESS BEARING OF THE CHURCH . Saul was bound, morally, and as a condition of stability to his throne, to recognise Samuel in his capacity as prophet of God, working, with all the devout, for Messianic purposes. He must not ignore the spiritual power, and thus dishonour God (verse 8; cf. 1 Samuel 13:8-10 ); nor must be arrogate its functions. His duty lay in administering government on the principles of righteousness, and so as not to bar the way to the realisation of the Messianic purpose. And knowing as we do that in the truth given by Christ, and borne witness to by the living Church, there are all the sound principles of human progress as well as of personal salvation, every government is morally bound to act on them, and is guilty of fearful presumption if it professes to supplant them by creations of its own. As surely as decay at the root of a tree will issue in its fall, so surely will every government perish which acts on other principles than those asserted by the living Church of God. No government can successfully wage war with the one living Church, which, by example, word, and deed, preaches righteousness, and claims the right to do so.

IV. The CHURCH IS BOUND TO CONFINE ATTENTION TO HER OWN PROPER FUNCTIONS . Samuel left Saul to "do as occasion" might "serve" (verse 7). He simply claimed that there was another power in the development of Israel's life beside the civil, and that Saul must recognise this. The exercise of the power had reference to general principles of conduct, and the securing of Messianic purposes. The Church of Christ is bound to avoid everything that would be inharmonious with her spiritual nature and uses. To be the educator of the state conscience, to assert her own independence as a spiritual community for spiritual purposes, this is the function of the Church in relation to the civil power, as illustrated in the conduct of Samuel, involved in the spiritual nature of Christ's body, and confirmed by the adversities and prosperities of history.

General considerations : —

1 . How far the controversies connected with spiritual supremacy are the result of a deviation from the simplicity of purpose characteristic of apostolic times.

2 . To what extent calamities have befallen the world by the professing Church being more concerned for the assertion of power than for the preaching and practising of righteousness.

3 . Whether history does not show that an earnest Church, solely bent on preaching the gospel, and enforcing it by example, exercises more real power over the destinies of nations than a Church ever watchful to limit the powers of civil rulers.