Peter Barnes | 1 Samuel 9:1-27
SERMON NOTES
SAUL AS THE PEOPLE’S KING
1 Samuel 9:1-27; John 18:28-40
– Tony Blair called Lady Diana ‘the people’s princess’, and Saul was ‘the people’s king’.
1. God endorses the people’s king, for a time.
– 9:1-2; Saul looked like a king in the same way that John F. Kennedy looked like a president.
– Saul has some gifts and some nobility but he is a disaster in the end. 1 Sam.9:21 reads like Ex.3:11; 4:10-14; Judges 6:15
2. God works through apparently insignificant events.
– 9:3-19; he is looking for donkeys!
– Isa.46:9-10; Matt.10:29; Prov.16:9; 20:24
3. God is both sovereign and good.
– 9:15-16 for His sovereignty, but 9:16b for His compassion
– like Ex.2:23, 25; 3:7; but remember that the context in 1 Samuel 9 concerns Israel’s sin (cf. 1 Sam.8:7), yet still God is compassionate.
– points to Isa. 40:10-11