United by the King, Strengthen by the Spirit:
1 Samuel 8-10:
Israel rejects authority of God as king over their nation (1 Samuel 8:7-9). Israel demands a king that is a man, a tangible presence to rule them, someone whose ear they can bend, someone they can see and feel, someone they can control or be controlled by. The age of faith in the invisible God is over.
Despite this faithless act of Israel, God’s abundant love, grace, and forgiveness continues. He does not abandon them to their wrong choices, he allows them to have a earthly king, and uses it to point to the future king and savior- his own son Jesus.
By his father’s command, Saul searches for the lost donkeys, unable to find them as he paraded and searched through out the country. Only with help from God, through the prophet Samuel, tells Saul his donkeys are found. Israel is like the lost donkeys, they were found by someone else (God) but chooses one who didn’t find them to lead them as king. Saul does not find the donkeys himself, he finds a kingship instead. Samuel anoints Saul as the king to unit the nation under one man.
God gave Saul another heart (1 Samuel 10:9) and the Holy Spirit was upon him. Saul started out good, but his disobedience caused God to depart His Spirit from him (1 Samuel 16:14).
By his Father’s command, Jesus is on a mission gathering his lost sheep. He knows where to find them. He knows exactly where the stubborn donkey is that has been tied to a post waiting to be claimed (, he is like the prophet and priest Samuel. He claims the donkey as his, a donkey that has been tied up by rules and regulations created by man to enslave the beast. Jesus finds and frees this tied up animal (Matthew 21:1-5). Jesus has a use for the donkeys of this world, he has use for you. Your cords of enslavement to sin and death is freed by Jesus. Jesus rides that donkey parading through the streets proclaiming he is the king of kings, the sacrificial lamb, the long awaited promised Messiah. He is the true king of Israel. He is the prophet, priest, and king. God anointed Jesus as the King and Messiah that unites all believers together as one family, heirs to heaven.
God gave his one and only Son, whom the Holy Spirit was upon (Matthew 3:16-4:1). Jesus started out good, and ended good. Victory in the words: “It is finished.”
Acts 9:1-31, Acts 10:44-48:
Thousands of years after King Saul ruled Israel, God uses another man named Saul as his chosen instrument. This Saul started out evil, persecutor of the early Christian Church, killer of believers. But God stopped him on his path, God changed his heart. Because of this Saul’s call from God to preach and teach the “church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” (Acts 9:31).
The message of Jesus and the mystery that ALL people were included in the salvation won by Christ at the cross begins to spread across the land. Perhaps this Saul was able to succeed because Jesus had already claimed victory over sin, death, and the Devil. Perhaps this Saul was able to succeed because the invisible God had come in a tangible visible form to save all people. Saul was no longer blinded by sin and the world’s lies, the scales fell off. He was given a new heart, a new chance. The weight of his sins was lifted off his shoulders and Saul was free. Saul, like the donkey, had been untied from his post, to become a chosen instrument of God, to carry on his back the Word made flesh to all nations.
מגן השביל 