ALIASES: Introduction – 1 Samuel 8 & 9 (Sermon Notes)
For the next six weeks we’ll be journeying through the life of Saul and examining his ALIASES. You want to like Saul – but he makes it so difficult. Trying to ascertain his real identity is a bit like nailing jello to the wall. He is so much like Eustace, from The Chronicles of Narnia
that he becomes a dragon and his true self is hardly recognizable. Saul transforms into a dragon little by little with every choice he makes.He changes who he is and has so many masks that know the true Saul is tough. Maybe you feel like that sometimes. Maybe you have some masks or pretenses that change; maybe sometimes you feel like you don’t even know who you are. If so, you’re not alone. We’ll read from 1 Samuel 8 to 28 in this series so I would encourage those of you who asked for reading direction to start reading in 1 Samuel and follow along with us.
King Saul is an interesting character, he comes up in the midst of a dark time for Israel. He is controversial and almost a non-entity were it not for his historical place as first king of Israel and relationship with David. As a matter of fact Saul’s story is only told in 1 Samuel, limited details are recorded mostly his death and genealogy in 1 Chronicles, and he is only mentioned once in the New Testament. Contrast that to David who is mentioned ad nausea in the New Testament. Why?
Part of Saul’s problem is that his entire kingship is set on a faulty foundation…
1. Israel’s kingship is an alias for rebellion. (1 Samuel 8:1-22)
- Saul is drawn into a leadership vacuum.
- We must understand a few things about the kingship of Israel before we can fully understand who Saul is. The kingship is new and in fact Saul is the first king of Israel. He is one of the three kings of Israel before the kingdom divides into North and South.
- Prior to Saul there was the leadership of Moses, Joshua and then the judges. This carried Israel 350 years. They had judges for about 300 years and now Samuel is considered the last judge.
- Samuel’s sons are rats – we don’t know much about them. The people look around at the other nations and say, “We want a king.”
- Being a father is not a popularity contest and neither is kingship. But, Saul’s kingship is built upon mob rule, popular demand and God’s annoyance. Saul’s poor foundation is the peoples’ choice.
- God makes provisions for a king in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, but it’s apparent here that a kingship other than his own was not his desire.
- We can contrast this with the kingship of David. When David is appointed king God says, “I have chosen a king for myself” – not that the desire of Israel is set on Saul. David is God’s king, Saul is the people’s king. (1 Samuel 9:16, 20 vs. 1 Samuel 16:1)
2. Saul’s leadership decisions are aliases for sinful motivations. (1 Samuel 13; 14; 15)
- The people’s sinful choice for a king is simply a foreshadowing of Saul’s sinful choices.
- Saul has poor materials in his own character. (1 Samuel 16:7)
- Saul has poor methods in his own choices. (1 Samuel 13, 14, 15)
- Saul’s character is weak and he make compromising decisions constantly. Sometimes our character is lacking, we make poor choices and our sin soon becomes our identity. We are covered with a very dark alias and become a true spiritual dragon.
3. Saul’s aliases finally cost him everything. (1 Samuel 28)
- Saul dies as judgment from God after living a life of rebellion.
- Today the consequences of sin and our masks or no less serious.
- Saul allows his life to be driven by greed, piousness, fear and revenge.
- Saul’s best days are early and he suffers major losses at the end of his life.
- Hebrews 12:1 exhorts us to run the race marked out for us. We must endure to the end.
- Saul is the opposite of what Paul encourages us to do in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.”
- Saul was chosen by God, led other and yet was disqualified. His disqualification that led to the disqualification of his family.
- Sin sticks with us in our homes. Sin stains our lives and reputations.
- You become covered by it and your ALIAS becomes your identity.
[The story of Eustace comes from C. S. Lewis', Voyage of the Dawn Treader, contained in The Chronicles of Narnia
.]
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