In this episode of Add Bible, Alan J. Huth delves into the anointing of Saul and reflects on his personal Bible reading journals. Listen as the miraculous transformation of Saul unfolds, highlighted by profound signs and the rush of God’s Spirit. Discover the lessons of courage, faith, and the inevitability of God’s plan as we see Saul struggle with his newfound role and the expectations it brings. Huth’s reflections remind us of the eternal truth that God equips those He calls.
Welcome to Add Bible, an audio daily devotion from the Ezra Project. We join Alan J. Huth as he shares Bible passages and comments from over 30 years of his personal Bible reading journals.
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Today we come to 1 Samuel 10. Yesterday we left Samuel and Saul ready to have a private conversation. We’re going to listen in to our guest speaker Morgan Jackson, Senior Vice President of Faith Comes By Hearing, as he reads 1 Samuel chapter 10.
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1 Samuel 10. Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? and you shall reign over the people of the Lord, and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, What shall I do about my son? Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. After that you shall come to Gibeath Elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines, and there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying. Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.” Now when these signs meet you, do what your hand finds to do, for God is with you. Then go down before me to Gilgal, and behold, I am coming down to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait until I come to you and show you what you shall do. When he turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart, and all these signs came to pass that day. When they came to Gibeah, behold, a group of prophets met him, and the Spirit of God rushed upon him, and he prophesied among them. And when all who knew him previously saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? And a man of the place answered, And who is their father? Therefore it became a proverb, Is Saul also among the prophets? When he had finished prophesying, he came to the high place. Saul’s uncle said to him and to his servant, Where did you go? And he said, To seek the donkeys. And when we saw that they were not to be found, we went to Samuel. And Saul’s uncle said, Please tell me what Samuel said to you. And Saul said to his uncle, He told us plainly that the donkeys had been found. But about the matter of the kingdom of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything. Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah. And he said to the people of Israel, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you. But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses. And you have said to him, Set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands. Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by Lot. He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its clans, and the clan of the Matrites was taken by Lot, and Saul the son of Kish was taken by Lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found. So they inquired again of the Lord, Is there a man still to come? And the Lord said, Behold, he has hidden himself among the baggage. Then they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward.” And Samuel said to all the people, Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? There is none like him among all the people. And all the people shouted, Long live the king! Then Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship, and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the Lord. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his home. Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went men of valor whose hearts God had touched. But some worthless fellows said, How can this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace.
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This is it. The moment Israel has waited for. They are finally going to get a king. And in 1983, I summarize this chapter very succinctly. God chooses Saul via Samuel. Saul, the spirit of the Lord shall come upon you and you will be changed into another man. As I was quoting verse 6. In 2007, as I read this chapter, I wrote, Saul is anointed king of Israel. Surely he is in shock like we would be if someone said we were going to be president of the United States. Samuel gives him specific signs to verify this anointing and they all come to pass. And then I go on and quote verse 9. Then it happened, when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart. And on into verse 10, the Spirit of God came upon him mightily. You know, when God calls us, he equips. I’m still writing. Saul’s scared to death. He knew Samuel came to anoint him king, but he’s hiding himself in the baggage. Lord, help me not to hide from your calling in my life. Thanks for equipping me to serve and changing me into another man. I think the power lesson in this chapter is that when God calls, He’s going to equip you. The Spirit of the Lord rushes upon Saul. He’s turned into another man. And there is this great guarantee that God is with you. Wow, it can’t get any better than that, can it? And when he turns his back to leave Samuel, God did give him another heart. And the very evidence of what happened comes to him as he goes to Gibeah, where verse 10 says, And he prophesied among them. Saul sees it. He feels what’s happening to him. And so does everyone else around him. They say, what has come over the son of Kish? And yet when Saul meets up with his uncle and his uncle asks him about his discussion with Samuel, he gives him a half-truth. He does tell him that Samuel told him about the donkeys and that they’d been found, but he doesn’t tell him the rest of the story. Maybe he’s overwhelmed. Maybe he doesn’t believe it. Maybe he doesn’t understand it. Maybe he just can’t handle it. Well, we can see his real response later on in this chapter when Samuel is trying to find him to anoint him king. Where is he? He’s hiding. He’s hiding in the baggage. Maybe it would be the same for us if God called us to such an important task. Maybe we’d feel the same way. Inadequate. Not sure. Maybe he felt like Moses. Remember when God called Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt? He said he couldn’t do it either. And probably Saul felt the same way here. And yet, he is God’s chosen man. And all the people shouted, Long live the king! As they see Saul become the first king of Israel. As I flip back to my journal in 2002 after reading 1 Samuel 10, I wrote, Chosen. God again demonstrates sovereignty. He and he alone chooses, selects men to do his bidding. He had a plan for Saul. He had a plan for Samuel and Israel. He turned Saul into another man after the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. God gave Saul another heart. Wow! Lord, make me another man. Give me another heart for you. Has the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon you? Have you become another man or another woman? Has the Holy Spirit changed your heart? Does God Almighty have something exciting for you to do? Don’t hide in the baggage. Be confident that God is in all of it, that He has something for you to do, and He will equip you to do it. My journal entry about mom and the situation in Colorado Springs that day was, A good meeting with doctors on mom yesterday. She is stable now. Thank you, Jesus. Dad has significant heart problems too. They cannot be alone anymore. And then I wrote, One of my brothers was thinking about moving back to Colorado Springs to care for them until they die. Lord, let us not forget that that the scene that’s causing Saul to become king is the people’s rejection of you in their lives. Father, let it not be so in our lives that we would rather have someone else rule over us than you. You want to be our king. You want to be our leader. Father, help us submit to your authority. In Jesus’ name, amen. Thanks for listening to AdBible today. We started on radio on October 1st, 2024. I hope you noticed some differences in AdBible from other programs. For example, we are fully committed to the Word of God. That’s why we play full chapters on the air, not sound bites. It takes a lot of our program time, but it’s my belief it’s more important for you to hear the Word of God than me. You may also have figured out by now I’m not a pastor, just a layman like most of you. So these recordings are not based on sermons. They’re based on my personal walk through the Bible over several decades of my life. Therefore, AdBible is a unique perspective of how the Bible impacts life, not a teaching series you get at your church. I share personal Bible reading journal entries from my life, from my journals, I’ve never thought would ever be shared with anybody. What I share are raw, authentic notes from Bible intersections of my own life. My life is no different from yours, so I hope the stories and applications I share are relevant to your life as well. I hope you are enjoying this unique radio program and therefore will help us stay on the air. We have so much more to share. Visit EzraProject.net and donate today. Or send a check to the Ezra Project 1399 South Havana Street, Suite 201E, Aurora, Colorado, 80012. That’s Ezra Project 1399 South Havana Street, Suite 201E, Aurora, Colorado, 80012. When you do, I will send you your first copy of a day-by-day through the Bible book. There are 11 books in the series, so I will surprise you with one of my choosing. Or, after you donate at EzraProject.net, look at our resource page, pick a book you want, and let me know your choice at the contact section on our website. We are happy to send you the book of your choice. I know you’re going to enjoy it. You might wonder why we call this the Ezra Project Ad Bible, connecting God’s people to God’s Word. It came out of Nehemiah chapter 8, when Ezra, the priest and scribe, brought the Word of God back to the people. And so he got up and read the Bible to people in Nehemiah chapter 8 that had been without the Word of God for 130 years. And as he did, the people began to weep and worship. So we also in the Ezra Project realize that people are not reading the Bible as much as they like or as much as they could or should. So thus the Ezra Project, connecting God’s people to God’s Word. We hope to create 21st century Ezras, just like Ezra was as he described himself in Ezra 7.10. For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. And so what we want to create today is 21st century Ezra’s. People who will simply read God’s word, do it, and share it with others. That’s why we call this the Ezra Project.
