The Anointing That Brought Transformation Series

THE ANOINTING THAT BROUGHT TRANSFORMATION

When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office.

One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (shaking hands and kissing babies and meeting constituents) he arrived at a church barbecue.

It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.

As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken.

She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line and said, “Next!”.

“Excuse me,” the hungry Governor Herter said as he eyed the mouth-watering food,

“Do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”

“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken only to each person.”

“But I’m starved,” the governor said.

“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.”

Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around.

“Do you know who I am, lady?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”

“Do you know who I am, mister?” the woman promptly shot back and said.

“I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. So, Move along, mister.”

Lesson: We cannot win them all.

You just have to believe that there are times that people can just push us around even though we thought we are that important.

This is what we will learn today as we continue our study on the Book of I Samuel with the selection of Saul as the new king.

Samuel was the prophet of God and had served Israel for many years.

But because of his old age, they were trying to push him around by asking for a new king.

And so, out of obedience to God, we will learn that he anointed Saul to be the first king of Israel.

Saul was from the least of the tribe of Benjamin.

He was a good choice but he was never popular.

Samuel wanted to build him up so that he would be fully accepted by the people.

The abilities of Saul were not obvious, the support for him was not unanimous, and the start of his reign was not smooth.

But because of the support of Samuel and his public declaration of Saul at the end of the chapter, Saul still succeed even if others were critical of him.

Somehow, this anointing of oil has transformed him to be a better man fit for the job.

We are going to look at three things today from this chapter:

1. The sign following his anointing in verses 1-8.

2. The spiritual transformation of Saul after his anointing in verses 9-16.

3. The public declaration of Saul's kingship in verses 17-17.

1. THE SIGNS FOLLOWING SAUL'S ANOINTING vs. 1-8

1 Samuel 10: 1-8 (NIV) " Then Samuel took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying, “Has not the Lord anointed you ruler over his inheritance? 2 When you leave me today, you will meet two men near Rachel’s tomb, at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you set out to look for have been found. And now your father has stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is asking, “What shall I do about my son?”’

3 “Then you will go on from there until you reach the great tree of Tabor. Three men going up to worship God at Bethel will meet you there. One will be carrying three young goats, another three loaves of bread, and another a skin of wine. 4 They will greet you and offer you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from them.

5 “After that you will go to Gibeah of God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, timbrels, pipesand harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying. 6 The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. 7 Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds to do, for God is withyou.

8 “Go down ahead of me to Gilgal. I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to you and tell you what you are to do.”

Here in these verses, weread Samuel anointing Saul with oil.

Afterwards, there were several groups of people that he would meet:

The first group were two men near Rachel tomb.

The second group were three men carrying several things.