Redeemer Church of Waterford

Confronted by Samuel with his sinful disobedience to the Lord's command to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites, King Saul offers "reputable repentance" in response. Saul is more concerned with saving face with the leaders of Israel and his people than he is with recognizing the seriousness of what his disobedience has done to God's reputation, as well as his own relationship with the Lord. Saul says,...

Saul's reckless disregard for the word of the Lord lead to an obstinate contradiction of the word of the Lord and ended in a fatal rejection of the word of the Lord. This is the downward progression every person takes who has no regard for the word of the Lord. They go their own way, and the way that seems right to a man is the way that ends in death.

How do we reconcile what we know of God's mercy and forgiveness with his command in 1 Samuel 15:3 to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites, a command which includes not sparing even women, infants, and young children? This is the problem of God's retribution, and it has been a stumbling block to so many, causing them to see God as capricious and vindictive. But a closer look at the text reveals quite t...

Israel is looking for a leader. God is looking for a leader. The leader Israel wants is a king like all the other nations. The leader God wants is a man after his own heart. 1 Samuel 14 is a study in contrasts between these two leaders in the persons of Saul and his son Jonathan. Jonathan displays a heart of unflinching trust in God while Saul displays all the outward forms of religious ritual, bu...

Having considered the characteristics of Saul's behavior in 1 Samuel 14:24-46 which lead us to define him as a spiritual pretender, we now consider what effect that pretentious behavior had on the people of Israel.

The Book of 1 Samuel has as it's underlying theme leadership. When it opens, there is no king in Israel; every man is doing that which is right in his own eyes. There is a vacuum of leadership. God is looking for a leader, and so are the people of Israel. But what Israel is looking for in a leader and what God is looking for in a leader are in stark contrast. And no place is that contrast more on...

How do we guard the unity of the church when we have differences of opinions on non-essential matters where the word of God has no clear commandment either for or against? It is not our personal convictions which guide our response to others, but the reality that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. "We are the Lord's" and must make it our aim to please Him.

The story in 1 Samuel 13 serves as an illustration of what happens when we we allow our circumstances to determine our responses rather than the word of God. Saul finds himself in dire straits, and he ignores God's command to wait for Samuel to give him instruction, and the result is a lack of clear direction leading to foolishness.

In 1 Samuel 10, 11, and 12 the phrase "before the Lord" recurs several times. It is a reminder to us that we live every moment of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the glory of God.

In 1 Samuel 12, Samuel summons all Israel to Gilgal where a courtroom scene unfolds. First Samuel is the defendant, and then the nation of Israel. Samuel is acquitted. Israel is condemned. But there's a surprise ending to this drama.

The question on the minds and lips of the people of Israel is the question everyone of us must answer: "Can this man save us?" Saul's victory over Nahash the Ammonite is an Old Testament portrait of the greater victory of Christ Jesus the Lord over our enemy, that old serpent, the devil

The people had a Savior in God, whom they rejected (1 Samuel 10:19). In His mercy, God gave them a savior in the king they demanded (1 Samuel 9:16) whom they also rejected (1 Samuel 10:27). And now the people are confronted with the tyrant from Ammon, Nabash, and they immediately go in search for a man who can save them (1 Samuel 11:3), all the while God is at work in His mercy to Himself once aga...

In 1 Samuel 8, the people have asked for a king "like all the nations around them." In 1 Samuel 9, a young man who thinks he is searching for his father's lost donkeys has actually found the Prophet Samuel with whom he has a private audience where he learns that God has chosen him to be Israel's first king, but he will NOT be a king like other kings, much to the dismay of some "worthless men." As...

The Apostle Paul assumes that within any local congregation of believers there will be "weak" believers and "strong" believers. But what is the standard by which a Christian is weak or strong? And what is the basis upon which we are to "welcome" or receive one another when we differ on nonessentials?

On May 6, 2023 the world witnessed the Coronation of King Charles III. When the crown was placed upon his head, the gathered congregation in Westminster Abbey shouted, "God save the king!" In the providence of God, the series we began in 1 Samuel more than six months ago brings us to 1 Samuel 10:24 on this day after the coronation of King Charles where another congregation gathered for the coronat...

In 1 Samuel 10:17, Samuel calls the people of Israel together at Mizpeh. The last time he called them to Mizpeh (1 Samuel 7), he prayed for them as an intercessor. This time he will preach to them a three point sermon as their prophet/pastor: what God did for them, what the people did in response to what God did for them, and what God will now do in response to the people. The sermon seems to have...

There was an issue in the church at Rome which threatened its unity. There was a group in the church who, because of conscience and personal conviction, wanted to refrain from certain foods and "esteem one day better than another" (14:2, 5, 21). This group was described as weak by the majority of the congregation who had no qualms about what to eat and what days to observe. How are we to respond t...

At the end of chapter 9 of 1 Samuel, Samuel has a private conversation with Saul to show him the word of God as it relates to "the matter of the kingdom. We are not privy to the details of that word, but what follows in chapter 10 are three encounters Saul will have in one day which will serve as signs validating the word of God spoken to him by Samuel.

Saul has been commissioned by his father to crisscross the land in search of lost donkey's, unaware that God is ordering his steps in a way that even he will find unimaginable. While we are going about the mundane routine of our lives, God is always at work in mysterious ways to bring us to His eternal purposes for us.

When the Apostle Paul says that "Christ lives by the power of God," he wants his first-century readers to see the distinction between the worldly power on display in their polytheism and the power of the one true and living God who raised His eternally generated Son from the dead. Is your faith resting in worldly ideas of power, or in the power of God?

As early as 480 years BEFORE the birth of Christ the Persians had introduced a novel form of punishment for slaves and criminals which came to be known as crucifixion. The cross is the ultimate expression of weakness. And weakness is the badge that all followers of Jesus wear so that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

1 Samuel 9 is a vignette of sorts which introduces us to the protagonist in the story of 1 Samuel, the man who will eventually become king, Saul the son of Kish. This chapter is a story within a story: the story which is visible to us and seems to concern only a mundane search for lost donkeys; and the story which is invisible to us, the story of God's providential ordering of the steps of Saul to...

Technical issues affect the quality of this recording. In view of the second coming of Christ, the believer is to "cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." What are the works of darkness? What is the armor of light?

The people have asked for a king, but the kind of king they will get is not the kind of king God desires for them to have. In 1 Samuel 8 the leaders of Israel are looking for national security in the person of a human king rather than in the covenant promises of Yahweh.