How Can This Fellow Save Us?

·      1 Samuel 10:17-18,26-11:1 – Samuel summoned the people of Israel to the Lord at Mizpah and said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I brought Israel up out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’…Saul also went to his home in Gibeah, accompanied by valiant men whose hearts God had touched. But some scoundrels said, “How can this fellow save us?” They despised him and brought him no gifts. But Saul kept silent. Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will be subject to you.”

1 Samuel 2:12 – Eli’s sons were scoundrels; they had no regard for the Lord.

1 Samuel 12:12 – “But when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, ‘No, we want a king to rule over us’—even though the Lord your God was your king.

Judges 11:27,29 – I have not wronged you, but you are doing me wrong by waging war against me. Let the Lord, the Judge, decide the dispute this day between the Israelites and the Ammonites.”… Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah. He crossed Gilead and Manasseh, passed through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there he advanced against the Ammonites.

Application:

• ·         In Old Testament usage, to “know” the Lord is not just intellectual or theoretical recognition. It is to enter into fellowship with Him and acknowledge His claims on one’s life.
• ·         Although the judges themselves are sometimes referred to as Israel’s deliverers, this was true only in a secondary sense, for they were instruments of the Lord’s deliverance. It was the Lord who sent them.
• ·         In the face of the combined threat from the Philistines in the west and the Ammonites in the east, the Israelites sought to find security in the person of a human king.
• ·         As the divine Judge, the Lord is the final court of appeal.
• ·         In the Old Testament the unique empowering of the Spirit was given to individuals primarily to enable them to carry out the special responsibilities God had given them.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV