Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. That's a lot of haze. A lot of haze. A lot of haze, and it going up. Yeah. Inflection. Mm-hmm. Upwards. Yeah. Uh, what's going on? It's, uh, it's Thursday. Are you ready for the camp out tomorrow? Tomorrow night? Yes. That was the sigh of, yes, you guys should be in the office right now. You should see the expression of sheer excitement, joy and joy. Unspeakable joy is what This is inexpressible even. I think it's, it's borderline. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever seen you this inex expressively ecstatic about anything. I mean, in your life.

Yeah. Well, here's the thing. I, I went camping all as a young man. I did it all the time. Yeah. And as a kid it's great. Yeah. 'cause you're not bothered by lots of the things that for sure adults are bothered by. And it. It's fine. Yeah. I liked it, but now I have a house that I pay a lot of money to live in and I feel like I owe it to the house to live in the house. To enjoy the house, and I owe it to the Lord. Yeah. To enjoy the house. I don't wanna pay to sleep outside. I'm just saying. I mean, great if it's your, if it's your jam, here's the thing. If, if I, if I had the, uh, time and the wherewithal to, to buy a nice tent and, you know, a good blowup mattress and a lot of the stuff that goes along with it, I think I'd be okay with it. I could be, I could get behind it. Right. But the upfront cost to get all those things, I feel like is just more time and more energy than I care to spend. Yeah, that's fair. And money. That's fair. Yeah. Speaking of stuff like that, speaking of stuff like that, a lot of things that people could make decisions on, and I think this is one of those, uh, Christianese terms that I'd love to get you to speak more about, especially as it relates to Oh yeah, we're doing that actually doing the thing. Okay. Yeah. Christianese term, the will of God. Yeah. And this is a biblical term. The will of God. What's God's will. And, um, I, I felt, God tell me, I felt God lead me. Mm-hmm. I had a piece about it. Sometimes Christians say, you know, I felt like a, I just, I had to move to Texas because I just felt like God wanted me to do it. This introduces a whole category of Christian decision making that I want you to talk about, because I think a lot of people find that the idea mystical, like, oh, I guess I'm just gonna feel something in my stomach. There's gonna be some sense of assurance in my belly that says, marry that girl, liver quiver, a liver quiver, all those kinds of things. Um, how does a Christian understand the will of God and how do you navigate that such that you make a decision that you feel like this is God's will. Could you ever make a decision not in God's will? Mm-hmm. Talk about all

those things? Sure. Yeah. Let me start with the last question. Yes. You can make a decision that's not in God's desired will for you. Um, now his, his decree of will, the, the will of his ordained plan for our lives, no. That we're, we're operating within that will, uh, but. Um, there's a desired will first, thus four says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. That is, that you abstain from sexual immorality. So there he's talking about that. But, but your sanctification, let's just talk about that phrase that that means that you would be like Jesus, that you'd be holy. So if God's desired will is that you would be like Jesus, can I do something that is against, that will? And the answer is yes. Every time you sin, you do something against the desired will of God that you would be sanctified, that you'd be like Christ. Now, um. He's his decreed will, his ordained will is such, uh, that it, it is big enough and broad enough to, uh, even incorporate the, uh, the, the ends of our sinfulness and our, our evil. And he still uses those things towards the accomplishment of, of his, of his will. Um, however, um. It. I can't even go on right now. Just tell him what you're laughing at. I think you're gonna wanna know I'm laughing at a shirt that Pastor Rod put on that uh, I don't think is in keeping with the will of God. What could you possibly mean? This is such a good shirt. The shirt says. The shirt says words on it. It says, I'm gonna read it backwards. Okay. I'm gonna read it backwards. What do you It says, said you everything with agree eye. So you guys can do the legwork on putting that back forwards there. Um, and, and Mayor Dan, we can thank for Mayor Dan. Of course. Of course, no. Pastor Rod is wearing a shirt. Uh, that, uh, it, it, if you've been hearing me, uh, agree with Pastor Rod a lot recently and you've been thinking, wow, pastor Pier really likes that, that sentence a lot, he likes a lot

of what he says these days. He's so affirmative

and it sounds exactly the same. His inflection is the same. He en enunciates the same way, emphasizes the same. Oh, really? It's almost like it's the same phrase that got cut and just dropped in, sprinkled, in, reused over and over again. Well, pastor Rogers took off his outer shirt and he has a shirt on underneath with that phrase, my under garment. Yes. Um, I was wondering where you went and then you came back in, you had two undershirts on. I'm like, what is this joker doing? Why does he have two undershirts on now? And then you sit up all like turned around to take your shirt off. I'm like, okay, what does it say? Alright, that's. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming.

Alright, get back to the topic at end. Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that I got it in. Eventually, God's will. This is my new official podcast shirt. Yes. So you can do something outside of God's desired will for your life. Now, how do I know if I'm acting in accordance with God's will? There's a lot of different ways, uh, that we would say, number one, if you're worried about that and concerned about that, that's that's a great starting point. Uh, rather than just assuming. That because you're a Christian, you go to church kinda like we talked about yesterday, trusting in the things close to God that that, okay then fine, I can go do whatever I wanna do and not worry about it. Clearly this is God's will. Being at, at you. Being at peace is not always God's will. Uh, about a decision is not always God's will. And how do I know that? Because there are plenty of unbelievers that make decisions, make your decisions in life that they would say, I have a piece about this decision. Right? And clearly we would say that they're not. Seeking God's will in that decision. So you being at peace doesn't equal that you're in the will of God. Um, I think seeking counsel from friends and not finding just a bunch of yes men that will be like, oh yeah, that's great. You should go do that. But making sure that you've got people in your life who will say, I don't think you should do that. I, I I don't think that's the best move, the best option. Uh, make sure you're seeking them out on something and if, and if they're agreeing with you, that's, that's a big step in the right direction. Prayer is huge on this Psalm 1 39 that you would be. Be praying, honestly, meaning it God, search my heart on this and, and reveal to me my motives and, and reveal to me if there's any sinful motive that I have about this decision. You know, ask God to bring that to light and be sensitive to that journal about these things. I, I, I would say there's a, that's, that's a lot of the process that I would go through at the end of the day. Uh, we walk by faith, not by sight. And so there's some decisions that, in fact, I would say a lot of decisions. At the end of the day, you're not gonna be able to know a hundred percent that you're in the desired will of God, but you can, you can have a, a, a greater feeling that you are than that you aren't, if that makes sense.

Okay. One quick follow up. How then can someone have any confidence with the decisions that they're making? If it's not expressed explicitly in the Bible? How can someone feel any sense of assurance that they're making the right decision? So marrying a spouse, for instance, a big decision, or buying that really nice car. You know, some people can really tussle over that because they wonder, well, if I only, if I spent half that money, I could, yeah. Give 15 to missions or whatever else, or uh, or you know, or even having this many kids or having three kids and not four or four kids and not five or whatever the number is. How do you feel confident about the decisions that you're making if it's not explicitly spoken upon in scripture?

Yeah, I mean, let's take the spouse situation. You're getting ready to marry somebody. How do I know if this is the right person? I think you look at what you know to be true in the Bible, non-negotiables, that it is clear that God's will is for you, number one, that you got, you're marrying somebody the opposite gender biologically. That's, that's number one. That's key. Uh, number two, that they are somebody who loves Jesus. That they're a believer that that's something that the Bible explicitly commands. So that has to be there. Um, then you get into the realm of, uh, you know, those things of are you attracted to our character or his character? Are you attracted to them physically? There's elements there that you can kind of go through to say, okay, if those, those things I know the Bible tells me are, have to be true about this decision are in place, then it's, it's a matter of evaluating the other things going. Can I feel like, do I feel like I'm making a confident decision in a wise decision based on these other things? Um. And again, other voices are gonna help you in that. So there are, you may not have the Bible saying this is who you're supposed to marry, but the Bible's gonna give you a good starting place to be able to, to whittle that list down, to go. I've gotta have people that meet these qualifications according to the Bible. So I have to find somebody in that realm and then I can make that other decision. Your car, how, how do you know whether to spend. $15,000 on a car, $10,000 on a car, $40,000 on a car. Uh, some of that is gonna come down to your conscience. The Bible tells us not to sin against our own conscience. So you could always, it, it, you could say, well, I'm not gonna spend $40,000 on a car. I'm gonna spend $10,000 on a used car. Great, well, why don't you spend $8,000 on a used car and save an extra two grand? Why don't, let's whittle it down more. Can you go to seven? So at some point you're gonna tap out and go, you know what, no, my conscience says I need something reliable, that I'm gonna be able to. To, to drive for a while, that's gonna get my family from point A to point BI, I want something safe. And so you're gonna spend a little bit money for the more money for those reasons. Now somebody else may spend $40,000 on that, their brand new car, and they could still be doing that in the will of God because they could still be giving. I. A lot of money on the side to other areas, and they might be thinking, this is the wise decision for my family. So a lot of those things are more subjective, but they still need to be bathed in prayer. You should still seek outside ca counsel from other people. Uh, but ultimately you're also gonna know that the spirit's gonna be working in your life through your conscience, and you shouldn't sin against your conscience if, if your conscience is pressing upon you about a, a particular issue or decision, don't make that decision.

So it sounds like at the end of the day, uh, I mean there's a lot of criteria that you gave us to consider. Maybe at the end of the day, the decis, the decisions that we make in so far as are not inherently sinful are just this, our decisions that we make By faith, we're trusting that the Lord is gonna use our mental faculties, our friendships, and our knowledge of scripture to make a good decision. And it's kind of like that mindset of saying, well, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we're doing it to the glory of God. And if you can do that, that's probably a helpful, a helpful place to land. I also think about chapter 10 of Partners, which talks about discerning gray areas and helping discern the will of God in all these categories. So I. I know that there's a lot more we could talk about with term, with, with regard to the will of God, but hopefully that helps jog your thinking about what the word means or what we mean by the term, not just the word, and we say the will of God. It's, it's a loaded term and it, it isn't just about liver shivers and following your gut. Sometimes that's helpful and sometimes that you might come to a decision where you have to do it based on that. A lot of other things, not withstanding, our, our decision is gonna be ultimately a decision of faith in Christ that we're trusting him even as we utilize all the means that he gives us. To make a good decision. So thank you for talking about that. We can now

jump into the word of God. Alright, first Samuel 9, 10, 11 to 12. First Samuel, nine, the people of Israel. Ask for King. God said, I'll give you King. And God selects his king in chapter nine, at least privately. And this is gonna be Saul, Saul of Kish, um, who was a Benjamin Knight, not a. Not a member of the line of of Judah. And so we know that this is ultimately not gonna be the final line that God is gonna use, that he's gonna reject this line. And he will do that eventually with Saul. But Saul is chosen, uh, and it happens through this whole process of there's lost donkeys. Saul goes looking for the donkeys happens upon Samuel because Samuel's a local seer. They're looking for answers about the donkeys. Samuel says, don't worry about the donkeys, we're gonna make you king. And, uh, Saul is going to be, uh, selected as the, the one that's gonna lead the people of Israel. Um, and so this is a private, uh, anointing. This is a, a private, uh, selection at this point. And, um, this is, is going to be publicized more and more. But, but at this point, this is just God saying, Hey, this is the guy and uh, it's gonna be Saul here in chapter nine. Chapter 10. Then in the first part of this chapter, the, uh, the actual anointing, I mentioned the selection in chapter nine, the, the actual private anointing takes place here in the beginning of chapter, uh, 10 Samuel says in 10, one has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel. Now, not king, but prince. Why not king? Because God is still the true king. So this one is gonna reign as prince. He's gonna be the, the vice regent, so to speak, over the, uh, the nation over the people ruling on behalf of Israel. Um, Saul is humble at this point, which is commendable. I. And, uh, and we're gonna even see that he's, he's bashful, uh, in, uh, in the, the later on in the chapter when Samo goes to announce him to the, the people of Israel as a whole. And they say, Hey, where is this guy? And he's over found hiding in the luggage. And so this is not the prideful saw that we see later on in the book. This is a bashful saw. This is a, a timid saw and uh, and a humble saw, um, that, uh, Samuels is. Anointing privately and then later announcing publicly in the back half of chapter 10.

I'd love you to interact with this take that I have on this as I read it this time around. I thought, you know what? Maybe I misread Saul all along in terms of these early chapters. 'cause I, I, I made the same. I have a note in my Bible right here that says something about the fact that humility has to be nurtured. And I think that's true as far as it goes, but we need to nurture humility if we wanna keep it. It doesn't stay static. It, it has to constantly be guarded and tended to like in a garden. Um, but I wonder if what we're seeing in Saul is not humility, but insecurity. That it's not that he's just a really humble guy who's saying, ah, shucks. You know, who am I? I think, and I wonder if he's just insecure. Another form of pride. So not pride where it's. Arrogant. It comes off in the way that we typically expect and what we'll see later, but the pride of saying, look, I, I'm not fit for this. I can't do this. I won't do this. I don't wanna embarrass myself or my, I don't know. I don't know. There's pride can manifest at both polars is what I'm trying to get to, and I wonder if that's what we're seeing here is just pride in a different form, because I don't know that it's. I don't, I don't know that it's a good thing that he's being told by God through Samuel, look, you're the guy. And he says, no, I'm not gonna do that. You're the guy. No, I'm not gonna do that. Right. I'm just gonna hide in the baggage. Please don't, don't pick me. I don't wanna do this. I wonder if it's just another form of pride that comes out in insecurity, and I think that makes more sense to me than thinking he was humble initially and now he's not. I think he's the same guy. It's just a different, a different side of him.

That's fair. Yeah. I, I, I can see that. And, uh, and you can see that in his actions too. It's not necessarily that this is a biblical humility, um, but maybe yeah, an insecure humility that we see here, which is not, which is a, a different form of pride,

right? Yeah. Which is what I'm trying to make sense of. 'cause otherwise it's like, oh, what happened to him? He was humble and then he wasn't. And I, I think it's more consistent to read him, even though he's better in some situations. I, I, and they're certain that we're gonna read some of his better. His better events, his better episodes, but I still think he's probably got a lot of pride that keeps him from accepting the will of God and saying, yeah, I, I man, if I could serve the Lord, so be it. Yeah. Be it unto

me, as Mary will say later on. Yeah. Yeah. You may be wondering about, well, what do we do with the fact that Saul's gonna prophesy here? He's gonna do this actually a couple times, uh, in his life, but naked one of those times. Yeah. This is, and we talked about this, uh, during the, the. Series on, on judges and, and looking at Deborah, this is not pro prophesying the same way that that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, mayhem, all those came out and prophesied, saying thus says the Lord, here's the message. You need to repent or this, this is gonna happen. This is him giving a message from the Lord. This is him speaking a message from the Lord. Not direct revelation. Otherwise, we would have it. Recorded for us in scripture. Not inspired, I, I should say not God breathed, but he's certainly serving as a messenger of God in this context. And it is a, a temporary situation because it is not an ongoing situation. It's temporary here, and it's a sign of confirmation, um, to take this man to your point, who seems to be very insecure and to tell him that this is a, this is a God thing. This is, he's behind this. And he is, he is truly the one that is saying You're gonna be the king. Um. And so then in, in chapter 11, uh, we get the, uh, the first victory of Saul. We've got this situation where the Ammonites come up against the men of Ja Jesh, Gilead. And the men of Jesh Gilead, now remember them because they're gonna come back into play in Saul's, uh, not life, but in Saul's death. Um, they will be there to honor Saul and Jonathan, uh, in, in death. And so just stick a pin in the, then the, uh. Memory of Jesh Gilead. And I think it, it comes back to this particular situation here because these men are in trouble. The, this town is in trouble and Saul catches word of it and the spirit of God, it says in verse six, rushes upon Saul when he hears about the, the danger facing these men. He cuts up the ox and he sends it across. Israel says, so will God do to every man who doesn't show up to, to fight? They come out, they free the, the, the residents of Jesh, Gilead, and uh, and they defeat the Ammonites in the process there. And then in chapter, uh. 12, which is, is the, the final chapter, I guess, of our reading, or no, the, sorry, the end of chapter 11. That's I was thrown off for verse 12. End of chapter 11, verse 12. Uh, this is where the, the, the kingship is formally installed and sa, they, they formally anoint him publicly. So you've got this progression from chapter nine all the way through the end of chapter 11 here, where it's the private selection, the private anointing, the public selection, and then really the public anointing and confirmation here at the end of chapter 11. And now Saul is officially the, the guy everybody knows. He's the guy. And this has been formalized chapter 12. Then I alluded to this yesterday. This is Samuel's message of, Hey, I, I, what I did, I, I did in the integrity of my heart, I led you well and I led you faithfully. And if there's anything that I've done wrong, pointed out to me, let me know. And so, man, I, I. I tremble under the, the reality of man, I, I would love to be able to say that by the time I'm, I'm done serving as a pastor, I'd love to have led in such a way that I could say, Hey, show me where I let you down. Um, that's a, it's a terrifying invitation. And it, I think it just, it speaks to single's character, um, and his concern for them, which is manifest in what he's, his instructions are to them after this where he says, look, if, if you'll fear the Lord, verse 14, obey his commandments. Don't rebel against the commandment of the Lord. Both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God. It will be well with you. But he says, if not, then it's not gonna go well with you. The Lord's gonna be against you. Now, Samuel's not dying at this point, but this is his farewell address in the sense of saying, I'm, I'm out. I'm stepping out from the role of leadership and now it's Saul that you need to follow. And so that. When you read farewell address, it's not that he's dying, but that he's resigning from his role as that leader in in Israel. Yeah. And there's so much about

him that is so cool to observe. He, he's taking the step behind, he's letting the king do the king's thing and he's going to now take a subservient role. Um. As a, as a leader from behind, as it were. He, he's allowing Saul to take center stage, which is appropriate and right, and good. And of course, the phrase that I think a, a lot of us resonate with, um, he talks about in verse 22, the Lord's not gonna forsake his people. Um, he says, moreover, as for me in verse 23, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by cease or pray for you. Now because of his particular role as judge, as prophet, it makes a lot of sense, positionally that he would say this, but really every leader in God's employee. Should feel the same kind of compulsion. I think it's a right and good thing to say. Even though I'm not a prophet and I'm not a priest and I'm not a judge, I still bear the same responsibility to pray for the people that are under my charge. And every husband, father, mother, every, every leader under God's employee, as I said, ought to feel that. If you're not praying for your people, whoever they might be, your grandkids or your own kids or your spouse, um, who's gonna do that? Uh, who's gonna do that for you? Now, you can't take that and export to somebody else. GPT does a lot of cool things, but you can't tell GPT Hey, pray for my family. Uh, pray for my, my flock. I. Hey, please pray for them and, and make sure that you lay before the Lord. Things that are really important to them. No, you gotta do that. You have to take that seriously and to feel that sense of, man, I don't wanna sin against anybody by failing to pray as I should. And I know that hits all of us, that steps on all of our toes. But it's a good reminder for us in the life of Samuel who lived in an above reproach way full of integrity. That's the kinda life that I wanna be able to testify to that I, I lived. Intentionally enough to pray for people because that was right. That was good. Uh, you'll never regret that. You're never gonna regret spending time praying for your family. Yeah. You're never gonna regret spending time praying for your church. Uh, the devil would love to make you busy and distracted so that you don't do that. Uh, so if, if you have time today, and maybe right now, even as you wrap up this podcast soon, maybe it's a good time to spend some time praying for your church, praying for your family, praying for the people that you serve.

Yeah. Yeah, man, that's interesting that you bring up. You can't ask GPT to pray for your family. You, you prob you can, but it's, it's not, it's a computer. Right. It's a computer doesn't count. There's not the soul there, right? Yeah. And that's why people are like, well, are are, is GBT gonna replace pastors? Are we gonna have robots up there? Just, you know, if they can produce a sermon on GPT, then why not? You know? Yeah. Why do we need to have pa Well, because of that, because there's no soul behind it. There's no connection to the content. It's not produced from somebody who has, there's something about the, as you're prepping a sermon or praying for somebody, you are. Personal human concern for that person that comes through in the words that you're writing that a, that a machine can't do. Yeah. Um. That I think adds more of the intangible, maybe we call it mystical power to, ooh, you're getting mystical. Well, you know, uh, to the, the content of what we're, what we're saying, what we're praying about.

100%. I agree with everything you just said, and I would say beyond that, mark, I would say beyond that, just take a little slice of what you're getting at. If you just think about the concept of time a robot doesn't have time, uh, they have a hard drive. They, they have, you know. Bits and bites and they have batteries. They don't really have a life though. Yeah. For a human, you never get the time back that you invest into prayer. Yeah. You never can recover it. You can't say, oh, you know what, I, let me just get a new battery and I can expend, I can ex expand or extend my life force. Yeah. Once I spend my life force on praying, I never get that back. And that's my point. And to your point as well, that a. A robot doesn't care, right? A, a machine, a computer doesn't care. Once you wear out the machine, you could just get a new one, replace. It doesn't have consciousness. Uh, but for a human, you could never say, oh, well, let's just give you a new brain. Oh, your brain wore out from praying. Well, let's just give you a new brain. Oh, your knees wore out. As they said about James, the brother of Jesus and the flesh, and said that he was such a prayer warrior that his knees became all like, like camel me. So they called 'em all camel meese. And that was true. I don't think James is regretting saying, man, I spent so much time on my knees praying for people that my knees are messed up now. I think he, he, he appreciated that he, he enjoyed that investment even more today than he did at first. So that's a good, that's a great point, man. We should, we should use our lives. Pour ourselves out for the sake of others. Yep.

Yeah. Well, let's, let's pray right now. God, we, uh, we often pray for our church and we pray for our church people, um, individually and, and in the mornings and when we're spending time with you and as, as they come to mind. And, and yet we just wanna be able to do that more. We wanna pray for our families more. Those that are listening to this God, we want to, uh, corporately. I trust all of us, pray for those that are brothers and sisters in Christ and, and invest. Our caring concern in pleading with you, the God who's able to do all of these things that we're asking, uh, that you do and more above and beyond all that we think or imagine. We, we want to intri you to, to do these things. We want to see you act. We want to see prayers answered and we're not gonna see prayers answered if we're not making prayers offered. And so, God, we want to be a praying church. We want to be faithful to do that. We want to invest that time. Even as Pastor Rod was just saying, we're never, never gonna regret time spent praying for our family, uh, praying for others, praying for our church, praying for people that we love. And so God, we, um, ask in prayer that you would make us more of men and women of prayer and, uh, instill in us a greater desire to spend more time in praying to you and have a, a greater conviction of our need to, and the value in doing that. And so we ask this and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading new Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See it. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about ourChurch@compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review to rate to share this podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening on, and we will catch you against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.