– Day 129.May 10 – God Takes Charge

2009 – Day 129.May 10 – God Takes Charge

Passage of the Day: 1st Samuel 31: 1 – 13 … Linked to 1st Samuel 31 for your study …

My Journal for Today: I don’t think I would have seen the parallels between Saul’s death and the death of Christ had I not gotten the interpretive help and teaching in today’s devotional from Chuck Swindoll. However, he does point out that in both scenarios, God changed everything for Israel and mankind as Saul’s death became a picture of what would take place when God demonstrated His control of history and mankind’s eternal future by the death of a ruler. Here are some points to which Swindoll points out to illustrate this.

>>> First, in both instances, in the death of Saul and centuries later, Christ, the end of all national hope for Israel seemed to have occurred. But in both deaths, a whole new hope for mankind was given light.
>>> Secondly, when both Saul and Jesus died, the adversary of Israel or mankind appeared to have one a final victory. However, as history marched forward from both deaths, the line of David would prove that the victory was in the hands of God’s chosen people.
>>> Thirdly, in both instances God ushered in a whole new plan of salvation, which came through the line of Jesse and David to bring salvation to God’s people. And so, Saul’s death brought David’s line into the line of succession, which would not have occurred without Saul dying in the way he did. With Christ, the line of salvation was opened to the Gentile as well as the Jew. So, in both deaths God opened up salvation to a whole new people.
>>> And fourthly and finally, Saul’s death showed God’s people how futile and foolish a kingship based on human worship could be; and with David becoming king, the hope of Messiah became the way man viewed their eternal future. With Christ’s death, the era of law and guilt died and mankind found that his way to salvation based on his own sacrifice had ended, being replace with the hope that comes only through God’s grace.

With both of these deaths in history, Swindoll thinks God was and is saying to mankind. “When are you going to turn your lives over to MY control?” In Saul’s death this message was prophetic. But with Christ’s death on the cross, the message to man was the fulfillment and final answer to the prophesy. Saul’s death pointed mankind to the line of David, showing where the King of kings would come. In Christ’s death, we see clearly, if we’re willing to receive our Lord as the King of kings, that mankind has only one hope for salvation; and that has come through the life, death, and resurrection of David’s line, culminating in Jesus Christ, Who was and is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, Your story, which both ended and began on the cross, tells it all; … You are the only hope for our salvation. Amen