1 Sam 19:23, And he proceeded there to Naioth in Ramah; and the Spirit of God came upon him also, so that he went along prophesying continually until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 
	Today we are presented with something that needs to be a bedrock reality in the heart and mind of every true Christian believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We need to know that God is the One Who controls every aspect of humanity; especially those whose plan and purposes are in opposition to the will of God. His plan is supreme and is untouchable by the schemes and the tactics of mankind.
	In this morning’s reading, we have the plot of Saul against David thwarted over and over and over again. Saul was beset with his ferocious jealousy and craving to hold onto the throne of Israel, even against the plan and the purpose of Jehovah. Saul knew that David was the newly anointed one, chosen by God to sit on the throne of Israel. Saul had been given that position, but in the course of looking to his own power and his own honor and his own earthly place of ruling over the lives and fortunes of others, he had lost his reliance and his heart after the Lord. 
Instead of seeking after God in the every decision and obeying that which Jehovah required, Saul let himself be persuaded to rather seek after humanity’s honor with manipulative and argumentative motivations. He tried to put the so limited human justification for his disobedient and malicious disregard for the Holiness and the Sovereignty of God ahead of his obedience unto The Lord. 
As a result, he was being torn apart within his being as he witnessed David with all his successes, both in battle, and in the hearts of the people. Saul despised David and did whatever he could to attempt to eliminate this young man from the face of the earth.
Accordingly, when his every scheme was thwarted by the Hand of God, Saul decided to take the matter of the killing of this young Israelite into his own hands. He had sent three sets of executioners to seek out David, who was under the protection of Samuel in Naioth in Ramah. Every time they came close, these groups of men were set upon by the Spirit of the Lord to the point of their prophesying rather than carrying out their designated task to kill.
After three such divine defeats to his deadly scheme, Saul, himself, set forth to do what his men could not accomplish. As he neared the place of David’s refuge, the Lord directly intervened and caused even Saul to prophesy. This heavenly intervention prevented the harm that was the king’s intent against the chosen and anointed one of God.
 No man can stop that which is The Lord’s plan and purpose! His will is done in heaven and on earth in full accordance with that which He has foreordained. The power, prestige, wealth, fame, or any other of that which man uses to elevate oneself over others has no sway in the reality of God’s Sovereignty. It matters not how rich or poor, how beautiful or ugly, how strong or weak, how old or young, no man or woman will ever be able to stand against the work of the Lord God Almighty, The Creator and The Sustainer of all that is in place! He, Alone, determines the course of how His divinely ordained work will come to pass. Nothing, no one, and no power, either physically or spiritually, will deter the Hand of God from accomplishing that which is His ordained will!
We can turn back to the account of Balak and Balaam in Num 23:5-12, to see another example of God’s divine intervention. Balak had basically hired Balaam to curse the Israelites. He wanted the divine powers to work against Israel and he was willing to make Balaam very rich to accomplish that endeavor. However, as we can read and remind ourselves in this passage, Balaam, much as he wanted the money, much as he was willing to curse the Israelites for prestige and power could not but speak that which the Lord put into his mouth.
Num 23:5-12, Then the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, "Return to Balak, and you shall speak thus." So he returned to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, he and all the leaders of Moab. And he took up his discourse and said, "From Aram Balak has brought me, Moab's king from the mountains of the East, 'Come curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!' "How shall I curse, whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce, whom the Lord has not denounced? "As I see him from the top of the rocks, And I look at him from the hills; Behold, a people who dwells apart, And shall not be reckoned among the nations. "Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, And let my end be like his!" Then Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have actually blessed them!" And he answered and said, "Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?" 
	Balaam could not but speak the word that the Lord gave him to pronounce. Even though it went against every aspect of his heart’s desire to have wealth and to be famous throughout the region as the one who could bend the wills of the gods, Balaam could not bend the way of the Lord. Although it caused him great monetary and reputational distress, Balaam’s mouth, and all his utterances were sealed by the Lord against any curse upon God’s nation. 
Jehovah was The Hedge of Protection around the Nation of Israel and kept them safe from all the threats of the powers arrayed against them in their movement toward the conquest of the Promised Land. As the Lord led them, He also made sure that none of the powers of the age could be wielded against them because Jehovah thwarted all the plans of the enemies of His chosen nation.
	We now return to Saul at the point of his being chosen as the first king of Israel. He was told, by Samuel, that he was to be installed as the king and he balked at it. He was shy and he was convinced that God had chosen awry. He was determined to leave the whole matter and just go back to being a young man from the tribe of Benjamin who had gone in search of the lost donkeys of his father. After Samuel had anointed him, he was still in distress over the whole matter. That is when we come to the passage of 1 Sam 10:9+10.
	1 Sam 10:9+10, Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart; and all those signs came about on that day. When they came to the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them. 
	Here was the first time that the Spirit of God had come upon Saul. This time it was to confirm that he was to take the crown of Israel upon his head for the sake of uniting the people into a nation. It would also eventually show the difference that would be in place between a king who sought after his own plan and purpose, that being Saul, and a king who was after the heart of God, David, as we have previously considered. 
	Saul, at the beginning of his being chosen as king was anxious not to be the center of attention. He was doing his best to be a king who would not make a fool of himself. All his attention was on the human side of being the king over people. He eventually used that placement as king to enrich himself and to further his own desires and goals. He morphed from a shy lad into an overbearing tyrant who would try to murder anyone who might poise a threat to his power and his domination of others. 
	At both points in his life, the Spirit of God intervened, first to bring him to the throne, and then to prevent him from so foully abusing that throne to his own ends. No matter which way he turned and tried to hide and later to abuse the kingship, the Lord God intervened. Saul was prevented from that course of destruction and vile and sinister manipulation of the place of power upon which he sat. 
	This brings us to the key reality that must be the heart and mind of each one of God’s people. It is necessary for the growth of our walk with God to fully recognize His Sovereign purpose over any of our own. It is also the bedrock assurance that we have in the midst of any and all the plots and subterfuge of the reckoning of man against the Kingdom of God on this earth. This reality is declared in Prov 16:9, and is fully highlighted in this morning’s reading.
	Prov 16:9, The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps. 
	Initial consideration of this verse is the reality that man can make all the plans that can be contained in his mind. We all do this. We have those plans for the day and for each hour in the day. We plan for the year with vacations and work schedules and the times that we will spend with others and the times that we will reserve to ourselves. We make those grandiose plans of how we will honor the Lord in this way or that way. Then we also make those plans as to how we will enrich ourselves by the fruits of our labors and our endeavors. We plan for our health, we plan for our future, we plan for our marriages and our children and our family members and all the time that we plan to spend in our endeavors. We plan for our hobbies and for our careers, and for our retirement and for our leisure.
	Yet, even with the most well designed putting together of our resources and our mental faculties, every plan we make falls under the scope of the Sovereignty of God. That is why it is imperative that all the plans of our hearts and our minds are centered in the truth of Lord willing! As much as we may set the perfect stage for the playing out of what we want to happen, it is the Lord Who brings it to be or not to be. He directs the steps that we take and the course of our walk on this earth. 
We can devise those schemes and put forth all the effort of our beings, but if The Lord deigns to blow against it, it will surely collapse around our feet as the dust that it truly is. Only that which is of The Lord’s plan and design for our lives will stand and come to full and glorious fruition. That is something that we need to learn and fully surrender to in our lives. We need to ask God to teach this truth, through us as His living witnesses, to our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren. 
There is nothing wrong with planning and setting up things like retirement accounts, etc. However, we do so with the song in our heart that it is all Lord willing as He deems fit and proper. If He chooses to put it all to naught, that is OK because He has something far better in place for us. 
That is the golden nugget of our assurance that God is in control, He is the One Who supplies our every need and our every desire as it is all fully and completely centered in Him.
Accordingly, we are not crushed if the stock market crashes. We do not center our hopes in Social Security or Medicare or any other governmental or social program. We are not dismayed if there is a severe health setback, or if our vacation plans are canceled for this or that reason. Everything we plan is on the full basis that our trust is that God will do as He so wills in order that our will becomes fully aligned with His. We do not try to force anything in any measure. Rather, we choose to learn to flow with what He has put into place for us. 
The other aspect, which was the protection of David in our reading, is that God will thwart any effort to try to derail His plan and His purpose! We are secure in The Lord as we are so honoring Him and desirous only after His will in our lives. 
Just as Saul was so determined to destroy David, that never came to be because God had His plan for this soon to be king of Israel. Saul was no match for the Omnipotence of God in action. No man, no scheme, no government, no power is able to stand against the will of God!
This is the guarantee and the pledge and the truth of our being kept by the Sovereign Hand of God through all manner of this age’s schemes to crush the will of God and to keep it from coming into fruition. It utterly failed in the manner of God choosing those who belong to Him, as in the choice of David to sit upon the throne of Israel. 
Abundantly more vitally imperative, the power of this age was miserably maleficent in the display of its utter and absolute weakness to keep the crucified Son of God in the grave! As the hymn of old proclaims with all glory and joy and majestic authority, up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes. He arose the victor from the dark domain and He lives forever with His saints to reign. He arose! He arose! Hallelujah Christ arose!
 That is the epitome of the failure of any scheme or plan or plot of any power of this age to derail and stop the plan of God! Nothing could prevent the glorious provision of the salvation of those who believe upon Jesus as the Son of God! Nor could any power keep Him from taking His rightful and magnificent place of eternal glory on the throne of all creation! What Saul could not accomplish in the meager weakness of his human scheme to kill David, was thoroughly set forth in the weakness of the power of this age to keep Jesus from becoming the Glorified King over all that has ever been put into place by God’s plan and design and heart of love!
This is where we put our trust! It is not in any scheme of man. That can so easily be cast aside. It is not in any program of a government or a social movement. That is so easily overthrown by force or treachery or just plain lack of support by the populace. There is no other place of the concrete assurance of the protection against all the forces of this age than in the Sovereignty of God as His will is accomplished, no matter what! 
It is for us to learn to trust and to obey Him, no matter what forces may seem to be arrayed against us! It is in Him that we put our faith and our allegiance and our hope! His will is assuredly and eternally accomplished on earth as it is in heaven! So be it and amen!

	
This morning’s benediction is Isa 9:2. The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. Amen.