This Morning's News

Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news, and his anger was greatly aroused. 1 Samuel 11:6

If it should seem to you that the news of the day has become especially adept at arousing your anger, you are not the only one! Way back in the day, more than a thousand years before our Lord Jesus was born, Saul received some news that made him angry. However, this was not the sort of frustrating news we get today but something that made the Lord Himself angry.

The verse for today speaks of the Spirit of God coming upon Saul to arouse anger in him. Most of us in this age look to the Spirit for a calming influence with all of the anger that is thrown at us in the news. What was it that aroused the anger of the Lord so? It seems that the Ammonites had made a threat toward a city of Israel that was to be for a humiliation of God's chosen people. Think that God does not defend those He calls His own? The remainder of this story in 1 Samuel 11 might change your mind.

So aroused was Saul, that he gathered the fighting men of Israel and came down on the Ammonites with the wrath of the Lord, as the Word says, and slew so many that those Ammonites who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together.

What was Saul up to when this news came? He was not yet king, he was coming in from the field following the herd. Kind of makes us wonder what is happening in this morning's news that might cause the Lord to arouse an emotion in us to act in His will, eh?

Righteous is the Lord in all His ways!
Bucky