One question that perennially arises in this section of Scripture is this: Was Saul saved?
Was Saul saved? The question is triggered by the following verses. “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man” (1 Sam 10:6). “So it was,…that God gave him another heart” (v 9). “Then the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them” (v 10). Of course, we’re not the final arbiters on this. The double seal reads: “‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity’” (2 Tim 2:19). In other words, the Lord knows and the believer shows. If all we had was the Old Testament, we might think Balaam (who also prophesied) made it and Lot didn’t, but the New Testament says otherwise. So we leave the final judgment to the Lord. But it’s important to distinguish the role of the Spirit in both Testaments. In the New, every believer is indwelt by the Spirit (see Rom 8:9; Gal 4:6). In the Old, the Spirit came on certain ones to move them in God’s purposes. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord…He turns it wherever He wishes” (Prov 21:1). This shouldn’t be thought to teach that God overrules man’s will in eternal salvation; it refers to His sovereign plans in temporal history. From the story here, it seems that Saul is passive in the whole matter, and subsequent events show almost all his inclinations are away from the Lord, including blasphemy, attempted murder, and suicide. But here at least, “he indeed prophesied among the prophets” (1 Sam 10:11) “at the hill [Heb, Gibeah] of God where the Philistine garrison is” (v 5). Identifying with these prophets, who celebrated the Lord with musical instruments, they demonstrated their sweet defiance in the face of the enemy. Three cheers for that!