When the Holy Spirit comes upon Saul, God's anger in him helps accomplish God's deliverance through him. A righteous anger against sin should also drive us toward God's means of deliverance today: the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Saul keeps quiet about God's blessing and hides out from the crowds, he serves to challenge us about our failures to speak up and step forward in light of God's anointing and God's Spirit.
Hebrews 10 reminds us that we need to be consistently stirred by the wonder of the gospel, and that our being stirred should cause us to stir others to a gospel-centered life.
The grace of God that saves us is the same grace that works in us to call us to Christlikeness and provide us with a fruitful foundation for our assurance of new life.
In light of Samuel's example and the cross of Jesus, God's people should be 'stone-raisers' who mark off in their memory all of the ways in which God has shown himself to be their Helper.
God's toppling of the Philistine god Dagon, and His affliction of the people themselves, are important reminders to us of the pain that always comes with idolatry, whether then or now.
None of us are immune to "itching ears", that desire to hear what we want to hear, not necessarily what God wants us to hear. This is one reason we need to keep God's word first.