1 Samuel 16, What Do You Look At?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

1 Samuel 16: The Lord Looks on the Heart

Samuel chapter 16. I'll be reading the entire chapter. Hear the word of the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go, and I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. And the Lord says, Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord, and invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do, and you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you.

Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him with trembling and said, Do you come peaceably? And he said, Peaceably. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.

But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of a stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, Neither has the Lord chosen this one. And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.

And Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen these. Then Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here? And he said, There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.

And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that time forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.

And Saul's servants said to him, Behold, now a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our Lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre.

When the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it and you will be well. So Saul said to his servants, Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me. One of the young men answered, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.

Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me David your son who was with the sheep. And Jesse took a donkey laden with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by David his son to Saul.

And David came to Saul and entered his service, and Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David remain in my service, for he has found favor in my sight.

And whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

What Impresses Us Versus What God Looks At

What impresses you? What do you look at and think, Wow, that's impressive. Looks, money, fame, success, maybe skill, something like playing music. We all know what we're supposed to say. We're supposed to say we're not impressed by all the glitters.

An internet search for what impresses you says honesty, modesty, loyalty. That's what people say impresses them. I don't believe them. They say they want honesty. Well, try telling them something they don't want to hear.

Tell them that their sexual ethics are immoral, that the if-it-feels-good-do-it philosophy that they live by is wrong and destructive, that sex is for marriage and marriage is to be lifelong. Tell them that, and then tell them that they are immoral, and see how impressed they are by your honesty.

How about modesty? You really think people are impressed with modesty? Really? In this culture? Really? Do you really think they look at a person, say, Well, she's so modest, maybe a generation ago. Madonna?

Right here today? Kim Kardashian? And think, Wow, I'm so impressed with her modesty. Is that what you think attracts people to those kind of people? I want to be like her, so modest. I don't want to get political, but both of the men who are leading the race to be the next president are known for their glaring, ostentatious, loud, what do you call it?

Opposite of modesty. They're the best. Everybody says so. No joke. It seems like we're often taken in by men who gush, boast about themselves, or women who show off their body. We might be impressed by loyalty, but how do you tell if someone has loyalty, unless you've seen their whole life?

How do you see if someone is loyal when you first meet them? Unless they boast about it, of course, I guess. I tell the story of a man who found out that his new wife, just about a year or two after they were married, found out she was violently insane.

She had to be institutionalized. So she could rarely be with him, and yet he stayed married to her for over 50 years. And when asked by his nephew, uncle, how could you do that? He said, I vowed in sickness and health till death do us part.

He kept his commitment. He's loyal, and that's impressive. But how could we know if someone is that loyal unless they're old? So, are we to be never impressed with young people? Well, what's impressive to you?

We all know what we're supposed to say. Sure, we're impressed by noble things, by good character, honesty, modesty, loyalty. But the truth is that most people are still taken in by superficial things.

One of the worst piece of advice I've heard on who you should look to in a spouse is, look for someone who makes you laugh. You'll be very impressed by comedians, I guess. But the person who is quick to make you laugh may also be quick to make you cry.

For most of my life, we've had it drummed into us. I mean, not even just most of my life, I think all my life, in which I believe. I believe it. Not to be impressed by race, not to judge people on the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Yes, absolutely. Amen. Then about a dozen years or so ago, that healthy refrain, not the color of their skin, but the content of their character, began to be abandoned for what its proponents call anti-racist.

It's actually a new form of racism. Anti-racist cultural revolution. One leader of this revolution said, quote, the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination, which they mean discriminate against people who by their race are racist.

The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. Understand that means no more content of character, now discriminate on the basis of the color of their skin, just a different color than it used to be.

And so then, just last week at the commencement of Duke University, just to prove how superficial and self-serving a lot of the claims are about how we're supposed to be impressed by character, not race or ethnicity, except all people from all kinds of ethnicities, all that we heard so much in the past decades.

Just last week, about an hour down the road, some students protested against their commencement speaker solely on the basis of his ethnicity. They stormed out because he was Jewish. They weren't even impressed that he might make them laugh since he was Jerry Seinfeld.

I'm not impressed at all by the tolerance of the anti-racist or most of the other self-serving claims of those who say they're impressed by noble things. What are you impressed by? What do you look to to get your respect, your admiration?

Here we see what God looks at and it's not the things that so easily impress us and we see that in two major parts. David anointed and then David appointed. Well, most of Israel has been impressed with Saul.

He was impressive at first. He was tall, says he was a head and shoulders taller than everyone else in Israel. He was handsome. He was apparently modest at first, hiding out in the baggage when Israel was selecting a king by lots.

Small in his own eyes, Samuel says in chapter 15 verse 17. Although he was selected by the Lord through casting lots, he was really Israel's idea of a king. Israel's model king. This is who they looked to.

They're impressed by. He had everything that people thought would make for a great king. The one who had what they looked to, what caught their eye. Of course, the Lord knew that Saul would turn out badly and so when it says at the end of chapter 15 that the Lord regretted that he made Saul king, it doesn't mean that God was surprised or that he changed.

God is immutable, meaning unchanging. He describes himself in Malachi chapter 3 verse 6. I, the Lord, do not change. God has no shadow of turning, it says in James chapter 1 verse 17. So it's not as though Saul kind of stayed the same.

He is who he is and God eventually soured on him as he got to know Saul better, like the way we might go from someone we used to be impressed by when we look on them superficially and then after a while, we get to know who they really are deep down and then we don't like when we learn.

That happens to us, not to God. God is eternally holy and his holiness is eternally offended at Saul's disobedience and the content of his character, which underneath a mask of modesty, yet a mask of modesty, hiding out in the baggage, small in his own eyes, apparently, that's a mask he had on, and underneath it, he hid great arrogance.

And so as Saul's true character starts to come out, God manifests his wrath, his regret toward it, toward Israel's idea of a king, what they look to. Now, all of this, the whole story of Saul and the entire First Samuel is just a lead up to the one who is the main character of the book of Samuel, 1 and 2 Samuel.

It was 1 and 2 Samuel, actually one book. And the main character of that is the king who God has provided for himself, the leader, the initiator, the head of the dynasty which God selects to bring in the kingdom of God.

Now, notice at the end of verse 1, the contrast to the king that people look up to, like Saul, and the Lord says, on the other hand, I have provided for myself a king. We see that here in four major parts of the mission, the trepidation, the examination, and then the selection.

Samuel's Mission and Trepidation

Well, first, the Lord has a mission for Samuel. At the end of chapter 15, the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king, and Samuel shared God's regret, even grieving over Saul. You know, we're grieving as if Saul were dead.

He's basically dead to him. He had had high hopes for Saul. Samuel had rebuked the people for asking for a king at first, saying that the Lord only should be their king. Now, the ideal for Israel was that the people would each individually choose to follow the Lord, like Joshua's challenge, remember, just before he died, choose you this day whom you will serve.

Me and my house, we will serve the Lord. You choose. Without a king forcing them to keep God's law. So that was their ideal. That's what Israel was supposed to be. Now, in congregational churches like this one, the ideal is that each member chooses to give their lives to God as a living sacrifice, walking in the spirit, going to Scripture, hearing the word of God from Scripture, and then we covenant together to walk together in Christian love without some kind of external authority, some denomination or bishop imposing his ways on us.

But for Israel, it wasn't working, probably because many, probably most, of the members of their church were unregenerate. They were not born again. They had no heart for God. They had no, what the Old Testament called, the circumcision of their heart.

Their covenant was just external. And so they needed an external authority to keep them in line. They needed a human king. Samuel grieved that Saul had not worked out for that. And in verse 1, the Lord tells him, time to move on.

How long will you grieve over Saul? Implying it's already been too long. I rejected him from being king over Israel. And Samuel had thought, had hoped, that Saul would be the one who would bring in God's kingdom, but bring in his rule.

But no, Saul, as it turns out, will just be the prehistory of the Lord's dynasty. And now in chapter 16 is the beginning in earnest. Time to forget about the past. How long will you grieve over the past?

No more. Let's go forward. Fill your horn with oil, the Lord tells him. Get ready to do the anointing again. I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Now, Jesse was the grandson of Boaz and Ruth. Samuel's mission is to go to Jesse because the Lord has selected his king.

Notice the way he puts that. I provided a king for myself. His king from among his sons, Jesse's sons. Second is the trepidation. First, Samuel's. He's afraid. Israel was originally warned that if they opt for a human king, he'll eventually become a tyrant.

Well, it didn't take very long, did it? Already in verse 2, Samuel is afraid of being killed by Saul. Saul apparently already has spies now. Internal security, keeping an eye on anyone who might be conspiring against him, including the great prophet Samuel.

So Samuel is in fear of his life already. Now, there are some Christians now here in America, I think living in this fantasy world, just out of touch with reality mostly, calling for a Christian prince to take over.

Forget about the Constitution, forget about voting and democracy and all that. They say, we need a strong man, a Christian dictator like Franco or Cromwell. The problem with that is that if we did get a dictator, a Lord protector, like Cromwell was called, in this culture, he's unlikely to be a Christian.

And even if we miraculously got a Christian, just say we got the miracle, we got a Christian prince who just was great and restrained himself so he didn't trample our rights, all power he could, but he won't do it because he's just noble in his own inner restraint.

And he only struck fear and trepidation in evildoers, like rulers are supposed to. Sounds great, right? We don't have to worry about politics anymore. He takes care of everything, runs the government perfect.

Well, yeah, but what happens when he dies? The problem with even the best human king is that he dies, and then we're stuck with a bad king, a tyrant, like Saul. Now, even here, even Samuel is afraid that Saul will have him killed if he announces that he's going to anoint another king.

And so, the Lord tells him to go there, go to Bethlehem for the purpose of a sacrifice. He says, say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Now, the Lord's not telling Samuel to lie. I was really sending him there to anoint a new king, but make up this lie.

No, he says, take a heifer with you, so really do a sacrifice. Just don't tell everyone what your primary mission is, to anoint a new king. I'll show you who to anoint once you're there. Him who I declare to you, God says.

This time, he'll be God's king. And so, in verse 4, Samuel does it. He comes to Bethlehem, and there, the elders of the town are in trepidation. They come to him and says, trembling. Now, remember, not too long before this, we took a break in the middle of 1 Samuel, but not too long before this, at the end of chapter 15, Samuel had chopped up Agag, the king of the Amalekites, I mean, with a sword.

So maybe they're afraid he'll do the same thing to them. So he's an intimidating figure. He's old by this time, but he's kind of, you know, he's old. What can this guy do? And he's one that Saul always respected, and so they come cowering before him.

Do you come peaceably? And he said, Samuel said, in peace, shalom, literally, shalom. I've come to sacrifice of the Lord. He tells them to consecrate themselves, that is, sanctify themselves, set themselves apart.

In verse 5, make sure you are ceremonially clean according to the law, like if you read Leviticus, all these things you got to do to be clean, do that, do that to yourselves, and then come with me to the sacrifice.

So that's the open invitation to the little town of Bethlehem. And then he specifically, notice the change here. He specifically, as Samuel consecrated, he set apart Jesse and his sons. Before, he just told the people of Bethlehem, you sanctify yourself.

But Samuel here sanctifies, sets apart Jesse, so he has no excuse not to come. He made sure then to invite them. And third is the examination, starting in verse 6. Jesse and his sons come for the sacrifice, and Samuel first sees the oldest of his sons, Eliab.

Now, he's handsome. He's a good-looking guy. He's tall, too. Probably reminds Samuel of Saul before he went bad. Another, this Eliab, model king. This is the king from central Catholic. Want someone to look like a king?

This is the guy, Eliab. He's the one, the one we naturally look to. Samuel thought to himself, surely the Lord's anointed, the one the Lord anoints to be the ruler of his people, is before him right here at the sacrifice.

In Eliab, he's the one. Literally, the Hebrew can read, surely before the Lord is his anointed. He just so looks the part. Perfect. They say people naturally look to height and leaders. Ever since the dawn of the TV, the video age that we now live in, say about the Eisenhower administration, presidents have tended to be tall.

John Adams, the second president, was only five foot seven. James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, and the fourth president was only five foot four inches tall. He was a short guy. Both probably could not get elected today.

Kennedy was 6 '1". Johnson was 6 '3". Nixon was barely under six foot at 5 '11 and a half. Carter was the shortest of the TV age presidents at 5 '9", and that may have been a factor of him losing to Reagan at 6 '1".

Bush, the elder, was 6 '2", so was Clinton. W. Bush was six foot or maybe a half inch under. Obama was 6 '1". Trump is 6 '3", and Biden is six foot. We're not told how tall Eliab is, but he is on the tall side.

Probably the kind who could be elected today. But the Lord says to Samuel in verse 7, do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature. The things you people look at, don't look at that. Don't look to those things that people, the voters, think are so great or just attracts their attention.

The Lord says, don't look there because I have rejected him. The Lord describing himself, God according to God, pays special attention when God describes himself. He says, for the Lord, talking about himself, sees not as man sees.

Literally, it could be translated as, the Lord sees not what man sees. Now, that sounds odd to us, doesn't it? The Lord doesn't see what we see. He doesn't see it at all. Well, of course, technically he does.

He sees that Eliab is tall. He knows exactly how tall it is, and he sees that he is what we would call handsome. But he doesn't look to that. That doesn't impress him like it impresses us. He sees much deeper.

The Lord speaking again, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The Lord can see the loyalty of even a young person. He can see that a young man about to be married to a woman who will go insane is so loyal that he will stay married to her for 50 years.

He can see what kind of person, the kind of person who makes you laugh will eventually make you cry. He can see what Kim Kardashian is going to look like in 50 years. He can see that those who spoke so loudly and long about tolerance and diversity and inclusion will eventually storm out before the commencement address of someone from an ethnicity they don't like.

He sees all of that, and so he isn't impressed by what impresses us. So, Eliab fails the examination. Thumbs down. Next up is Abinadab. Now, imagine him walking down the runway. They have a runway there, like a model, that kind of strut they do.

Then an abrupt turn, glance over his shoulder. He looks a good candidate too, but he fails. Neither has the Lord chosen him. Next, Shammah. All the seven sons pass before Samuel, and they all get a gong, a buzzer, shake of the head.

Nope, nope, nope. They all fail the examination, and so Samuel declares to Jesse at the end of verse 10, the Lord has not chosen these, all these seven sons. And flummoxed, he asked, are all your sons here?

Is this it? Seven sons? This is all of them? Samuel doesn't know there is an eighth. So Jesse says in verse 11, there remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep. Now, imagine what this says about how David was looked on.

Jesse is told to gather all his sons, because one of them is going to be selected by the Lord. So this is very important. You know, they're consecrated for this. This is a word from God. It's for one of your sons, Jesse.

Make sure they're here. And Jesse just, he just assumes that of his eight sons, David definitely won't be the one. No use even wasting Samuel's time on David. Somebody's got to look after those sheep anyway.

No use in wasting Samuel's time on the one we all know. Is it going to pass? Forget about David. Never mind him. Let him watch the sheep. We know it's not him. We don't look to him for that. Now, sure, he's good looking, kind of, but he's kind of a pretty boy.

Probably not even fully grown yet. Just not the kind of man that people naturally look to. But the Lord does not look like man looks. We look at looks, and we fall for bragging and self-righteousness.

And then the servant of the Lord comes. He who has no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. In Isaiah chapter 53, verse 2. But he's the one. Fourth, the selection.

Samuel says in verse 11, Send and get him, for we will not sit down until he comes here. In other words, hurry up because we want to sit, but we're not going to do it until he gets here. When they finally found him out in the field somewhere, he comes in and he's ruddy, which means he's kind of reddish.

He's not fair-skinned. He's not light. Maybe tanned from being out in the sun a lot. He had beautiful eyes, which is an odd way to describe a man, seems to me. Maybe something of a pretty boy. He was handsome.

They've all been handsome so far, for that matter. Even Saul before is described as handsome. All these people whom the Lord has rejected. So in case you've begun to wonder this far through 1 Samuel, that maybe the Lord hates good-looking people.

And you're afraid because you think, wow, I'm such a good-looking person. So maybe the Lord hates me. You've been really a bit disturbed by that so far. All you good-looking people here are thinking, man, I'm in trouble because I'm so good-looking.

Well, here David is selected despite being handsome. So all you good-looking people can relax. God can love you even despite your good looks. Now, actually, selection has nothing to do with him being handsome.

I saw a professed Christian comment on how his wife and daughters were beautiful, and I thought calling a Christian woman beautiful is the least compliment you can give her. That's just not something the Lord looks at.

David is selected. Notice how he's not even named until verse 13. His name doesn't show up earlier, does it? Not until the very last moment when he has to be named, leaving us in suspense about who is this person?

Who is this king the Lord's selecting? Who is this last son of Jesse out in the fields looking after the sheep that Jesse didn't even think was worth bringing out? Well, who is he? Well, he's David. He's the one the whole rest of the book of Samuel is about.

Selected, Samuel anoints him, pours oil in him, symbolizes the Holy Spirit on him, making him into an anointed one, a small m, Messiah, or in Greek, a small c, Christ. He did it in the midst of his brothers, it says, and it was all the ones that Jesse just assumed were better candidates than David.

They all see David as the selected one. And then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David. That's the same phrase, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon. We saw earlier with Saul in chapter 10, after he was anointed king, and then when the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, he showed it, he demonstrated it by prophesying, and then later by going out and conquering some of their enemies.

And that was used earlier, even earlier in the book of Judges, of Samson, when he tore apart. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and he demonstrated it by tearing apart a lion with his bare hands.

And then it happened again, and he demonstrated it by going to Ashkelon, city of the Philistines, and killing 30 of their troops there. The Lord gave David the symbol with the oil and the essence, what the symbol represents, with the Spirit.

And now with Samuel returning to Ramah, you know that phrase, Samuel returns to Ramah, that means he's receding now. Even though we call it the book of Samuel, he fades away. He's rarely mentioned after this.

From now on, this book is about David, the anointed one, the king. Part two, David is appointed, starting in verse 14. One thing we learned about anointed ones in Judges is that they prove that they are anointed by acts of deliverance, by victory over enemies.

Anointing is not something subjective. It's not a feeling you get when he or she speaks or sings. It's not a tingling up your leg as he orates or she hits those high notes. No, anointing shows itself in overcoming the enemy.

As Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore might say, I love the smell of anointing oil in the morning. It's the smell of victory. So in the last one-third of the chapter, David proves that he is a small-limbed Messiah with victory.

He proves it by overcoming a new enemy, a harmful spirit. The Spirit of God, which had earlier rushed upon Saul and empowered him to be a small-limbed Messiah, is now gone from him. Now, some people want to use this to argue over eternal security, whether you can lose your salvation once someone is regenerated, born again.

Can they lose that? Spirit leaves them. Well, that's just not the issue here. The writer, perhaps Jeremiah, we don't know for sure, but the writer is simply not discussing that. We like to see everything, and we're reading the Bible, we like to see everything as if it's about us or about our individual salvation or our character or what we should do.

And this story eventually gets there, has implications for that, it leads to that, but it's not directly, this chapter is not directly about if Saul had a new nature with the Holy Spirit in his heart and whether the Spirit is now gone, and so has he lost his salvation?

That's just not the question this passage is answering. This is about God's King, the Anointed One. He's not Saul. Now, Saul might, in the end, be in God's kingdom. We'll find out when the kingdom is fully come, but for now what's important is who brings in God's kingdom.

We need to know that so that we can seek it, so that we can violently press into it, so that we can agonize to go the narrow way into it. We need to know who the king is so we can submit to him and follow him.

Who is the king who will bring in God's kingdom? He's not Saul. God's Spirit has left him. God is about to prove who he is by conquering the enemy. Here, a new enemy, the harmful spirit. Notice, by the way, the harmful or injurious spirit, or it could be the evil spirit, is from the Lord in verse 14.

The evil spirit from the Lord. Does that strike you as odd? Is weird? The evil spirit or harmful spirit, however, you want to translate it, is from the Lord? Now, that idea is shocking to some people, and some Christians even try to make excuses for that.

Well, saying that God simply allowed the evil spirit to go to Saul. And they're trying to apologize for the Lord, that he's not really responsible for it. They're afraid that people won't be impressed by the Lord, that they won't look to him with respect if he's actually responsible for all things, even evil spirits.

And so we think by putting buffers, the intermediaries, between God and bad things, even evil spirits, that we've excused God for them. He's not directly responsible for them. That's their reasoning. It's the way they try to explain things like this.

But, you know, if one of you brought in here a small child, small enough you can control, or a dog in here, just let him run loose, tearing up everything, chairs and everything, mauling everything, we would still say, even if you just sat back and didn't do anything, said, I didn't do it.

I just allowed the kid or the dog, whatever, to do it. We would still say, no, you are responsible. You're responsible for what you allow. So this buffer idea that we kind of separate God from what he allows and so he's not responsible for them, that really doesn't work.

And besides, God does not apologize for his sovereignty. He says in Isaiah chapter 45, verses 6 and 7, I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being, the shalom, peace, and create calamity.

Or the word could be there, evil. It's the same word as here, chapter 16, verse 14, the evil spirit, the calamitous spirit, the evil spirit. Now whether the evil spirit came directly by his command, by God's command, or God just passively allowed it, is irrelevant.

He was in control of it, just like in Job, where the Lord lets Satan afflict Job, but then through the rest of the book, he takes full responsibility for it. And at the end, he tells Job, where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Who do you think you are to question me? Saul is afflicted by an evil spirit. He's tormented or he's terrified by it. Everyone around him knows that God is ultimately responsible. You know, they call it the evil spirit from God, but they seek a solution, music therapy.

The servants ask, in verse 16, to be commanded to seek a skillful musician, a lyre player, to soothe him when he's afflicted. Saul issues the command. It's interesting there, they tell him what to command.

Hey, command us to do this. And then he issues the command. Then they do it. And one of the staff knows of a good lyre player in Bethlehem. He's got a reputation by now of being a good musician, the son of Jesse.

Notice how he's described in verse 18. David is described with six phrases that show us what the Messiah, either the small M or the big M, Messiah, should be. Six phrases. He is first skillful, and in this instance, skillful in playing a musical instrument, the tools necessary to bring deliverance.

And he's described, second, as a man of valor, literally a mighty warrior. Then a man of war or battle, as in Exodus chapter 15, verse 3, says the Lord is a man of war, prudent or skillful in speech. That means he knows what to say, and maybe he knows then when not to say anything.

A man of good presence, has good composure. Literally, in Hebrew, it's a good form. I think not only just he looks good, but he's dignified. He holds himself well, good bearing. And last, the Lord is with him.

That's what the Messiah is. That's who the Messiah is. He's all those things. That's what he's like. And we know he's the Messiah when he vanquishes our enemies. So Saul sends a message, a draft notice to Jesse.

Send me David, your son who is with the sheep. Now Samuel had warned them earlier that if they get a king, he'll make the best of the young people to work for him, to serve him. Here he is doing that very thing.

Jesse sends David along with a generous gift to the king to stay on the king's good side. You don't respond to a command from the king without a gift. We could call it a bribe. Gotta keep the king happy.

And so David becomes part of Saul's court. Now Saul may not have really known him personally yet, closely, as we'll see later in the next chapter. But he loved that liar player. Whatever you call him, that liar player.

That guy's good. I like him. So Saul made David one of his military aides, an armor bearer, and sent word to Jesse that he wants David on staff full time. In other words, the internship's over. Now full time, he's ours.

So David is appointed. In verse 23, whenever the harmful or evil spirit from God, directly or indirectly, it doesn't matter. God's not concerned with trying to look good to us, to impress us. Whenever that spirit was upon Saul, David took the liar and played it with his hand.

So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him. David vanquished the enemy because he was anointed. He was a Messiah. And his son, the son of David, will do the same and will be the Messiah.

What do you look at and think? Wow, that's impressive. Hopefully not just looks and height and bragging and money and race. Hopefully you know to look upon the content of one's character as far as you can see it.

Hopefully you don't spend your life striving for the things that the world looks at that it's impressed by or you try to impress them, trying to wow people with your good looks, brag about your accomplishments, maybe flash your cash.

Maybe you feel proud, hopefully not, of your race or of your anti-racism. Hopefully you don't do that. We see here that the Lord looks past all that. We can't put on a mask of success or of modesty or of composure or of happiness or cracking jokes and looking cool, any kind of mask that fools Him.

We can fool each other, but not Him. He is an x-ray vision that sees through whatever front that we put up. But the lesson of this chapter, you just stop there and you think, well, okay, then I need a good character.

I need to work on the content of my character. But the lesson of this chapter is not just about getting a good character, that you just need to work on the content of your character and if you can succeed in that, you will have impressed God and therefore He will accept you.