1 Samuel 16

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Who is Jesus Christ Pt.2 - Creator and Sustainer

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Burt, will you open us up with a word of prayer, please, sir? All right.
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First Samuel.
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Yes, sir.
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You cold? Always.
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The heat on y'all is convincing.
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The judgment of heat.
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All right.
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Remember, going through Samuel, we said if this was a movie or if this was a play or if this was some type of drama, we would say there was three acts.
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Act one was the rise of Samuel.
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Act two was the rise and demise of Saul, the beginning of his demise.
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And act three would be the rise of David or the ascension of David and him the giving of the throne.
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So that's where we'll start today.
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And let's read chapter 16, and I don't know how far we're going to get.
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So I'm just going to read the first paragraph and then we'll walk through it and then we'll just as we go forward.
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Chapter 16, verse one.
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Now 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.
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I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, where I have selected a king for myself among his sons.
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But Samuel said, how can I go when Saul hears of it or hears of this? He will kill me.
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And the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to the sacrifice to the Lord and you shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do.
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And you shall appoint for me the one whom I have designated to you.
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So Samuel did what the Lord said and he came to Bethlehem and the elders of the city came trembling to meet him and said, do you come in peace? And he said, in peace, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord, consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.
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He also consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
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So, in verse 1, we see that God asking, or Yahweh asking a specific question to Samuel.
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And it's interesting, he doesn't say, why do you grieve over Samuel? Why was he grieving over Samuel? I mean Saul, yeah.
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Why was Samuel grieving over Saul? Rejection.
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He was rejected as king and because of his continual disobedience to God, he was grieving.
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And we should grieve, Samuel is a good example of how we should grieve over people that either apostatize within the body or people that fall into sin and refuse to repent or as it says in Galatians, if we have a brother or sister who is caught in a trespass, let those who are spiritual go and restore them.
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You don't think that Samuel was deeply grieved because of the life that he had already poured into Saul and Saul just says, hey, I'm going to do it my way no matter what.
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So certainly, he should have been grieved.
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Now, is God rebuking Samuel by saying, how long are you going to grieve over him? And to me, it does not.
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So it's all subjective.
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And because I'm teaching, I'm going to teach my point.
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I believe that God's saying, how long are you going to continue to grieve? I have something prepared for you to go do.
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And how do we know that? Context says, hey, you're going to go do something else.
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And the very thing he's grieving over is a rejected king, right? So context says, I know you're grieving.
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How long are you going to grieve over this situation? Here's my commission to you.
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So he says, how long will you grieve over Saul? Since I have rejected your being king.
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And he goes, fill your horn with oil and go.
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And I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
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This will be the first time, if I remember correctly, this will be the first time we see in scripture, since we've been teaching through judges, or since we left judges, that we see Bethlehem come up.
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I think the last time was when Andy was teaching through Ruth.
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And you remember, where did they come from when they left the land of Moab? What city did they come into? Came into Bethlehem.
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And I said, oh, look, it's Naomi.
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So that's where they're at.
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He said, so go see Jesse the Bethlehemite.
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He says, fill your horn with oil.
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Well, what was the last time God told him to take a flask of oil and go? What was he going to do? He was preparing himself to anoint a king.
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So he says, fill your horn with oil and go.
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And go to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
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For I have selected for myself among his son.
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It's interesting, does anybody where it says selected, does anybody else have something else? Somebody says provided.
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What is it? Anybody got the ESV? Yours says provided.
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Anybody else say anything different? No? The word actually in the Hebrew means to see.
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And it's actually used seven times in this section.
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So when he says, hey, I have provided, we know why the translators use that, because what is God doing? Look, I have someone that you're going to go commission for me.
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I have selected.
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I have provided.
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But it's actually, if you were going to say it, it says God says I have seen a man basically in Bethlehem.
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He's the one.
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And as we walk through this, and as we get into chapter 16, verse 6 on down, we're going to see how many times we see, see, looked, God looked, God saw, okay? And that's the same word.
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He said, so for I have seen a king for myself among his sons.
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But Samuel said, how can I go? When Saul hears of it, he will kill me.
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So, why would Samuel have this thought about Saul killing him? Why? This tells you the degradation and the downfall of the moral condition of Saul.
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Here it is, the very man that has anointed him as king, who has tried to shepherd him, he says, hey, look, he sees me leave.
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Look, where did it say in the last chapter, where did he go? He went back to Ramah.
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That was the place where Samuel was from.
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If he's got to go down here to Bethlehem, what, where does he have to pass through? Gibeah.
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Where did Saul live? Gibeah.
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So, he says, man, if he sees me walking with this horn and this oil, he's going to know I'm up to something, and why would he think he was up to something? Anybody have any idea? He refused to see him intentionally, that's right, because we are, remember last week it says he didn't see him until the day of death, and we understood that as meaning he was not summoned to him, there was no intentional meeting, because, if I remember correctly, as we get further on, I think it's in chapter 18, Saul is looking, I'm sorry, yeah, 18 or 19, Saul is actually looking for David, and he prophesies, and God actually makes Saul strip down naked, and he's prophesied, and it's before Samuel, but they don't have an interaction.
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So, in this case, he didn't see him until the day he was dead, meaning they didn't have a conversation.
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He is leaving Ramah, he's got to go to Bethlehem, he's got to go through Gibeah, Saul's homeland, but what was his normal circuit? Remember, up until the day that he died, what was his normal circuit? It was in this area.
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He went to Bethel, he went to Gilgal, remember, it was this area.
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Mizpah, Gilgal, this was it.
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So, him being down here would be inconsistent with his normal circuit of judging.
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Remember, he was still judging at this time.
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He judged until when? The day of his death.
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That's what it said earlier in Samuel.
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He judged until the day of his death.
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So, this would be out of his normal circuit.
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So, he said, so if I go, Saul, here to this, he will kill me.
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So, what does the Lord say to him? Okay, God condescends to his fear, and his fear could have been legitimate.
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We shouldn't look at Samuel and go, oh, wow, he's fearful.
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We should look at him as going, oh, fear of man is a snare.
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We shouldn't see it that way.
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There was a legitimate reason for him to go, hey, if Saul sees me, he's willing to kill anybody else.
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I mean, he'd be willing to kill me as well.
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God says, okay, we'll take a heifer with you and say, I have come to the sacrifice to the Lord, and you shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do, and you shall anoint for me the one whom I have designated or selected to you.
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All right, so he's going to go.
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He's going to make a sacrifice.
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He's going to invite people there, and then that's where he's going to anoint the king.
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Do we see the similarities of the same thing that took place with Samuel, I mean with Saul? What did he do when he went, we don't know the exact city they were in, but what was, when Saul was looking for donkeys, and he says, hey, let's go into this city, what was Samuel there to do? What's that? Well, he was there to make a sacrifice, that's right, and they were inviting people to eat.
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So when Saul walks up, he knew that that was them because God had told him the day before, hey, when this guy shows up, he's the one, there was a sacrifice they were making, the people says, hey, if you come on, you'll get to sit with him and eat, and when he sat with him and ate, it saved him from choiceless meat.
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So the sacrifice was part of the anointing of the king, basically a feast.
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So he says, you're going to go and you're going to make a sacrifice.
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Look, God's not telling him to be deceptive here, okay? God's not saying, hey, tell them you're doing this and you're not doing it.
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Did God know that Saul was not going to bump into Samuel? Did he? Of course he did.
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God knows all things.
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He knows everything exhaustive and potential, but God's condescending to the mind of Samuel because Samuel was fearful.
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And he says, you're going to go.
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Take this from Samuel's perspective.
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If you bump into Saul, tell him you're going to make a sacrifice and it's going to be no big deal.
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But he actually went and he made a sacrifice.
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So he says, verse 4, so Samuel did what the Lord said and he came to Bethlehem.
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Look at the major distinction between what Samuel did and what Saul did.
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What's that? Obedience.
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Obedience, yeah.
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I mean, God would tell Saul to do something.
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What did Saul do? Did his own way.
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God tells Samuel to do something.
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And what does Samuel do? Exactly what the Lord said.
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Said when the elders of the city came trembling to meet him, they said, do you come in peace? Why would the, why do you think, yeah, well, that certainly could be the case.
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We don't know how long this has been.
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But certainly, when you're reading this, coming off the heels of like, hey, man, this guy the age of Jack just hacked a man to death with a machete.
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And is he coming here with judgment? What did prophets come into the city to do? Two things.
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To bring judgment or to bring peace.
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The word of the Lord was either judgment or peace.
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So when they see him coming into the city, they were trembling.
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And do you come in peace? And he says, I do come in peace for I have come to sacrifice to the Lord to consecrate yourselves.
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I understand this is the people he is speaking outside of the city.
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This is the city people he's saying consecrate yourself.
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Just like when the people were coming into where Saul was anointed and he ate, those people were ready to eat.
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You remember, hey, if you don't hurry up and get there, you're not going to get a seat.
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Because once he does the sacrifice, nobody is going to be able to eat.
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So he says, consecrate yourselves and come with me to this sacrifice.
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And then he also consecrated Jesse and his sons, and he invited them to the sacrifice.
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Jesse was the main person to be at this sacrifice.
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It was him.
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He was the one that God said, go to Jesse the Bethlehemite.
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He's the guy.
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So we get to verse 6.
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And when he entered, he looked at Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed is before him.
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So he consecrated.
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So Jesse's sons came.
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Jesse was consecrated.
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He says, all right, here's the entourage.
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You need to bring these men before me.
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Eliab goes before him and surely the Lord's anointed is before him.
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But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look upon his appearance or his height or his stature.
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Sounds like Samuel's got a hair trigger on his horn there.
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So he sees the first tall, dark, and handsome man.
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Should have.
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He certainly should have, but he didn't.
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He said, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look upon his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.
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All right.
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Now, does that mean that God is no longer going to use tall, dark, handsome men, and now short, ugly men are qualified people? Huh? Does it mean that now Tim is disqualified as tall, dark, and handsome, and now I'm qualified for being ugly and hairy? Okay.
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That's not what it's saying here.
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God actually has his mind set on a specific person.
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He has his mind set and his will and his purposes on a specific person.
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Understand, as we walk through this, it has nothing to do with being handsome.
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It has nothing to do with being appealing to the eye, because as we go down through this, was David not appealing to the eye? Certainly he was appealing to the eye, because the text says it.
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He says, do not look upon the appearance of his height or his stature, because I have rejected him.
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And it says, for God sees not as a man sees.
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For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
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Now, we're going to spend some time here.
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And the reason being we're going to spend some time here is because we have to go back to chapter 13, verse 14, because this is the first time that we hear that God said, hey, I have selected for myself a person after his own heart, meaning God's own heart.
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And if you remember early on in this, me and Mike had an interaction about agreeing that David was the one that would be the one that God would choose, that David was going to be the one that would be commissioned for his purposes.
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And we said, well, it's because God looks upon the heart and not on the outside.
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And I said, that is true, but I believe there's more to that.
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I don't know if anybody remembers that exchange.
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And then when I think he was on vacation, when we actually got to chapter 13, I did not even address that verse, that part of the verse.
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I addressed the part of Saul.
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And here's the reason being.
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If you go back over to chapter 13, verse 14, in the last half of that, well, it says, but now your kingdom shall not endure.
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Remember, he lost the dynasty.
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He says, for the Lord has sought out for himself a man after his own heart.
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Okay, we need to understand, once again, does God have a heart? Does God have a thump, thump, thump, thump beating heart? No.
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What is this talking about? This is that God is going to choose a person.
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It actually, the preposition could be, does anybody say according to God's heart? The literal translation of that is according to the heart.
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So whether you use after or according to, the preposition's the same, okay? So according to the heart, after the heart.
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What does it mean to be according to God's heart? Could be, okay, could be.
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Mike, what did you say? What did you say, Mike? Yeah, you said one that was according to his, what did you say? I thought it was to his will.
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That's it.
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That is, when we think of God's heart, it's God's will, his purposes, and his desires.
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Does this, right here, don't go any further, okay? Does chapter 13, verse 14 say that God's looking for a man that has God in his heart? Does the text say that? What does it say? It says that God is looking for a man that is according to whose purposes? God's purposes.
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So when we get to, all right, God says, I'm not looking at Eliab according to his external purposes.
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It's not saying that, hey, there's something about Eliab that's just unappealing.
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What is God saying when he rejects him? With his purposes.
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So now when we see this, we have to say, okay, it's not about God on the surface level of looking and going, hey, that guy's got a good heart.
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Look, we're fixing to get to David, and God's going to anoint him as king.
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I just want to be right up front.
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Was there anything in David that made God choose David? God sovereignly chose him for his purposes.
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How often do we read this passage and go, wow, there was something about David's heart that God saw was bent towards him? Look, if we're going to do, and look, don't think I haven't wrestled through some of this, because all this, when you look at it in light of this, and I want you to know, I'm not dogmatic on this.
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I can be dogmatic about a lot of stuff.
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But if I'm dogmatic about everything, my dogmatism will lose its bite, okay? So if you disagree with me, dude, I'm fine with that, okay? But I want you to understand, and we'll look at it before we get here, that the way that I am presenting it, okay, and it's not just me, there are other godly men, translators from Southern Seminary, Roger O.
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Madison, John Ellington, Jonathan Woodhouse, okay, men like that who hold this position as well.
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If you look at this, this would be David's position as well, because when David is given the Davidic promise in chapter 7, and we'll read that here in a few minutes, David says, you didn't choose me because of something that was in me.
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You choose me according to your heart.
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So what is David saying when he says that? He's saying, you chose me not because there was something in me.
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You chose me because it was according to your purpose and good pleasure to do so.
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That is why.
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So now back over to chapter 16.
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Certainly.
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I don't want anybody for one second to think that I'm saying that God does not know the thoughts and intentions of the heart, okay? Does everybody understand that's not what I'm saying? Okay? Certainly.
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Does God judge the heart of men? Does he? Sure, he does.
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Is that what this text is saying? My position? I say no.
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There's more to it.
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I believe that God is choosing David based on his purposes, not David's purposes, on God's purposes, according to God's will and God's purposes.
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Both Woodhouse and Amanson both translate this passage here.
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For God sees not as a man sees.
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For man looks according to his appearance and God looks according to his own heart.
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That's how they translate that.
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The literal translation of that.
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And then it goes to Jesse.
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I'm sorry.
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And then it goes to verse 8 and it says, Then Jesse called Abinadab.
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He said he made him pass before Samuel.
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And he said, The Lord has not chosen this one either.
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And then next Jesse made Shemop.
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He's been passed it by him as well.
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And he said, The Lord has not chosen this one either.
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Okay, here we are.
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We've gone through three.
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Was it something in their character? Did they have a character flaw that God said, I'm not going to choose them? No, it's not because these men are not according to God's purpose.
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God's purpose and will was not set on these individuals.
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It goes on in verse 10.
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It says, Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel.
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But Samuel said to Jesse, The Lord has not chosen these.
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And Samuel said to Jesse, Are these all the children? And he said, Well, yes, there remains yet the youngest.
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And behold, he is in the field tending the sheep.
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Samuel said to Jesse, Send and bring him, For we will not sit down until he comes.
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So here it is.
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All these men have passed by.
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All these men who were probably men of warring age.
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Men ready to go to war.
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Men that could be established as a warring, delivering king.
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And God says, These guys ain't it.
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These guys aren't it.
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Not because they had some character flaw.
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Not because they had a wicked heart.
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Because if we look at systematic theology, everybody on the planet's got a wicked heart.
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So we can't go, Oh, wow, there was something in David that made God want to choose him.
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Look, God chooses nobody based on anything in them.
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God chooses every person according to his purpose and according to the desires within God.
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It all originates in God.
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Just think about salvation.
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Is there anybody in this room that wants to say that there was something in them that made God save them? I would hope not.
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Because if you do, then your salvation is not legit.
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Because it's no longer of grace, it's of merit.
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Okay? So when we see these men being rejected, it's not because of a quality or a deficient in them.
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It's because it's not of God's purposes nor will.
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So he says, Go get David.
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Well, he didn't even say his name yet.
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But he says, Yes, I have one in the field.
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And he says, Go get him, bring him.
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And we're not going to.
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Basically, hold up the party.
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No more eating.
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No more drinking.
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Go get the young buck in the field.
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And you get to verse 12.
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So he sent and he brought in.
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Now, here comes David on the scene.
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He was ruddy.
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Beautiful eyes.
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Handsome in appearance.
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Okay, so once again, God already said, Does it look upon the outward appearance? It wasn't because those men were sharp looking and strong, tall, strapping lads.
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And now here comes this ugly, short guy.
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And maybe he'll be the one.
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No, it actually comes in and it says he was ruddy.
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Does anybody say red in their translation? Ruddy means red.
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What does it mean? It's the same word that's used when we're talking about Esau.
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It says that he was red in color or he was ruddy in some translations.
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It actually says he was red.
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He had a red coloring on him.
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Speaking of Esau, the same word as Adam and I, which is where we get Edom, which was a descendants of Esau, the Edomites.
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And why were they called the Edomites? Because they were red.
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That was the reasoning.
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This is the same word.
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And it says that he had beautiful eyes and he was handsome.
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And the Lord said, Arise, Samuel, anoint him, for this is the one.
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So Samuel took his horn and his oil and he anointed him in the midst of his brothers.
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And as he anointed him, the Spirit of God came mightily upon David from that day forward.
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And Samuel arose and he went to Ramah.
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So here it is.
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This is the first time we see David coming on the scene.
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Young youth, teenage boy, teenage young man, however you want to qualify that.
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He was in the field.
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What was he in the field doing? Watching his sheep.
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Making sure the sheep didn't get lost, wasn't he? When they found Saul, what was Saul doing? He was looking for things that were lost because he didn't do his job in the field the first time, which was keeping hold of his dad's stuff.
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Distinction.
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Man, this guy is out there shepherding, doing his responsibilities.
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The one before let his dad's donkeys get lost.
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So David comes in.
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He is anointed.
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He's not anointed because there was something of his appearance that made him more attractive.
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There was nothing about David that made him more attractive to Samuel.
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There was nothing that made him more attractive to God.
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What was making God choose David was his sovereign affection and grace that was set upon him for his purposes.
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That's the only reason.
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And if you go back, let's flip over there, into 2 Samuel, or I can read if you want.
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2 Samuel 7, verse 20 or 21.
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We'll back up in verse 18 because it begins after he wanted to make the temple.
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He makes a Davidic promise with David, a promise that his stone throne would be established forever.
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And then in verse 18, it says, And then David the king went in, and he sat before the Lord, and he says, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that you have brought me this far? And yet, was this insignificant in your eyes, O Lord? For you have spoken also of the house of your servant concerning the distant future, meaning the temple.
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And this is the custom of men, O Lord.
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And again, what more can David, this is David speaking of himself, what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord your God.
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Here it is.
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For the sake of your word, and according to your heart, you did these things for me.
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Why did he choose David? Not because of David, but because of God's love for himself and God's love for his own purposes.
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So David even knows right there, it wasn't something in me, it was something that originated within God.
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Samuel anointed his brothers, anointed him in the midst of his brothers.
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Now, when I read this, I go, man, would his brothers now ostracize him and treat him different the way that Joseph's brothers treated him different? And we don't know.
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And we don't.
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I mean, imagine being the youngest of all of seven brothers, and now you're the one that by the prophet of God, whose word has been steadfast and not one word of it has fallen to the ground.
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It has been faithful and true.
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He says, hey man, the youngest is going to be the one you're going to serve.
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You're going to serve the younger.
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I mean, culturally speaking, who should have got it? Yeah, the oldest, yeah.
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Who got the double portion? The oldest.
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Now, the oldest brother, he's going to get the double portion, but David's going to get the kingdom.
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And did they treat him differently? Well, I have no idea.
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Would they look at him with disdain? Not here, but we do have, when he goes to fight in the battle, and they say, hey, what are you doing coming out here with your pride and your arrogance? And David has to say, well, hold on.
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I just asked a question, man.
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I just came out here to bring y'all some cheese and got this uncircumcised Philistine running his yap.
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And they rebuke him for it.
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And then it says, it uses a specific word here.
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We talked about it several times, even in Judges.
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It says, and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.
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The word there is watishlah, only three times.
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Remember, three times, this specific dispensation of the mighty power of the Holy Spirit coming upon an individual was only three people.
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Samson, and then it departed.
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Saul, and it departed.
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David, and it says here that it stayed with David from this day forward.
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It never departed from David.
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The power of God in his life by the Spirit stayed from here on out.
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It says that Samuel then arose, and he went to Ramah.
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So he packed up his stuff.
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He went 11 miles back to Ramah, went back home.
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And then we see the Spirit of God coming upon David as the anointed king.
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But when we get to verse 14, we're going to see a shift.
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And whoever the writer of this is making this distinction very clear.
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The Spirit falls on David, and now it says, now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
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Now imagine hearing that about you.
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And we think about the Spirit of the Lord leaving and departing from someone.
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That means the blessing is gone.
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What's that? The glory of the Lord departed.
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Yep.
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The glory of the Lord departed.
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And in this case, the Spirit of the Lord is going to depart from Saul.
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But then it says, but an evil spirit from the Lord came.
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So God takes this dispensation of the Spirit for him to be a good king, to lead God's people, to be a good shepherd.
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He takes that from him, and then he dispatches an evil spirit from the Lord to terrorize him.
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That just shows the sovereignty of God over all spiritual beings.
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God says, I'm going to send an evil one to do my bidding to terrorize him, to torment him.
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We see another passage, I think it was with Ahaz, where he wanted him to be deceived and they're going out to battle.
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He's going to die, and an evil spirit says, or God says, well, what shall we do? And an evil spirit speaks up and says, I'll go deceive him for you.
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So God says, take off.
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And he goes and deceives Ahaz, just showing the absolute sovereignty over God and everything.
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Saul's servants then said to him, Behold, now an evil spirit from God is terrorizing you.
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It's interesting that Saul's servants no knew what's going on.
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They go, hey, this thing that's going on is not only is it real, it's been sent from God to torment you.
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He says, let our Lord now command your servants who are before you, let them go out and seek a man who is a skillful player of the harp, and it shall come about that when the evil spirit from God is upon you, that he shall play the harp with his hand, and you will be made well.
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They're saying, look, we understand that you've got some issues.
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We understand that this spirit is tormenting you.
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Why don't you let us go out, let us see if we can find someone.
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Basically, they're asking to go do what? Find an exorcist.
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That's what they're asking to do.
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We want to go out and find you an exorcist, and the medium by which the exorcism is going to take place is going to be the strumming of a harp.
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Why they thought that, I have no idea.
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The only thing I know is maybe there was something about the harp that Saul enjoyed to hear.
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I don't know.
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So they sent out to the land to find someone that could play the harp, and they played it well.
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And it says in verse 17, So Saul said to his servants, Go and provide now a man who can play this harp well and bring him to me.
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And then one of the young men said, Behold, I have seen a...
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Once again, here's that word see.
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I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is a skilled, skillful musician, a mighty man of valor.
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He is a warrior.
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He is prudent in speech.
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He's handsome, and the Lord is with him.
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What we know about David coming into the scene right now, this is what we know about David.
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Before that, did we know anything not about his appearance, about his character? Did we know anything about his character? No? What's that? No, right here, up until this point.
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No, not the Psalms.
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He wrote the Psalms after he's being chased and all that.
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Right here, we don't know anything about...
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Even when he was anointed, we know nothing about David.
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We don't know anything about his character.
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We don't know anything that's made him stand out.
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We know this, now that he's been empowered by the Spirit and that he has been commissioned by God for a purpose, the Spirit dwells on him.
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People are seeing...
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It's obviously someone in Saul's court sees David as one who is a skillful musician.
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He is a mighty man of valor.
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He is a warrior, and he's prudent in speech.
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Handsome would just be his appearance.
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All the other came about by the dispensation...
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Some people don't like that word.
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The administration of the Spirit.
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Now, why would he be seen as a man of valor? Could very well...
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That could have been.
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Could very well be.
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Why would they say that he was a man of war? We have no idea because he wasn't old enough to go to war yet.
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We know this, there was something in David that now that the Spirit is on him, that makes him recognizably different and makes him recognizably...
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As this guy can be a leader, and he is going to be beneficial to you.
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And not only does...
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When he comes into his court...
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Let's see if I can get to that point.
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No, we won't.
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We'll stop right here and we'll pick up next time at verse 19 because we've only got about five more minutes.
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They saw that the qualities now that the Spirit has been given to David is that he has now valor, bravery, and he has the ability to be very beneficial to Saul.
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Saul is going to put him into service in his court.
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It's interesting that here it is, this young man, teenager boy, however you want to say it, he has been commissioned, been anointed to be king, and now God is actually going to have him put in the king's court.
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Interesting.
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That he is actually going to get some on-the-job training in the court of the king before he ever takes the office 15 plus years later.
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Any questions, comments, disagreements? Yeah? Sure.
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And God's choosing of David is such in a contrast of the people choosing Saul.
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Why did they choose Saul? Think about it.
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The people wanted someone to do what? Their will.
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Their purposes.
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What was it they wanted? Hey, we want him to go out.
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We want him to fight our battles.
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We want him to do this.
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We want him to do that.
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So the people wanted someone to do their will.
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And God says, well, wait a minute.
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My choice is going to be someone that is of my choosing and of my good pleasure and of my will.
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And obviously, God's choice is better because it's the one that God was going to anoint as the one that would be the great king.
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Yeah, I mean, he was the low man on the totem pole.
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He was supposed to be out there watching the sheep.
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Matter of fact, even when he goes to the battle with Goliath, they even say to him, dude, what are you doing here? What would you do with them sheep? You know, you're supposed to be out there watching the sheep while we're out here getting blasted by blasphemous words from Goliath.
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So, sure.
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Yeah, so we, here, this is where we see David come onto the scene as someone who loves God, where he is going to actually defend the purposes that God would want him to defend.
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And, you know, like you said, he's going to, you know, we're getting here shortly, and just in another week or so, we're going to get into the fight with Goliath.
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And Goliath is spouting out blasphemous things.
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And that's what bothers David.
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It's not the fact that he's challenging men who were cowards.
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That's not what bothers David.
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What bothers David is this very man that was challenging the nation of Israel.
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He says, no, no, no, you have talked about the God of the Most High.
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You blaspheme God.
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Forget about all these people.
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You're speaking, because you're speaking about God's people, you're speaking about God, and I'm going to take your head off.
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That's a desire for God's purposes and will to be carried out.
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And obviously, in his counterpart, what was he doing? Nothing.
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He was looking to pay somebody to go take care of something, that he is the warrior king.
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He should have been a warrior king, should have done.
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Now, I think it was last week, I do think that the reason maybe why Saul didn't want to go out, he knows that the kingdom's been taken from him.
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He sees this over nine foot tall dude, and he goes, that might be God's way of getting me out of the throne, so I'm not going to go out there and fight.
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Because I don't think, what we know about Saul was not that he was scared to go to battle.
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I mean, where does he die at what we believe to be 72 to 76 years old? Where does he die? He dies in battle, out there swinging a sword with his kids that are probably 30, 40 years younger than him.
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So, not that he wasn't capable, but maybe seeing that, hey, this is maybe trying to stay God's hand from removing him from the kingdom.
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Anything else? Gay? Nay? Alright, let's pray.
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Father God, thank you so much for King David, the young shepherd boy, Father, that you sovereignly chose according to your own purposes and for your own pleasure and for your own will to carry out all that you have commanded him to do, Father.
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Thank you that without implanting the power of the Spirit within him that he would have failed to do what you have called him to do.
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Father, he would not have been able to obey.
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He would not have been able to walk faithful.
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Father, we thank you on this side of the cross that Father, you have not just let the Spirit come upon us, but Father, you have put your Spirit within us that leads us, guides us, and directs us into all truth.
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Father God, help us to be faithful men and women.
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Help us to honor and obey you and to not fall by the way of King Saul's apostasy.
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Father, prepare our hearts now as we go in to sing the hymns and to hear the reading of the Word and to hear the preaching of your Word, Father, that our hearts would be convicted, that, Father, we would be transformed more into the image of your Son and that we would leave this place today loving you more today than when we came in.
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In Christ's name, Amen.