David: A Man After God’s Heart
1 Samuel 16:1–13
We are in 1 Samuel 16. We
are beginning the life of David. I gave you an overview last time looking over
1 Samuel 16–31, so that we could have a general idea of how things were going
to go through this period. This is a period when we are going to see the
transition from Saul to David.
There are a lot of ways we
could compare and contrast Saul. We will see a number of them as we go through
our study tonight and in the weeks to come. But the core difference is not that
David was saved and Saul was not. There are some who take that view. Saul is
like many believers down through the ages. He is a man who might be a believer.
He might be regenerate, but he is more concerned about his own self-centered
agenda than he is the agenda of the LORD.
That is why the Scripture
makes this statement about David. It characterizes him as a man after God’s
heart. We will look at that in our introduction as we go forward.
We have seen in our study of
Samuel that 1 Samuel is really a part of the whole 1 and 2 Samuel. The book of
Samuel is divided into two because it would not all fit on one scroll. This is
why we have 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. They were
originally one book each, one entity. In the New Testament you have 1 and 2 Corinthians.
Those are completely separate epistles. 1, 2, and 3 John are completely
separate epistles. 1 and 2 Peter are completely separate epistles, but in the
Old Testament the divisions between first and second have to do with their
being divided because the text could not fit on one scroll.
We have Samuel, Saul, and
David, the three personages that dominate the first book (scroll) of Samuel. We
saw the rise of Samuel and his elevation to the priesthood. That God uses him
as a judge. He is also a prophet in the first eight chapters. Then Israel
rejected him as judge when he was older. The Israelites said his sons would not
rule over them. The sons were rebellious and they were not qualified. The
Israelites wanted to have a king like every other nation.
That is important because
what the Israelites wanted was a man after their heart, a man who was like
them, a man who was like the kings in all the other countries. They wanted to
have a country that was not distinct and unique. That is what God had called
them to be, a unique and distinct nation. Another term for that would be a holy
nation, a nation set apart to God.
Samuel dominates. Then after
the rejection of God as King, God directs Samuel saying the Israelites have not
rejected you. They have rejected Me, Yahweh. He directs Samuel to anoint Saul as
king. We never see the orientation of Saul to God like we will with David. Saul
is a man after the people’s heart. He looks like he should be king. Visual
appearance is important as a backdrop to what we are going to see, because when
Samuel goes to the sons of Jesse he is thinking that God had me pick Saul. He
was head and shoulders taller then anybody else. He looked presidential. He looked
like a king. He looked like it was somebody you would want to be a king.
Samuel is looking on the
outside. One of the most significant statements in Scripture is found in this
chapter related to not looking on the outside, 1 Samuel 16:7. We see this shift
that takes place, but Saul is still the anointed king. David is also anointed,
but he is not elevated to the position yet. I pointed out last time that this
is an excellent analogy for the current Church Age, where we have the future
King of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Messiah, who has been
anointed at the first advent.
The Lord Jesus Christ is now
seated not on His earthly throne, but is at the right hand of the throne of God
in Heaven. He is not on David’s throne. That is the position of amillennialism.
That is the position that is taken by so called
progressive dispensationalists. No where in Scripture
does it identify His throne in Heaven as the throne of David. That is yet
future. What we see in this period between David’s anointing and His elevation
to throne is a period that is analogous to what we see in the Church Age today.
In the same way the church is
being trained. We are the ones looked down upon by the world around us. We have
not had that position in this country for the last 300 years, but we are
getting to the point where that is how we are looked upon. It will only get
worse, I believe.
We see this period from 1
Samuel 16, with the anointing of David, to 1 Samuel 31, as the period of
David’s rise and Saul’s decline and ultimate death. I pointed out last time
that, as we get into this last section, God is disciplining Saul and promotes
David. Unless God promotes you, you are not really promoted. God has David
anointed, but not raised yet. He is not ready. He does not yet have the
capacity for leadership to be the king.
That covers the second half
of 1 Samuel. In this section I have divided from 1 Samuel 16:1 through 20:42.
We see how God promotes and authenticates David. Before we get into the details
of this text I want to give a little background:
At the tower of Babel you have Nimrod who has
appointed himself as the ruler of Babel. He conspired with the people to build
this great tower that would represent a mountain. They are trying to reach
Heaven. There are tones of anger towards Heaven, and also maybe the idea that
they are going to build a tower high enough to prevent God from destroying them
in a future flood. A lot of different tones are going on in that episode that
all speak about man’s rebellion against God.
Is that not an interesting
phrase? We often think of this as something fulfilled in history that points to the last days. Remember that there are the
last days of Israel in the Bible and the last days of the church. We have been
in the last days of the church since the ascension of Christ. The Church Age is
often referred to as the last times or the last days because of the doctrine of
the imminence of the Rapture. That Jesus could come back at any moment. Nothing
has to be fulfilled to set the stage for the Rapture. We have always been in
the last days of the church.
But in Genesis 49:1 it is
talking about the last days related to Israel, God’s plan for Israel. There is
a long term projection in these particular verses.
What we find is that in Genesis 49:1–7, Jacob gives prophecy related to the
three older sons, older brothers to Judah. He basically shows that these three
older sons will be disqualified because to be the heirs, the chief heir, the
eldest son type of heir, because of their spiritual failures.
Then Jacob comes to a
prophecy for Judah that begins in Genesis 49:8, “Judah, you are he whom your
brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on
the neck of your enemies,” which indicates military strength and power. That Judah’s
descendants would grow to a certain size and certain dominance. This is true.
It is one of the largest tribes. It has the largest territory allotted to them
in the book of Joshua and after the conquest. Genesis 49:9 says
that Judah is compared to a lion. “He bows down. He lies down as a loin, and as a lion
who shall rouse him?” This is just imagery speaking of his
strength.
Then we have a fascinating
statement in Genesis 49:10 “The scepter shall not depart from Judah.” A scepter is the sign of
a ruler. It is a royal staff. Usually in the ancient world it would be carved.
Often times it would be covered in gold or silver, sometimes in jewels. This is
a sign of royalty. The idea that “The scepter shall not depart from Judah” is an
indication that the ruling line for Israel will come from the descent of Judah,
the tribe of Judah.
Genesis 49:10 is a promise that the scepter would not depart. That even
though, as we know looking back, there would be times when Israel would be
defeated and taken out of the land. There would be civil war. It would be split
between the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
Nevertheless, when they were brought back there would still be a lineage of
Judah. There would still be someone who would be leading the people.
Ultimately, even though that line faded, it would be restored in the Person of
the Messiah.
Isaiah talks about the root
of Jesse. Jesse is David’s father. That is in the line of Judah. It is the
stump of Jesse also. The line seems to be cut out and cut down, but then there
is a new shoot that comes out, a new branch. That becomes a title for the
Messiah. But we have here the statement that “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet.”
That is an imagery of descent. “… until Shiloh comes.”
This is a somewhat interesting phrase. There is a lot of debate over just
exactly what it means. Some think that it is translated this as a place name of
Shiloh.
Shilōh (shee-lo') is the Hebrew pronunciation of
the location of the tabernacle after the Israelites entered into the land and
after the conquest they found a permanent location in Shiloh for the
establishment of the tabernacle. It is supposed by a number of scholars that it
became a little more permanent there. Just as if you were to have a tent and
you were going to live there for a long time. Before long you would start
building a few walls. You might build a more permanent roof. If you were living
in a mobile home you might start adding a few features to it until eventually
it was not so mobile anymore and had a more permanent status.
The tabernacle is at that
location at Shiloh for a just over 300 years. During that time it became
somewhat stable. This is where the Ark of the Covenant was located. This is
where we see Hannah and her family visiting the Ark for the festivals at the
beginning of Samuel. This was the location of Shiloh, but the issue here is,
and part of the problem is that the Masoretic Text, when it inserts the vowels in
the word in the consonants.
The vowels of Shîlōh, שִׁלֹה, are sh, the שׁ, shîn, in Hebrew, L, ל, lāmed in Hebrew, and ה, the he in Hebrew, a soft ‘h’. This word is usually
pointed. When it is talking about the city, the location, it usually has
certain Hebrew vowels associated with it. Those are different from the vowel
pointing in this verse שִׁילֹה.
The Talmud is written in the beginning of
the Church Age. You have the collection of the Jewish oral tradition written
down and organized by a man named Judah the Prince about AD 100. That was
called the Mishnah.
Then the Talmud
is a collection of Jewish commentary on the Mishnah. If you look at a Talmud page it is a large page. In the
middle of the page there will be a rectangle about the size of a page in a
trade size paperback. That is the Mishnah. Then there is about a half inch margin around that. Then you have written all
around that the commentary. The combination of the two, the Mishnah and
the Gemara,
which is the commentary, that combined made up the Talmud.
There were two great Talmuds:
The Talmud is not put together until late in
the third century into the fourth century. This is tradition that is a couple
of hundred years after the rise of the church and the rise of Christianity.
There is also a targum. A targum
was like a commentary, written by a man who used the name, pseudonym, Jonathan.
It is called the Targum
of Pseudo Jonathan. He translates this as “until the time of the King
Messiah shall come.” There is also a reference to this among the Dead Sea Scrolls
in Qumran that translated this “until the coming of the Messiah of
Righteousness.” There is a fairly good tradition that Shîlōh שִׁילֹה here is a name for the Messiah.
This is somewhat supported by Ezekiel 21:27, “Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him.” This is a recognition that Israel was about to be defeated by the Babylonians. “I will make it overthrown.” God is saying that “It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is.” This is seen as a confirmation of the interpretation that Shîlōh
שִׁילֹה should be translated “as to whom it belongs.”This is the view that is
taken by both Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Michal Rydelnik. Michael Rydelnik has
about three pages discussing all of the intricate details as to why this is the
best solution. I have heard him explain it. I think he explained it better
verbally than he explained it in the book. I think this is probably the best
solution. That it is messianic. Either the second solution or this solution are both messianic. I think either one of
those is viable.
We see that the King is
going to come through the line of Judah. This is definitely a messianic
prophecy in Genesis 49:9–10. Then the next time we see a reference to the line
of Judah is a development of the line in Ruth. Judah’s sons are listed in
Genesis 46:12. One of his sons is Perez. That line, the Perizzite line, is
picked up in the genealogy of Ruth. Remember when we went through Genesis. I
said that one of the key words in Genesis is the word “seed.” We trace the
lineage of Jesus. All those genealogies that people read and think are boring.
That is tracing the “seed” all the way from Eve to Judah at the end of Genesis,
then through Exodus and on. These genealogies carry the line all the way
through.
We have Perez picked up after the
history of Ruth. Ruth 4:18, is the genealogy of Perez. Perez gave birth to
Hezron, Hezron to Ram, Ram to Amminadab, Amminadab to Nahshon, Nahshon to
Salmon, and Salmon to Boaz. He is the kinsman who redeems Ruth and marries her.
They have a son named Obed. Obed is the father of Jesse, who is the father of
David. David’s great grandmother is Ruth.
Slide 8: Here we have in a line David’s grandfathers. His
grandfather is Obed. His great grandfather is Boaz, married to Ruth. This is
the line of David going back to Perez, Perez being the son of Judah. This
traces the royal line. David is going to be anointed. He is going to be chosen
by God to be the ruler. The line that we see coming through here is a line that
is related to Boaz and Ruth, and where do they live? They live in Bethlehem,
the house of bread. But before that Bethlehem was known as Ephrath, his
territory. It is later referred to as Bethlehem of Ephrath. Now we just refer
to it as Bethlehem.
In Micah 5:2 Micah says, “But you,
Bethlehem Ephrath, though you are little among the thousands of Judah …” This is a
messianic prophecy. It is talking about the fact that Bethlehem is a small
little town that is not very big. You have to understand that if we were in
Bethlehem, it probably would not be any larger than the block that we are in.
It may not have even been that large at the time of David. It was a very small
village, therefore insignificant.
That is why when Micah
writes this prophecy, which is around 700 BC,
this is still 300 years after David. Micah mentions that Bethlehem is a little
tiny nothing of a town. It is a wide spot on the road. It would not even require
one stop light. We have a lot of places like that in
Texas, with one traffic light. Usually it is just blinking. It would not even
be that large. It was an insignificant place. It would be insignificant when
Messiah came, and it was insignificant for the king of Israel at this time.
David was coming from an
insignificant location. He is not the person you would expect to be king. He is
not going to look like a king. He is not going to come from a wealthy family.
He is not going to have the trappings of kingship about him. It is going to be
his character that matters, not the physical attributes of his family or his
life.
When we get into the descriptions
about David there are two passages that refer to the fact that David is a man
after God’s own heart. In Acts 13:22 Paul is going through some of the Old
Testament episodes. He says that when God had removed him, Saul, “He raised up for
them David as king.” Notice the emphasis here and all through 1 Samuel 16
and before. It is on the sovereignty of God. God is the Ruler of creation. God
is the Ruler of history. God is the one who has selected the descendants of
Abraham to be recipients of special responsibilities and blessings. God is
going to raise up the Ruler that He desires.
God gave Saul to the people
because that is what they wanted. He reflected the values of the human heart,
which Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things.” Paul says
regarding David that God “raised David up as king, to whom also He gave testimony.” That is
that God gave testimony. This is God’s assessment of the core of David’s
character, “I
have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own
heart, who will do all My will.”
I think we need to parse
this. David is a man. He is a sinner. David committed some pretty egregious
sins. But when God looked at his heart, at his focal point, at what David
really wanted to do, He knew that David was a man who wanted to please God more
than anything else. Did he always accomplish that? No. Not anymore than we always
accomplish that. But there is a big difference between a man that has made a
decision early in life that he is going to be devoted and focused to the Lord
no matter what and people who convince themselves of that, but they are self
deceived.
I was thinking about that
today. How do we know that they are self-deceived? We eventually find out. I
found out this last week that a man, who as a boy grew up in the same church
where I was (if I mentioned his name or his parents’ name, many of you would
know his name, his family), He went off to college. He went to Lubbock Bible
Church when Charlie Clough was the pastor. In fact, he was responsible for
transcribing numerous studies that Charlie did. I got a Facebook message from a
mutual friend that I had also grown up with. She said, “Have you read his
Facebook page lately? He has repudiated Jesus Christ and converted to Judaism.”
I forgot to mention that he also went to Dallas Seminary.
I cannot tell you how many
people I have heard about in the last 30 years, many of whom were pastors or
theologians, who have apostatized from the faith. You would look at them and
think that at some point that they were as solid as a rock.
One was Francis Beckwith,
who is considered one of our generation’s great apologists. He was on the
theological faculty at Baylor University, Baylor Seminary. He was also the
president of the Evangelical Theological Society. While he was president of the
Evangelical Theological Society he covertly slipped into a Catholic Church and
made confession and rejoined Catholic faith. It made front page headline news
throughout Latin America, “Evangelical Comes Home.”
This is a blithe on the
escutcheon of the cross. But this is not unique. When I first went to
Connecticut, I was thinking if there were any schools worth going to, maybe for
finishing up my doctorate.
There is Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary up on the northeast side of Boston. It is an evangelical
school. It had a lot of fine men that have taught there. I was reading about
them and ran across an article that talked about this epidemic that they were
facing. It was not unique to them. I am not pounding on their case. This was in
1998. The article was talking about the fact that in the previous 15–20 years
they had had a rash, to the tune of 15% of their alumni, who had converted to
Roman Catholicism.
I do not think that is
unique to them. In the mid-80s there were three Dallas Seminary professors who
were all released from their contracts. That means they were fired, because
they got involved with the Vineyard Movement. There have been others who have
gone Greek Orthodox. What is going on here? What is going on here is men who have thought that because they have the
intellectual answers that they have a personal relationship with God.
What happens over the course
of time, when they enter into the pressures of life, is there is a vacuum in
their soul. They know a lot about God and a lot about the Bible and a lot about
doctrine, but they do not know the God of the Bible. They do not know the Jesus
of the Bible. They just know a lot of data. When the pressure comes they
collapse on the inside. It exposes the inner absence of a spiritual life and a
spiritual walk.
I think Saul represents that
kind of person. David represents the person who had a deep profound personal
relationship with God. He made a decision that he stuck with from being a very
young man. Nothing else mattered than pleasing the LORD, even though he failed
many times. We all will. That is why many of us love David. He is like Peter in
the New Testament. Peter is so flawed, but he is so loyal. We all fail. We have
no grounds for self-righteousness at all. We are all still corrupt sinners.
The difference between a
David and a Saul is David continuously would confess his sin to God. He would
be cleansed. His sin was dealt with, whereas Saul did not care. He was
arrogant. He walked independently of God. This is the essence of what this
means. It does not mean that David was perfect. He certainly was not. It does
not mean that David was sinless. He was not a plaster saint. He was someone who
had a sin nature that was extremely active at times and got seriously out of
control at times. God disciplined Him severely when that happened. But David never
doubted.
I do not know if you have
ever thought this or have been this way, but no matter how sinful you might be,
you still know God exists. Jesus died for my sins. God is treating me in grace
because I have not been incinerated just now. Many of us understand that that
is what grace is all about. David was that way. God looked on his heart and
knew that it was focused on Him no matter what the external behavior might have
been at times.
In fact, in Psalm 57:7, a Psalm we
will look at when we get to the point where Saul is in the cave. After that
whole episode David wrote this particular psalm. We will go through it when we
get there. In that psalm David says, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.”
The repetition is for emphasis. He says, “I will sing and give praise.”
The word that is translated
“steadfast” is a word that means to be firm or to establish or to prepare. It
expresses the determination of David to serve the Lord always, to praise the
Lord. This was a bedrock conviction. No matter what happens he was not going to
shift away from the Lord, and that was David’s focus all of his life, unlike
his son Solomon. Solomon started off well, but then he allowed his devotion to
God to be a distraction.
There is a difference
between somebody who is a sinner and giving reign to the lust patterns of their
soul, and someone who is disloyal to God and turns to idolatry. That is what
happens with these people that I talked about earlier. They have made idols out
of ritual or idols out of emotion or they have made idols out of works,
shifting to a works-based religious system.
Another psalm tells us a little
more about David, Psalm 78. We are told that this is a psalm of Asaph. Asaph,
we are told in Chronicles, was one of the chief musicians at the time of David.
Others want to place him a little later. They look at this psalm. The way they
look at some of the details of the psalm cause some to place it a little later
in David’s life, maybe right near the end of his life. Some may place it a
little earlier, but the psalm for the most part is a rehearsal of Israel’s
disobedience to God and of God’s faithfulness to His covenant and faithfulness
to His people.
At the conclusion of the
psalm, Psalm 78:70, the psalmist says, “He also chose David His servant.” Again there
is an emphasis. God is the one who raises up leaders.
God is the one who takes down leaders, good or ill. “He also chose David his servant, and took
him from the sheepfolds.”
This is not the place you
would think you were going to find the next king. He did not take him from the
local Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, or any place that might have that kind of
respectability. He took him from a low position, but some times, when you are
in a low position, you learn a lot about humility. You learn a lot about
leadership. You learn a lot about how to work. You develop a strong work ethic.
You learn what really is important as you deal with some of the rougher basic
issues in life.
God took David from the
sheepfolds, Psalm 78:72, “From following the ewes that had young.” Think about that. David is having to take care of these pregnant sheep that are
about to give birth. He has to follow them around as they are
not wanting him to get too close. They are still getting into tough
spots. They are getting behind rocks, crevasses, and behind the sticker bushes
and everything else. David has to follow them to make sure that when they go
into labor he is going to be able to be there and help them in the process. He
is learning to care for these animals just as he will learn to care for the
people of Israel.
David followed the ewes that
had young. “From
following the ewes that had young and He, God, brought him to shepherd Jacob His people.”
Many times in Scripture the Scripture uses the analogy of shepherding as the
model for a good leader. A shepherd is one who takes care of his sheep. He
feeds them. He protects them. We transfer that to the pastor. The pastor feeds
and protects through the teaching of the Word and keeping people from being
exposed to error, teaching them how to avoid falling into apostasy and falling
into error. He teaches them what the Word says so that they can be nourished
and fed spiritually. David learned this. It is training for leadership in the
future.
Psalm 79:72, “So he shepherded
them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the
skillfulness of his hands.” This is a fascinating passage here. The
parallelism is not synonymous. “Integrity of heart” is not synonymous to “skillfulness of
hands” but you have a development where it moves from the first point to
develop the second point.
1. First there is an internal
attitude. He has integrity in his heart.
This is the Hebrew word tôm, which
emphasizes personal integrity. He learned responsibility by being put out there
into the sheepfold. As he develops integrity, as we learn later, when he is queried by Saul as to why he should let him go up
against Goliath, David said that he learned how to protect his sheep. Whenever
there was a lion or whenever a bear that would attack,
then I would go after them with my slingshot and my staff. I do not know if any
of us would want to take on a cougar or a bear with nothing more than a
slingshot and a staff, but that was what David did. He learned responsibility
to care for the sheep. That gave him integrity.
David did not say to his dad
that he lost five or six of the sheep. You gave me the responsibility to
protect them, but it is a little tough fighting a mountain lion. I had to let
the lion go with it. No, he had integrity. He did the job. He did what needed
to be done. There is a heart attitude, which is your mentality. Most often in
the Old Testament the word “heart” refers to your mindset, your mentality, not
your emotion, your it’s your mental attitude. David has developed a mental
attitude of toughness and a mental attitude of responsibility. This developed
into actions.
When the verse talks about “the skillfulness
of his hands” hands often represent what we do in life. What is emphasized
here is that he has integrity internally in his mindset, in his attitude, that worked itself out into what he did and how he
did it. How he carried out his job. How he carried out the affairs of life. We
will see this in the coming chapters that are talking about David’s attitude,
his mentality.
David comes from what we
would say today, “He comes from nothing.” He was like the original log cabin
president. He came out of a background and a position that would not have made
anyone think that one day he would be the ruler of one of the greatest empires
of the Middle East. In the New Testament Paul talks about this.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29, “For you see your
calling, brethren, that not may wise according to the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world
to put to shame the wise.”
This does not mean that they
are foolish in an absolute sense, but in terms of society they do not look like
much. They did not go to the right schools. They were not part of the right
fraternities or the right sororities. They did not come up under the right
coaches. But they have a personal integrity that is greater than all of that.
They have biblical wisdom as opposed to human viewpoint wisdom. “God has chosen
the foolish things of the world” that does not have the status that the
world gives to people.
“And God has chosen the weak things of the
world.” That does not mean that He does not use anyone that is not bright
or not well educated, but that is not the norm. God has the place for the
Apostle Paul, well educated, probably the top of his rabbinical class. God uses
many intelligent, great men, who are in the pastorate, in ministry, and
teaching in seminaries, who are well educated. But that is not the norm.
We are going to be so
surprised when we get to Heaven. The people who are out front today are the
pastors and many ministries that have a lot of glitz to them. They have big
numbers. They have big buildings. They have large radio or television
ministries, but there are so many believers who sit there, take in the Word,
and do it. They are faithful in giving. They are faithful in witnessing. They
are quiet. They do not look like much. They have all kinds of very ordinary
jobs, but they are more faithful in their application of the Word than many of
the people that we think are out front, that know the Word so well.
1 Corinthians 1:27–29, “God has chosen
the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and
the base things of the world, and the things which are despised God has chosen,
and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no
flesh should glory in His presence.”
One of the contrasts between
David and Saul is Saul seems quiet, bashful, and shy at the beginning, but he
is filled with arrogance. He may not act like he thinks he is much, but he
really does. David is truly humble. He is submissive to the authority of Saul
even when Saul is trying to kill him.
One of the things that we are
going to see, as we go through the last half of Samuel, is that there this
subtle contrast developed between the genuine humility of David and the
arrogance of Saul. The arrogance of Saul culminated in the great indictment
from Samuel when he told him that “rebellion is the sin of wickedness (divination),
and
stubbornness (insubordination) is as the sin of iniquity and idolatry,” 1
Samuel 15:23. It is like idolatry and sin. Saul is arrogant and rebellious, but
David, we are going to see, is obedient.
David is submissive to Saul.
He gets caught in the cave with Saul. All of his men say here is God’s
opportunity for you to kill Saul. Saul is trying to kill you. He has been trying
to kill you over and over again. David weakens a little bit. He reaches out and
cuts off the hem of Saul’s robe to show, see, I could have killed you, but I
did not. You see a hint of pride. David is so convicted by that that by just
doing that he has violated the authority of God’s anointed.
David comes out and he has
to confess it to Saul and apologize that he did that. It was an affront to
Saul’s authority, even though Saul is not worthy of that at all. Saul is God’s
anointed. God has put him in authority. That is one of the hardest things for
independent-minded Americans to grasp, the emphasis on submission to authority.
That is humility in the Scriptures. We are going to see this again and again.
For years liberals have said
that they have never found any evidence of David in archeology. He is just a
myth.
Then in the mid-90s archeologists
discovered at Tel Dan, which is located in the north of Israel, an inscription,
highlighted here in the slide, which is a reference to house of David. That
tells us that David existed. His dynasty existed. It confirms what the Bible
says.
As we get into the 1 Samuel
16, it is a rather short chapter. There is not a lot of action that takes place
here, but it is significant for us to go through this. The Lord addresses
Samuel.
At the end of 1 Samuel 15
what we noted is that Samuel is despondent. He is mourning over Saul’s failure
and Saul’s rejection. Not only that, but we also see in the text that God
regretted that He has made Saul king over Israel. In 1 Samuel 15:35 the Hebrew
word is nācham.
It is repeated a couple of times in this chapter for emphasis. It is only used
of God a couple of times. It is an anthropopathism. It does not mean that God
changed His mind like a human does, because as we see in this particular
chapter that one of the uses of this is to say that “God is not a man
that He should repent.”
God is not going to change.
It is an anthropopathism. From our perspective God has changed His mind about
Saul being over Israel. But this idiom that is expressing this kind of shift in
God’s plan is only used one other time prior to this. That is in Genesis 6,
when the Scripture says that God regretted that He had made man. What is the
result of that? The result is the judgment and the worldwide flood. In other
words, when God looks down and we have this kind of a statement made regarding
to God’s plan and shift of plan, it is something extremely serious. This is not
just a minor thing. This is something that is extremely serious.
After Samuel has mourned awhile, 1
Samuel 16:1, God says, “How long will you morn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from
reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to
Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a
king among his sons.”
Ecclesiastes 3:4 tells us there is “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to
mourn, and a time to dance.” Sometimes Christians get the idea that I
should not mourn, or that Samuel was wrong to mourn. No, it is okay to mourn,
but there is a time to mourn. After a time of mourning you need to get up and
move on. That is what God is saying here. It is time to move on. I do not know
how long that period of time was.
In Daniel 10:2 Daniel is given a
revelation, “In
those days, I, Daniel, was mourning three full weeks.” There is nothing
wrong with that, but then it was time to move on.
In Nehemiah 1:4 as Nehemiah
heard the terrible report about how the walls of Jerusalem had not been
rebuilt, he “sat
down and wept and mourned for many days.” He was “fasting and praying before the God of
heaven.” Sometimes mourning is good because it drives us to focus on the
Lord again.
1 Thessalonians 4:13, “But I do not want
you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you
sorrow as others who have no hope.”
In the New Testament we
realize that when there is a death we do not sorrow like those who have no
hope. It does not say that we do not sorrow. We do, but then we have to learn to
apply Scripture and move on as we go through that mourning.
What we see here in 1 Samuel 16:1
is that Samuel is instructed to take a horn and he is going to fill it with
olive oil. He will go to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite. The term Jesse is
not a common name among the Israelites. It may be an Aramaic name. Perhaps it
is a name that came out of Ruth’s background. We do not know, but we do know
that he is the grandson of Boaz and Ruth. This is the first time the word
Bethlehemite shows up in Scripture. We know that it is going to be the future
birthplace of the Messiah because of the book of Micah.
Bethlehem is about ten miles
south of Ramah. Ramah is where Samuel is living. Ramah is about five miles
north of Jerusalem. Bethlehem is about five miles south. Put that in
perspective. We are about ten miles from downtown Houston. If we were at Ramah
we would be moving toward Bethlehem. It would be about where downtown is.
Jerusalem would be located about where Memorial Park is located. Jerusalem at
that time probably was not as big as Memorial Park. It was really small.
In fact, if you know where
the jogging trail is at Memorial Park, or if you have ever walked it, that
section is about the size, maybe a little larger of the Jebusite city of David
at that particular time. It is not very large. Those are about the distances.
In 1 Samuel 16:2 Samuel says, “How can I go?”
I cannot really trust Saul. If he finds out that I am headed there and what I
am going to do, then Saul is going to react against this. My life may be in
danger. God says He has a mission for him. “Take a heifer with you” and if anyone asks, say
that you “have
come to sacrifice to the LORD.” That is legitimately what Samuel was going
to do. He was going to go there and provide a sacrifice.
A heifer is a young female
cow. According to Leviticus 3:1, a heifer was the sacrifice for a peace
offering. It is Samuel’s role as priest. He would go to different villages and
teach. He would also offer sacrifices. That is what he is going to do, but he
has another mission as well.
1n 1 Samuel 16:3 Samuel is to
invite Jesse to the sacrifice. God is going to reveal to Samuel what he should
do. We do not know how God was going to reveal it to him. Do not read into the
text your intuition, your feelings, your emotions, liver quiver, or any of the
other things that people go by. We do not know how this worked. Samuel is a
prophet. God could have audibly spoken to him. We do not know how this worked.
God communicated it very clearly to him as to whom he would anoint.
1 Samuel 16:4, Samuel went to
Bethlehem. The elders were a little concerned. Why is this significant man of
God coming here? Maybe we have done something? They want to know if he is
peaceable and not going to bring judgment from God. Samuel says yes, it is
peaceable. Shālôm
is the word there.
1 Samuel 16:5, “I have come to
sacrifice to the LORD.
Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” Before they could sacrifice there had to
be ritual cleansing. “Then he (Samuel) consecrated Jesse and his sons.”
The word “consecrated” and
the word “sanctified” are the same Hebrew verb, qodash. The first qodash, “sanctify yourselves,” is a hithpael in
the Hebrew, which means it is causative and reflects it, do this to yourselves. Make sure you are ritually cleansed if you need
to wash. You need to wash if you need to change your cloths. You need to avoid
certain practices ahead of time. You needed to have done this ahead of time.
There were different stipulations for cleansing in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament you had
to be cleansed. Samuel says that to the elders. Then he found Jesse and his
sons, and he personally sanctified them. We are not told exactly how he did
that. Then he invited them to the sacrifice. This probably took a few days. It
is not something that just happened quickly. People have to walk a long
distance, all of these kinds of things. The logistics take a little bit of
time. When they come together Jesse brings his sons. The first son comes and he
looks manly. He looks regal. He looks like he should be king.
Samuel looks at him and says
“Ah! This is the Lord’s anointed.” The word “anointed” is the Hebrew word māshîach,
which is where we get our word Messiah. It is translated into Greek as CHRISTOS, or Christ. This is where we get the word “anointed.”
That he is going to be the “anointed one.”
In 1 Samuel 16:7 the Lord tells
Samuel not look on the outer appearance or at his physical stature.
There have been so many
people that I have heard in this presidential election, all kinds of different
people, so-and-so does not look presidential. Look at the way that person looks.
Look at that hair. That was Hillary, not Trump. Look at that hair. That is
Trump, not Hillary. Look at those age lines. Look at how she stumbles. All
kinds of things that do not have anything to do with character—that do not have
anything to do with politics.
We live in an age where we
would rather vote for a John F. Kennedy than a Richard Nixon because Nixon had
a heavy 5 o’clock shadow on his face in a debate. We are so superficial. We are
going to vote for appearance. We are not going to vote for content. We deserve
whatever we get.
God says do not look on the
outside. I got in trouble. Some people did not like it when I said that in the
20th century it is rare, in a contest between two presidential
candidates, for a man under 5’9” to be the winner. That does not have anything
to do with content. That is just an observation on the superficiality of the
pagan culture in the 20th century.
People got all upset because
that meant that their candidate, who was shorter, would not get there. He did
not get there. He did not make it. He should have, perhaps. I am not making a
judgment on that. I am just saying that this is human nature. We are
superficial. This is what God is talking about. Do not make ad hominem
arguments for or against a candidate. It is not about how they look, how they
talk, how they smell, what their nose is like, what their chin is like, what
their eyes are like. It is their character and the content of their belief
system.
1 Samuel 16:7, “For the LORD does not see as a man sees; for man looks at the
outward appearance, but the LORD
looks at the heart.”
This is similar to what Isaiah
says in Isaiah 55:8–9, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My
ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
There is human viewpoint
versus divine viewpoint. Frankly, the choices we have had for president and
most political offices for the last 50 years have been between one kind of human
viewpoint and another kind of human viewpoint. We are supposed to vote for the
one that we think best work out that to where the church can function peaceably
and carry out her role and her mission under that particular leader—whether it
is a mayor or a governor or a president.
We have to focus on what is
best. When we have a choice between two midgets, we have to pick the one that
is the taller. I am going to get in trouble with somebody. But that is what we
are doing. We have to take the taller of two midgets. It may not be but a
millimeters’ worth of difference.
1 Samuel 16:8, “So Jesse called
Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel.” He did not make the cut.
The next son, the third son,
1 Samuel 16:9, “Shammah
passed by.” He did not make the cut.
1 Samuel 16:10, the rest of
Jesse’s sons went by, and none of them made the cut.
Samuel asks Jesse if all the
young men were there. Jesse tells him of the young one. He is the “runt of the
litter”. He is not much. He is out taking care of the sheep because he is the
young one. We give him the dirtiest jobs.
In 1 Samuel 16:11 Samuel says for
Jesse to bring him. We will not sit down until he comes. They were probably
getting hungry by this point. Jesse sent for him and brought him in.
In 1 Samuel 16:12 we are told that “he was ruddy, with bright eyes and good looking.” He is not the
“runt of the litter” in terms of his appearance, but he probably was not as
tall as Eliab. And the Lord indicates to Samuel, this is he. “Anoint him; for
this is the one!”
We are told in 1 Samuel 16:13, “Then Samuel took
the horn of oil and anointed him.” It is a picture of the Holy Spirit
coming upon somebody. It is external. It is not internal. He “anointed him in
the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David.”
The word “upon” is
important. It is the Hebrew word ’el, which means to come to or toward someone.
It is not in him. We have the internal indwelling of the Holy Spirit today.
This is an external position of empowerment, not internal. That is going to be
important because we are going to see that these evil spirits that come upon
Saul also come upon him or to him. They do not go in him. It is not demon
possession. It is not internal. Those prepositions are really important. From
that day forward the Holy Spirit is empowering David to rule.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit in
the Old Testament: