The Lord Looks at the Heart

Welcome to week seven of our Bible study on 1 Samuel, called The Coming King. Today we're going to begin part two of this study on 1 Samuel, and we're going to cover chapters 16 and 17, where the life of David begins. He is the coming king of Israel from the little town of Bethlehem, and he is the ancestor of the great coming king, also from the little town of Bethlehem. And by the way, did you know that as far as biographies go in the Bible, David is the biggest and longest biography, except for Jesus. Of all the Old Testament, we have the most volume on David himself. But he was introduced to us right away in this study and anointed king immediately. But it's going to take many years for him to be recognized as king and for him to walk in that calling that God has given to him. And those are going to be years of trial, and years of difficulty, and years of perplexity, and years of injustice in his life. And I like to call those hidden years, when God has a call on our life, but yet we're not doing it yet. And in God's economy, not everyone profits from hidden years. It depends on the attitude that they have. Those who are with a heart yielded to God will benefit from both positive things and negative things. I'll say that again. Those with a heart yielded to God will always benefit from every situation, whether it is positive or negative. And David's going to have a lot of negative things in his life. But he had a simple faith like Jonathan, how we studied Jonathan's simple faith. And in today's lesson, we're going to see one of the most dynamic expressions of his faith. So we're going to get started looking at Saul again, or excuse me, Samuel again, as we start chapter 16. Chapter 16, verse 1,

Now, if you have not studied the book of Ruth with us, you need to make a little note in your notes and say, do that next. Do that this summer. Go study the book of Ruth so that you know why Jesse from Bethlehem is important in God's unfolding story of redemption. But in this setting right now, Saul had been king for quite a while and long enough for him to gather loyals, or we might call them spies, that pretty much knew everything that was going on in his realm. And so Samuel was not able to move about freely without being noticed, certainly not able to go and anoint someone without being noticed. And so in verse 2, Samuel says, Well, how can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. But God had a plan. Take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you. So Samuel did what the Lord commanded. He came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said, do you come peaceably? Of course, they're trembling. What did we just last? Where did we leave off with Samuel? He hacked Agag to pieces. That's an intimidating thing. Do you remember we talked about leaders? We want to lead by inspiration, not intimidation. And yet as something comes along where God calls us to do something decisive and it can be intimidating to people, but it's God's direction and God had given Samuel a job to do. And so he had done that. In verse 5, he answered them. He says peaceably, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And when they came, he looked on Eliab and he thought, well, surely the Lord's anointed is before me. But the Lord said to Samuel,

A very important verse that we wrote out in our study guide. It is almost involuntary for us as human beings to assess situations based on appearance, isn't it? We gather information by looking at things. We look at appearance. We look at image. We look at presentation, brand, whatever you want to call it. But we've been learning through every one of these lessons that the Lord looks at the heart. And I've decided to make that the title. The Lord looks at the heart. Those six words are so meaningful in our life. And I want to show us how they mean. First of all, what do those words mean for Israel? Well, God had promised a man after his own heart, a king who would love God and help the people to love God. And so this is important right now that he's reminding Samuel, the Lord looks at the heart. What did those words mean for Samuel in that moment? Well, listen, Samuel was old at this point, and he'd done a lot of things in his life. As we like to say, been there, done that. And so he probably had this great temptation to rely on experience. Now, I've entered my third third of life, I hope. And I get that. I see that it's a big temptation to rely on experience. I've done this before. Paul was actually teaching about this at our pastor's retreat. It's a big temptation to not rely on the Lord or the Spirit of God, but just look at a situation. Somebody asks a question, you give an answer. We've done this. I know this. There's a repetition. I think this was a temptation for Samuel to rely on his own experience. And so he needed to be reminded the Lord looks at the heart. Some of us need to be reminded that we need to rely on the Spirit of God, not on just what we have done dozens of times in the past or what has worked in the past. Now, what did those six words mean for me? The Lord looks at the heart. It is a deep motivation and an inspiration for me. Oh, if the Lord is looking at my heart here, what does my heart look like? I can go through my day without thinking about that at all, but the Lord is looking at my heart. That's sobering. And so those are sobering words for me. So as the story goes, Abinadab then and all of Jesse's sons passed before Samuel without being chosen. And in verse 11, Samuel said, are all of your sons here? Because God hasn't revealed any of them yet. And Jesse said, well, there remains yet the youngest, but he's keeping the sheep. And Samuel said, well, send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes. And he sent and he brought him in and now he was ready. He had beautiful eyes. He was handsome. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is he. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And I kind of think that maybe that phrase means this wasn't in the midst of the town. This was like a pre-sacrifice anointing because the general population doesn't seem to know about this. But he was anointed in the midst of his brothers. But here now we come to two phrases. I love how the writer has always given us contrast. One thing pitted against another thing. And here we come to two significant contrasts. Verse 13.

So we see the two contrasts. So I want to talk about that just a little bit. First of all, we need to recognize that Saul, as a king, is no longer a representative of God. Now, everyone thinks he's a king. He's going to walk out in the natural being king. But the spirit of the Lord has departed from him. He is no longer a representative of God in God's economy. Also, what we want to talk about, we do this often in Old Testament times, the spirit of the Lord came upon someone or the spirit of the Lord departed from someone as God directed. This should not be applied to a New Testament Christian's experience. Now that Jesus has died, gone to heaven, sent his Holy Spirit, when we believe in him, ask forgiveness of sins, he dwells in us. So these are two different things. So when we read there that the spirit of God has departed from him, we don't have to be worried and say, could that happen to me? This is a different situation that we should make note of. But now the elephant in the room here, the harmful spirit from the Lord. Okay, that sounds troubling. And if I was an eight-year-old, the eight-year-old me would have read that and said, harmful spirit from the Lord, can that happen to me? Will God give me a harmful spirit from the Lord? And the answer is no. Now, what we're seeing here, we see a few times in the Old Testament, probably one of the closest parallels was Pharaoh. When it says Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart, Pharaoh hardened his heart, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. God confirmed him in the direction that he was set to go. And I think we see the same thing in Saul. Saul hardened his heart against obedience to the Lord, hardened his heart. And so God was just confirming Saul in the direction that he was already going. And it's an indicator of Saul's future emotional, spiritual condition. So as time went on now, Saul wasn't able to conceal his troubling mental, emotional, and spiritual condition. And so his servants, rather than saying, you look like a person who needs to get things right with God, they just wanted to soothe what was going on. They wanted to keep the status quo with him. And so they suggest that they find someone to play soothing music and sort of soothe his symptoms. And isn't that a temptation today for us as well? We can get ourselves into quite a pickle, spiritually, emotionally. And sometimes it's because we have created a distance from God. And people around us sometimes will suggest that we merely soothe our symptoms. And there's that one brave girl that says, I think you need to go day retreat with God and you need to go and like investigate what's going on in your heart. We all need a friend like that, rather than just saying some music, put on some worship music and I think you'll be fine. But anyway, verse 17, so Saul said to his servants, provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me. And one of the young men answered, behold, I've seen the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence. And the Lord is with him. What a fascinating assessment of David's character from a distance. That really made me think, I wonder what someone would say all about me from a distance. Another motivation. But verse 19, Saul sent messengers to Jesse, send me David, your son, who is with the sheep. And then in that request, we also see kind of an interesting repetition in this chapter. Everyone wants the youngest son of Jesse who is out with the sheep, the one who is the least likely. First Samuel wanted him and now Saul wants him, which is interesting. And in verse 23, whenever the harmful spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hands. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him. Now, if this episode is actually in chronological order here, that this happened before the episode with Goliath, it's likely that David didn't just like hang out in Saul's house 24-7 waiting for him to need soothing. He probably went back and forth, went back to help his dad with the sheep and came into Saul's service when he was required. That's probably what happened. But right here between the chapters, as we consider here the big picture of these two chapters 16 and 17, one of the greatest lessons I think we learn from chapter 16 is a warning not to rely on appearances. This is a lesson that translates directly into our lives because things come into our lives that seem good. They don't seem harmful. They seem just fine. They might be useful, profitable on the exterior, but yet God has not chosen them for us. And so we need to remember that we need to rely on, practice the art of seeking God with regard to things in our life because we can't always tell if something is good for us by its appearance, okay? One of the greatest lessons we're going to receive from the next chapter, chapter 17, is again about appearances. And again, this lesson translates directly into our lives. For us, some of the problems that we encounter, the appearance of them seems so grim, so frightening, so insurmountable that we believe it will destroy us. But yet the problems don't have as much power as their appearance is. And so again, we need to practice the art of seeking God regarding these giants in our life, regarding these problems, and go to the Lord and say, what will we do about this? Because the appearance of it looks like it's going to take us down. But I know that not everything is as it seems. So now we begin chapter 17. So chapter 17 begins with a setting, it's a very different setting here.

Now on your map, if you were to look at Bethlehem and Gath, this valley of Elah is right between those two points, okay? So here comes the threat. Verse four, there came out of the camp of Israel a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. Now that's about nine feet tall, okay? So the writer wants a very dramatic presence of this problem that they were facing. Now nine feet tall isn't, you don't have to say, oh, that's like, you know, Jack and the Beanstalk tall or something like that. People get to be nine feet. In the 1940s, there was an American who was eight feet, 11 inches tall, okay? So this isn't Paul Bunyan stuff. This is like, this can happen. And the word champion is a word that describes someone who sort of steps out from the ranks willing to fight. This is kind of like a duel. You have your army lined up there, our army lined up there. We want two men, just two of them, to come and sort of duke it out, okay? And so now that focuses on Goliath's appearance for us. Let's look at this. He was about three feet taller than most for one thing, and he had all of this bronze armor on and helmet. What is bronze? It's shiny. It's going to shine in the sun. So it's going to make him look even bigger. 125 pounds of mail on him of armor. That's a lot of bronze to gleam and shine in the sun and look very imposing. And it says that he had a spear with an iron tip that weighed 15 pounds. Just the tip of it was 15 pounds. That's like a four-month-old baby, right? On this tip of the spear. So we're meant to see that this is really big. I don't know how well he could fight and all that stuff, but anyway, that's his choice. And then verse eight, his voice.

And we read later on in the text, this went on for 40 days, morning and evening for 40 days. Now we have a world conflict going on right now that has been going on for, we're nudging up to 40 days. It seems like a long time, doesn't it? It seems like we've been doing this for a long time. So 40 days is quite a bit, but now we're going to again, enjoy the contrast of reaction, the contrast between Saul and his army and David, as they react to the appearance of this problem. In verse 11, when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. We'll list those on this side, dismayed and greatly afraid. That's the reaction of Saul and his army. And then as the story goes, Jesse, who is still alive, but very old, decides he wants to send provisions to his sons through David. So he gathers up cheese and bread and grain and that. And in verse 20, David rose early in the morning and he left the sheep with the keeper and took the provisions and went as Jesse had commanded. And he came to the encampment as the host was going out to the battle line. Verse 23, as David was talking to his. Brothers, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before, and David heard him." Now here's a reminder of our contrast again, reminder of how the army is reacting. In verse 24, "All the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were much afraid." And now we get this beautiful contrast of how David views this situation. In the middle of verse 26, David says, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?" David's reaction was completely opposite. Rather than being dismayed and fleeing and much afraid, David is incredulous that anybody should defy the armies of the living God. Why was David's reaction so much different than the rest of them? Because he wasn't focused on the appearance, he was focused on the kingdom, he was focused on God's interests in this moment. Why do I say that? Well, look at his vocabulary. First of all, he says he called him an uncircumcised, in other words, not part of the covenant of God. Now, that's not a race thing. It's like you're from a different race than us. No, this is like you're not part of God's covenant. David, of all people, should know that God's arms were wide open. His great-grandmother was Ruth, who was a Moabitess, okay? So David knew people were welcome into the covenant with God. Now, also, he says he used the word defy, which means to resist or to challenge the jurisdiction of. Who is this that challenges the jurisdiction of the armies of the living God? So his interests were all about God. Okay, now, we have to remember, as it relates to the land of promise that they are in, that Israel is in, this land had been given them by God. God had commanded that they should occupy the land, that they should have victory over the inhabitants of the land, and they were going to need, by faith, to walk it out. God was not just going to do the work. By faith, they had to walk it out. And this is a parallel in our own lives, that God gives us everything we need for life and godliness to live a victorious Christian life, but yet, by faith, we need to walk it out, okay? And so, even if you have faith, okay, David had faith. We can have faith. Even when we have faith to walk out what God has intended for us, there will come challenges. Our faith will be challenged. And what I want to do this time through here is I want to identify four challenges that David had that may relate to our lives. It's like, we can look at problems, say, well, I have faith for that, but our faith may be challenged. And in four ways was David's faith challenged. And so, I'm going to put them up on the screen for you as we hit them. First challenge number one, something comes along and says to us, you will fail in your faith because, honestly, you're just an imposter. Your faith is not real. And I want to listen to how that happened in David's life. Verse 28, it came from his eldest brother, Eliab, heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle. In other words, you're not who you pretend to be. You just came down here to see the battle. You're not real. Your faith isn't real. You're an imposter. And this was really an unjustified offense. We've learned before. We saw Saul deal with an unjustified offense. And when Saul dealt with it, he just turned away from it. He didn't challenge it. And David does the same thing. And sometimes we get those voices in our head that says, you're a phony. Everybody else, all your girlfriends, they have faith. You think you do. No, you're just here for the coffee, whatever, the cinnamon rolls. Verse 40, it tells us that David turned away. And David made his way to Saul. Verse 32, David said to Saul, listen, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight the Philistine. Remember, this is a one-on-one duel. And here comes challenge number two. Something tells us your faith is going to fail because you don't have the experience. And this is what happened. This came from the voice of Saul. Verse 33, Saul said to David, you're not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for you are but a youth. And he has been a man of war from his youth. And when our faith is challenged in this way that we don't feel like we have enough experience, we don't feel like we're well enough suited, we need to rest our faith on something else outside of ourselves. David was, remember Jonathan? Remember Jonathan, when he said, you know, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. And we wondered if Jonathan had gotten that from the history of Israel, when God always saved Israel with the weak and the marginalized and through the book of Judges. Well, here David is resting his faith on Israel's calling. Listen, they were the army of the living God. They had a call. They were on a mission from God. But that's not all he was resting his faith on. He also was able to rest his faith on personal experience with the Lord. And that is an important element to listen to how he does it. Listen to what he says to Saul. David said to Saul, your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered him out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God. And David said, the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion, and I'll say the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. See, his faith was resting on a previous experience with God. And he was so convincing that Saul says, okay, go and the Lord be with you. That Lord who helped you before, may he be with you. And then we have another challenge. This time, challenge number three says, you will fail if you don't do it just like the others do it. In verse 38, Saul clothed David with his armor, and he put a helmet of bronze on his head, and he clothed him with his coat of mail. And David strapped his sword over his armor, and he tried in vain to go. And David said, I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them. He wasn't used to them. They weren't his way of doing things. Now, first of all, think about Saul's coat of mail, his helmet, and his coat of mail is bronze, okay? Just like Goliath. So the appearance of this would have been ridiculous. Like big Goliath, all shiny and gleamy, and little David, all shiny and gleamy, trying to act just like the problem, you know? So the appearance was kind of ridiculous. But the point was that this was built for a different man. And we can remember, as we're facing problems, that we can't just look at our friend and say, oh, that's how you deal with this problem. That is exactly how I'm going to deal with the problem, too. Okay, that was built for her, not for me. Acts chapter 17 reminds us that God has placed us exactly in the exact place, all people, in the exact places that they should live, in the time that they should live. And he has made each of us unique and equipped us uniquely to handle the problems and the giants that we face in our life. And we need to rest on that and not put on someone else's armor, so to speak. David was trained in the fields of Bethlehem with simple implements to have a simple faith. And when that came back to him, that this is how God has made me, that's what he applied. Look at this. So David put off Saul's armor, verse 40. He took his staff in his hand, and he chose five smooth stones from the brook, and he put them in his shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine, and the Philistine moved forward and came near to David. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. And here comes challenge number four to our faith, that something comes along to try to convince us that we will fail because we are insignificant. Goliath said to David, am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. And sometimes the problems in front of us mock us in this way. And our Goliaths boast to us how much bigger they are and how they are gonna take us down in life. David didn't try to become more significant than Goliath. In a bully terminology, he just said, yeah, well, my dad's bigger. It's kind of what he was saying here, which is always good in our Christian life. It's always good to look at the problem and say, my dad's bigger than every problem. What he said was,

Did you notice that it's God's glory and God's kingdom that David is focused on, not the appearance of the problem. I think I way too often focus on my own ability to conquer a problem and I need to rest in this and just get this into my heart. You know, my dad's bigger. I wonder how much our own faith would be boosted if we said the Lord will deliver me. There is a God in my life and he saves not with conventional weapons. The battle is the Lord's. So verse 48, when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly through the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone. There was no sword in the hand of David. And then of course we know that David ran and cut off Goliath's head. And so the Philistines, rather than honoring the contract that Goliath had said, you know, now we'll serve you, they ran, they fled, and the army pursued them all the way back to Gath and plundered their camp. And David returned to Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand and Saul said, well, whose son are you, young man? And David answered, I'm the son of your servant Jesse, the Bethlehemite, and that's how the chapter ends. But I wanna wrap this up by considering how David developed and applied the faith that he had in God. Clearly, he had a simple but a strong faith in God as he faced this challenge in his life. And I wanna apply that to our lives, because you know what, faith doesn't just magically appear for us when we need it. I remember Paul teaching that, it just rang so true to me. You know, don't learn to pray when you're in the furnace. That's not a good time to learn how to pray. You learn how to pray before the furnace. But our faith doesn't just magically appear. But think about David. How did his faith develop? Listen, he lived an ordinary life. He was just a kid, the last kid. Not much was expected from him. He worked hard, he developed his faith in an ordinary way. Sometimes we think, I think, oh, I could have really big faith if I lived my life in the Abbey and this is all I had to, you know, focus on. But like Samuel, okay, Samuel grew up in the house of the Lord. And so we admire that about him, that he was like focused. But now we have the example of David. He did not grow up in the house of the Lord. And spend every minute, he lived an ordinary life. But he developed his faith doing ordinary things. Every one of us lives an ordinary life. We raise kids, we go to school, we have jobs, we care for elderly parents. We do all these ordinary things that are like keeping the sheep. And we too can be developing our faith through the ordinary so that when we get to face the Goliath, our faith is ready to go. We need faith, we will be challenged. Trust me, we will face Goliaths in life. These Goliaths come in the form of temptations that seem too difficult to say no to. The appearance of them is it's too hard to say no to the temptation. They come in the face of trials, which just seem too hard to push through. Or tragedies, which just feel like my heart will never be put back, the pieces will never be put back together again. What we have to remember from this is the appearance of the problem is not always the reality of the problem. That is what David teaches us. The appearance of the problem is not the reality. By faith, we can apply the same principles that David did. My dad's bigger. There is a God in my life. He doesn't do these things conventional ways. The battle is his. And I love the phrase, the Lord will deliver me. And if God does not deliver us from the problem in the moment, then we rest back on what we opened up with, that God does provide sometimes for us hidden years. And we can benefit from every situation in life, whether positive or negative, if we are yielded to God, yielded to God. Father God, thank you for this lesson. And I pray that you would help us to view life not through the appearance of the problems, the temptations that we have, the trials that we have, the tragedies that we have, but Lord, help us to increase everyday viewing life through the greatness of who you are, knowing that you will deliver, knowing that you are good, knowing that you are God of our life, and that you give us the tools necessary to live a victorious Christian life wherever you have put us. Thank you for this lesson, Lord. And I pray that our groups would have a good discussion. In Jesus' name, amen.