Last study, we saw that the Lord
looks upon the heart, not the outward appearance or countenance
of a man. God rejected Eliab, Jesse's oldest
son, and he was a kingly specimen of a man outwardly, so much that
even Samuel himself thought that he was the one. And then in verse
10, we see that Jesse makes all seven of his sons to pass before
Samuel. And the Lord rejected each one
of them. Look at verse 11. And Samuel
said unto Jesse, are here all thy children? And he said, well,
there remaineth yet the youngest. And behold, he keepeth the sheep.
And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him, for we will not
sit down till he come hither. And he sent and brought him in,
and now he was ruddy, that word means healthy looking, kind of
reddish, full of life, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and
goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint
him, for this is he. And we see here that David had
a comely outward appearance, but we also know that his true
beauty was found within. He was in his heart, a man after
God's own heart. Verse 13, then Samuel took the
horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren.
And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose and went to Ramah. So we see that when David here
was anointed king, that the Spirit of God, the third person of the
Trinity, came upon him. And I think that we often forget,
I know I'm guilty of this, that the Holy Spirit is as much God
as God the Father and as God the Son. The Trinity is God in
three persons, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and each equal as God, all three equally God. Now, to one with
the nature of a man, the Trinity is no doubt mysterious. We've
often said, and I admit, I don't understand the Trinity. How can
any natural man understand the Trinity, God being one in three
persons? But I would suppose that I would,
I think that the Holy Spirit is probably the most great mystery. And you know,
when God said, let us make man in our own image, he was talking
to the Holy Spirit too. And that included the us, included
the Holy Spirit. And it's been rightly said that
all three persons of the Trinity have a special work in salvation. God the Father elects. He's the
architect of salvation. God the Son redeems. He's the
accomplisher of salvation. And God the Holy Spirit regenerates. He's the applier of salvation. He applies salvation. And the
scripture is very clear. When it says, that which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
Spirit. Paul wrote in Titus 3 verse 5,
not by works of righteousness, which we had done, but according
to His mercy, He saved us. God saved us according to His
mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. So the Holy Spirit plays an equal part in our redemption
as God the Father and Son. Now, often in the Old Testament,
the Spirit of God would come upon certain men, enabling them
to accomplish the purpose of God. In the book of Judges, the
spirit of the Lord moved upon Shamgar. If you remember our
study in Judges, he slew 600 Philistines with an ox goat,
kind of like a probe that you probe cattle with and move them
along, a stick with a kind of a little spike on the end or
whatever. And the Spirit of the Lord came
upon Gideon. You remember that story? God
said, you've got too many soldiers. And I'm sure Gideon thought,
how can he have too many to go out against the Midianites, who
were great in numbers. He said, no, you've got too many.
And he whittled them down to 300. 300 men, and they supernaturally
defeated the Midianites with 300 men. That was the Spirit
of God that moved upon them. And God sent His Spirit upon
the most famous judge of all, Samson, several times, and with
supernatural strength, brute force, He killed many Philistines,
one day with the jawbone of an ass. And remember when he took
the city gates and the fence and all and carried them up the
mountain, each time it says the spirit of God moved upon him.
And when he pulled down the temple pillars and he destroyed, took
out the whole nation of the Philistine. And the scriptures in the book
of Judges particularly record The Spirit of the Lord came upon
Othniel, Judges 3.10. The Spirit of the Lord came upon
Gideon, Judges 6.34. The Spirit of the Lord came upon
Jethal, Judges 11.29. And in four different places,
the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson. What do you attribute
Samson's strength to? The Spirit of the Lord. And then the Spirit of the Lord
came upon the last judge, Samuel, in 1 Samuel 10, six. And now
we see that this supernatural power of the Holy Spirit came
upon this young shepherd boy when Samuel anointed him king. And from that day forward, the
anointing of the Spirit was upon him. In the next chapter, 1 Samuel
chapter 17, David testified that he was given supernatural strength,
so much so that he could brawl with a lion. He said he took
him down by the beard. killed him with his bare hands.
That takes supernatural strength. No mere man can do that. We're
not told how he killed the bear, but I'm sure it was pretty much
the same way. And even King Saul at times was
given supernatural power. You can Victory over the enemies,
you can read about that, as we saw in 1 Samuel 11 and 12. But here in verse 14 of our text,
look at it, it says, but the Spirit of the Lord, same Spirit,
Spirit of the Lord, capital S, departed from Saul, and an evil
spirit, little s, And an evil spirit from the Lord
troubled him. Saul no longer had the help of
God's spirit. God's spirit departed from him. I don't want the Lord's Spirit
to depart from me, and I'm not expecting to do supernatural
feats, but I know this much. My life, spiritual life, comes
from the Spirit of God. David wrote in Psalm 51, verse
11, he said, cast me not away from thy presence. Lord, don't
leave me. Don't cast me away from your
presence. And he said, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. The
spirit of the Lord departing from Saul was an act of judgment
against Saul. An evil spirit of the Lord came
upon him and troubled him. Now, this causes a lot of controversy
among a lot of folks. I have had people take issue
with me about this matter. The scriptures talk about the
Lord sending strong delusion. Same thing. It's the Lord that
sends it. He sends strong delusion. The
scripture says that some believe a lie and are in the end damned,
condemned. We live in a day where such thoughts
are just foreign to folks. You know, you talk about the
Lord sending an evil spirit or strong delusion, people will
take issue with you because Jesus loves everybody, they say. He
wouldn't do such a thing. But there will always be some
that find pleasure in unrighteousness. Paul talks about that a great
deal. And it's said of those who receive not the love of the
truth, in 2 Thessalonians 2, for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion that they should believe a lie. Now would
God do that? That's what the scriptures say. That they all might be damned
who believe not the truth. Would God do that? They had pleasure in unrighteousness,
and that's why He did. We're bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Oh, I want to be in that
number, don't you? In 1 Kings chapter 22, and I
believe in 2 Chronicles chapter 18, we're told that the Lord
sent a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. The Lord sent
a lying spirit into the prophets so that Ahab would be deceived. And many today still question
how a holy God could do such a thing. How could a holy God
do that? The only answer that I can give
is that God is sovereign. He does what he wants to. And
the passage is clear. He allowed an agent called here
an evil spirit to carry out deception against King Saul. It's as plain
as the nose on your face. But the spirit of the Lord departed
from Saul and an evil spirit From the Lord. You see that in
verse 14? Trouble him. And it says this
evil spirit from the Lord, not of the Lord, but from the Lord.
Many today believe that Satan and his cohorts are equal to
God. You know, we're taught from a
young age, you know, we see in a movie or something where someone
is, trying to make a decision, and a little devil pops up on
one shoulder, and an angel pops up on the other shoulder, and
they're both whispering in his ear, and, you know, he's got
to decide which one that's belonging. Such ignorance and nonsense. Couldn't be anything further
from the truth. God sovereignly rules the fallen
angels to do His bidding, just as He does the angels that didn't
fall. The man made belief that Satan,
I've heard this, heard it all my life, Satan cast his vote
to destroy you and God cast his vote to save you and you decide
and you make the difference. Well, that's just absurd. The Lord took his spirit from
Saul and he sent an evil spirit that would trouble him. That's
what verse 14 plainly says, can't deny. I don't know how people deny things
that are so clear in the scriptures. They'll say stupid things like,
well, my Bible don't read that way. Well, how does it read?
What's it say? What version do you have? Why did the Spirit of the Lord
depart from Saul? Well, Saul disobeyed God. Remember
when he spared King Agag? And we talked about that in great
detail. King Agag represented the flesh,
and God will not share his glory with the flesh. and any and all
work of the flesh must be destroyed. The scripture is very adamant
about that. Galatians 5.24 reveals that Christ's
people have crucified the flesh with its affection and lust.
We must. We must put the body under, we
must crucify the flesh. And the beginning of Saul's end
was the departure of God's spirit and the sending of an evil spirit
from the Lord. And this shows us, this is a
great lesson for us. Let's don't miss it. This shows
us the seriousness of disobedience to God and in giving any credit
at all to the flesh in our salvation. It's an abomination to God to
do so. He will not, he's very clear,
he will not share his glory with another. God is not going to
share the glory of His salvation with you or anybody else. And many find difficulty explaining
verse 14 because the work of the Spirit is usually only considered
in the realm of the redeemed and regenerated. The Holy Spirit
only does only works to save the lost, but natural men and
women, especially religious men and women in this world, have
difficulty attributing anything to the spirit of God that doesn't
eventually result in salvation. God can send his spirit to do
whatever he pleases. And this is the reason why men
and women today find it impossible to believe that God has mercy
on some and on some He hardens. And what do they say? They say,
well, that's unfair. Who hath resisted
His will? All God has to do to harden one
is to remove his spirit from him like he did Saul and just
let him have his way. Saul was well on his way of doing
that anyway. And there's no indication in
the scriptures whatsoever that Saul was ever a saved or regenerated
man. Nowhere does it tell us that.
The things that the Spirit of God provided for him were given
to him by the Spirit for political rule for the nation of Israel,
God's chosen people. Men claim the salvations of the
Lord until his spirit moves to give slumber where men and women
don't hear the gospel. And then all of a sudden, you
know, it's not fair. Men claim that God's a sovereign
potter as long as he forms and fashions everyone into vessels
of honor. But you tell them that he fashions
one into a vessel of dishonor and they get all upset. God can
do what he wants to. He always has and he always will. The minute a lump of clay is
fashioned on the omnipotent potter's wheel to be a vessel of dishonor,
they cry, as I said, it's not fair. Who's resisted his wheel? How can God condemn one who is
only carrying out his will, doing what he ordained? Remember what
Paul said in response to that? Who are you to reply against
God? Can the thing formed say to He
that formed it, why did you make me like this? No, you can't. What folks are saying is God
is sovereign, doing as He will on the wheel. What they're saying is we don't
like it. We don't like it. We don't approve
of it. So the Spirit of God is said
to have departed from Saul. The Spirit's work's not always
unto salvation. That's a lesson for us to learn. And this means that Saul's now
without help in the execution of his duties as king, and the
Spirit that once guided him is gone. And what a lonely place
that must be. We'll see in 1 Samuel 28, verse
six, and when Saul inquired of the Lord, The Lord answered him
not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets." God just,
heaven's words are brass. We've talked about that. The
spirit, as I mentioned a moment ago, that was sent to Saul is
not capitalized. So it's not speaking of the Holy
Spirit. The evil spirit was a, but manifested
itself in a spirit of affliction and depression and anxiety. The marginal reading for the
word troubled is terrified. This was an evil spirit sent
from the Lord and this spirit terrified Saul. In Isaiah 45,
verse seven, God says, I form the light and create, Darkness,
I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.
Now we know that evil doesn't originate with God. Man was considered
evil when he disobeyed God and he fell in sin. Amos 3, 6, it
says, shall there be evil in the city and the Lord had not
done it. And look at verse 15 here. And Saul's servants said
unto him, behold now an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. Let our Lord now command thy
servants which are before thee to seek out a man who is a cunning
player on a harp. And it shall come to pass that
when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play
with his hand and thou shall be well. Boy, they're real smart,
aren't they? You know, William Shakespeare
once wrote, conscience makes cowards out of all of us. God
sent this evil spirit to make those around Saul, his advisors,
so to speak, out of fire to every one of them, to seek relief from
this discomfort and notice The first thing I noticed is what
these advisors, I'm sure they were spiritual advisors, don't
you just imagine? My brother Saul, let me tell
you what you need to do. But they didn't tell this troubled
king to repent, to fall on his knees before God and ask forgiveness
for what he'd done. That would have been a good advice. They didn't call for Samuel to
come and to pray for Saul and to encourage him to ask for forgiveness. That would have certainly helped,
been good advice. They just continue with more
of the same. They apply the wisdom of the
flesh and seek a worldly means of comfort. And it's, This will not in the end remedy
the anxious screaming of this man's conscience. He's tormented. And listen, no more than pharmaceutical
methods and worldly practices of the world that claim to do
so today. They're all temporary fixes.
To a troubled mind, eat, drink, and be merry may suffice for
a while. But in the end, all worldly methods
will prove to fall short. Listen, there is no peace, there
is no comfort, there is no rest apart from that which is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's short-lived and temporary
at best. Verse 17, and Saul said unto
his servants, provide me now a man that can play well and
bring him to me. Then answered one of the servants,
verse 18, and said, behold, I've seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite,
that is cunning and plain, and a mighty, valiant man, and a
man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the
Lord is with him. You think that was just an accident? that it would be David, the very
one that Samuel just anointed king. There are many things said
of David in this chapter, 1 Samuel 16, that point to the greater
David. And that's what I want to show
you tonight. Such a blessing to me, and that's speaking of
the Lord Jesus. Several are found in verse 18
alone. But let me point out a few others
to you from the previous verses. Christ was David's son and also
David's Lord. And what a beautiful picture
David is of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 7, we saw that David
was chosen by God, not by man. Man looks on the outward appearance,
as we've already seen, but the Lord looks on the heart. God rejected David's older brothers,
and he chooses the youngest, the least likely candidate to
be king. God chose him. This parallels the Lord Jesus,
whose scripture declares not to be physically impressive by
worldly standards, Isaiah tells us that there was no form, nor
comeliness, nor beauty, that men should deserve the Lord Jesus
Christ. Our Lord was rejected by men,
chosen by God as the true King, the King of kings. The Lord Jesus,
according to Paul, is the blessed and only potentate. You know
what a potentate is. He's one whose word is law. He's the king of kings, Paul
went on to say, and the Lord of lords, 1 Timothy 6, 15. In
Christ, the great king of kings, his people in Revelation 17,
14 are called chosen and faithful. In verse 13, David is anointed
king, but he's not anointed king in secret. He's anointed king
long before he publicly reigns. Just as Christ was anointed as
King, the Messiah, the Anointed One, before He ever reigned.
You know, for 30 plus years, the Lord Jesus was raised from
an infant into a young boy. As a teenager, He worked in His
father's carpenter shop. And no one immediately took notice
of Him. And he's just a carpenter. It was not immediately that he
took visible reign of his kingdom, because his kingdom was in heaven.
And also in verse 13, we see that David was empowered by the
Spirit. The Lord Jesus is now at the
right hand of God as both Lord and Christ. The typification
here, Acts chapter two tells us that. He sits on the right
hand of God and on power and authority as King of Kings and
Lord of Lords. Verse 13 also tells us that the
Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
Christ was born with the Spirit of God upon him. And this also mirrors Christ's
baptism when the Holy Spirit descended on him. Both David
and the Lord Jesus both began their mission with the Spirit's
empowerment. In verse 11, we see that by the
world's standards, David was rejected. He was overlooked by
his own father. His father said, well, it's gotta
be one of these first seven. Is this all your children?" And
Sam go ask. And he said, no, I got another
little ruddy boy out in the field tending sheep. Go get him. Overlooked by his own father.
And as I said, our Lord was born in obscurity and he spent all
his early years unnoticed. the humble trade of a carpenter,
but he wasn't esteemed by religious or political elites in that day. He was just, he was unnoticed,
just as David was. And I think this was one of my
favorite. In verse 11, we see that David
pictures Christ, that he was a shepherd and a king. Listen,
our king is a shepherd and we're his sheep. And when one of those
sheep strays, and we often do, when we wander from the fold,
because we're prone to wander, aren't we? Our Great Shepherd,
our King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He leaves the fold and
He goes and He finds us and He puts us on His shoulder and He
carries us home. I love the fact that the Lord
Jesus is my Shepherd King. Our Lord Jesus called Himself
the Good Shepherd, and a Good Shepherd He is. David leads Israel with a shepherd's
heart. He guides, he defends, he sacrifices
for the people, the sheep. And the qualities are fulfilled
perfectly in Christ, our good and great shepherd. And then
we have a list of things in verse 18 alone. First, we see that
David is the son of Jesse. What is the significance of that? Well, the royal seed came through
Jesse. Christ is the son of David, the
root of Jesse. In the genealogy of the Lord
Jesus Christ, in both Matthew and Luke's gospel account, Christ
is the son of David who came through Jesse. He's the royal
seed. He's that seed that God promised
back in Genesis chapter three that would crush the serpent's
head. He's got to come through this lineage of Jesse. Secondly, David is pointed out
as a Bethlehemite. Our Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It was prophesied of the prophet
Micah in chapter five, verse two, that Christ would come out
of the city of David, a place called Bethlehem. All in that,
he pictures, David pictures the Lord Jesus. Thirdly, David was
a man cunning and playing on the harp. His playing was said
to be able to cure the possessed and calm the anxious and comfort
the troubled. Who but Christ can do that? Christ
played the strings of men's hearts. David played the harp. Christ
plays the heart. He's the only one that can. And
he said, the Lord said, come unto me, all you that labor and
heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I'm meek and lowly and hard, and you shall find
rest for yourself. For my yoke's easy and my burden
is light. As we'll see, when David played
the harp for Saul, it calmed him for a moment, and then he
would take a javelin and throw it at David and try to kill him.
Only Christ can cure and calm and comfort. No comfort like
the gospel, is there? If you're a child of God, And
then verse 18 points out that David was a mighty and a valiant
man. Look what this young shepherd
boy who defended his sheep from a lion and a bear said in 1 Samuel
17. You may not have to turn the
page, but verse 32, look at what he said. And David said to Saul, let no
man's heart fail because of him. He's talking about Goliath here.
He said, thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. A little shepherd boy will go
out and meet this big giant who defies the army of the living
God. He said, don't let any Man's
heart failed because of him. Just, everything's gonna be okay. I'll take care of it. And look
at verse 33. And Saul said to David, thou
are not able to go against this Philistine, fight with him, for
you're but a ewe. And he's a man of war from his
ewe. And David said unto Saul, thy
servant kept his father's sheep. And there came a lion and a bear
and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went after him and smote
him and delivered it out of his mouth. And when he rose against
me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and slew him. He
hit the lion and killed him. Thy servant slew, verse 36, thy
servant slew both the lion and the bear and this uncircumcised
Philistine. shall be as one of them, seeing
he hath defied the armies of the living God. And David said,
moreover, the Lord that delivered me out of the pawl of the lion
and out of the pawl of the bear, he will deliver me out of the
hand of this Philistine giant." And here we see David's supernatural. You believe that? I do, help
thou my unbelief, but I do believe he can do anything and everything.
Do you believe Christ is able, able to do anything and everything?
Well, he himself claims that he can't. The Lord of hosts hath
sworn, saying, surely as I have thought it, so shall it come
to pass, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. In other words,
I can do anything. I can do everything. And most
of the time when our Lord did supernatural acts, it was for
His sheep. You believe that the Lord Jesus
can save you without any help from you? A lot of folks that
don't. He's a mighty man of war. He's
a mighty, valiant man. Are we like the Apostle Paul
persuaded that he is able to keep that which we've committed
unto him? What have we committed unto him? Our very souls. We've committed our souls unto
him against that day. We commit to Christ eternal life. Do you believe the same thing
that that leper did? He said, Lord, if you will, I
know you can. I know you can. I know you can
do anything that you're willing to do. And that's what and who
we believe. One who can do anything and listen,
one who's willing. Remember what the Lord told the
leper? He said, I will be thou clean. Lord, will you heal me? Yes, I will. I sure will. Anyone that wants to be can be. That which he promised, scripture
says he's able to perform. David was a man of war. Christ
is the one who fights our battles for us. David met this Philistine
giant who defied David's God, and David, a man of war, said
in verse 45, to the giant, he said, thou comest to me with
a sword and with a spear and with a shield, but I come to
thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies
of Israel, whom thou hast defied. And this day will the Lord deliver
thee into my hand, and I'll smite thee and take thine head from
thee, and I'll give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines
this day to the fowls of the air and the wild beasts of the
earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel." And friends, our fight is the
Lord's. He'll deliver us safely from
that giant named sin. that defies the armies of the
living God. Matter of fact, our warfare is
already accomplished. It's finished as the Lord's cry.
Our iniquity is already pardoned. Our Lord Jesus is a man of war. I need the Lord. You need the
Lord to fight your battles for you. And he will, and he will. Also, according to verse 18,
David was prudent in matters. Now, in my marginal reference,
that word matters means speech. Our Lord Jesus is prudent in
speech. That just simply means that in
His Word. This is His Word, and He's prudent. He's identified by His words,
by His doctrine, by His teachings. His words are the most important
thing to His people. As I've said many times, this
is the most valuable possession that we have. We know who He
is by His words. We know who He is by His Word. You can't separate the written
Word from the living Word. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ in this book of
one and the same. He's prudent in His speech. He's
prudent in His words. David was a comely, beautiful
person. It told us that. The Lord Jesus. Oh, there's none to compare to
His beauty. He's beautiful in His Word. He's beautiful in His
birth. He's beautiful in His life. He's beautiful in His death.
He's beautiful in His resurrection. He's beautiful in His ascension
because He now sits at the right hand of God making intercession
for His people. Isn't that beautiful? He's beautiful as my representative. He's beautiful when He will return. Oh, won't He be beautiful then?
Because when I see Him, then I'll be just like Him. I'll be
beautiful. He's the first of 10,000. And lastly, concerning David,
it says the Lord was with him. Look at that. Friends, our David
is the Lord Jesus, and He's with us. He's with us. This is the
gospel according to 1 Samuel chapter 16. What a beautiful
story of God's love, mercy, and grace to us, His people, and
the Lord Jesus Christ.