Well, if you still have your
Bibles open, I'm gonna go back to 1 Samuel 16. And my subject
is the divine choice. The divine choice. As you remember from Israel's
history, Moses led the children of Israel up to but not into
the land of promise. That honor was left for Joshua,
Jehovah who saves. Moses represents the legal system,
the very law of God. Law exposes guilt, but law can't
lead you to God. Law can't lead you into glory. Law can't cause you to be accepted
with the Lord. Only Christ Jesus leads to God. Only Christ Jesus leads to acceptance
with the Father. So Joshua led them into the land
flowing with milk and honey. Jehovah who saves. Well, after
the death of Joshua, The Israelites fell deeper and deeper into apostasy
and idolatry. And for many, many years, a state
of lawlessness existed in the land of Israel. The very last
verse of the book of Judges is very significant. In those days,
there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was
right in his own eyes. And that was the state of the
spirituality of Israel. Few and far between were those
who looked to the Lamb who was coming, for the most part, the
true religion of God was absent from the numbers of Israel. Well, in time, Israel wanted
a king. They should have been satisfied
that Jehovah was their king. Jehovah who saves. That is Christ our Lord, who
is our prophet, he is our priest, and he is our potentate. He's
the one who teaches us, he's the one who offered the sacrifice
to God that suffice to put away our sins, and he's the one who
reigns over all things. But they wanted a king because
they said, we want to be like the rest of the nation. Well,
here's the thing. They weren't like the rest of
the nations. The rest of the nations were
heathen. The rest of the nations were not the elect of God. The
rest of the nations were godless, idolatrous people. Israel only. To them had been manifested Jehovah
in his true character. and though most of them had no
use for Jehovah, and certainly did not bow to him as their king
of kings and worship him, yet God never left himself without
a witness, and he had a chosen people within the nation of Israel. In looking through the Scriptures, Isn't it amazing how our God
so often brings, and only he can do this, he brings good out
of evil. Nobody else can do that. And
I'll go all the way back to the beginning, Adam's transgression. What an evil thing he did in
raising his fist against God. and defying what God had said, rebelling against God's very
clear command, thou shalt not eat of the fruit of that tree,
for in the day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die. And man
did a very evil thing. He sinned against God. But out
of that evil, God taught Adam and Eve the gospel. They could
never have learned of the mercy of God, of the faithfulness of
God, of God as the one who seeks those who are lost, had not Adam
committed that awful transgression. Out of evil, God brought forth
good. And then fast forward 4,000 years
from that time. You see evil men among the Jews
and the Gentiles. Our Lord Jesus is arrested. He
is brought up on trumped up charges. And they beat him. They whipped
him. They slapped him in the face. They punched him in the mouth.
They beat his back. They put on him a purple robe
in mockery. And then they said, a king wearing
a purple robe needs to have a crown. And they crowned him with thorns,
a crown of thorns. And they crucified the Lord of
glory. the Lord of Glory. Only one time
in all of history has God allowed, has God ordained that man put
his hands, his filthy, evil hands on God. And what did man do? They killed, they killed the
Son of God. Peter said, you with your wicked
hands, you have Sacrificed, you have slaughtered the Son of God. A more evil deed has never happened
in this world, and yet, and yet, my what good came of that? Because by the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ, all of the sins of all of God's
people, of all of the ages were put away. And divine justice
was fully honored through the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. God alone can bring good out
of evil. And here we have Israel It was
their awful sin to reject Jehovah as king, as the governor of their
nation. It was pure evil to want a man
to rule over them, a man whom God had not chosen, and a man
whom toward the end of his session as king, the people didn't even
want him anymore. He wound up seeking advice from
a witch. And he wound up dying on the
battlefield. That's King Saul. The Lord rejected Saul and the
people rejected Saul finally. Hold your place here. Let me
show you this. I was reading this passage this afternoon,
Hosea. See if you can find the book
of Hosea. Find Daniel, the last of the
major prophets, and go to the next book, which is Hosea, and
then go to the 13th chapter. Hosea chapter 13. And let me read you two or three
verses here out of Hosea chapter 13. And I'll wait till you get
there because I want you to read silently as I read these verses
out loud. Hosea is the first of the minor
prophets. Not minor in importance, but
generally the minor prophets are shorter prophecies rather
than Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel. Chapter 13,
Hosea verse nine. Oh Israel, Thou hast destroyed
thyself. And that's what's happened to
us. We've destroyed ourselves. But in me, in me, is there any help anywhere
for us? And Jehovah says, in me, in me, There is help for the helpless. There's hope for the hopeless.
It's found in God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
says to Israel in verse 10, I will be thy king. Then he asks, where is any other
that may save thee in all thy cities? And thy judges of whom
thou said, give me a king and princess. Now look at this verse. I gave them a king in mine anger, and then I took him away in my
wrath. They demanded a king, and God
said, I'll give you a king. Mr. Spurgeon said, be careful
what you ask for. God may just give it to you.
And they asked for a king. They demanded a king. And God
said, I'll give you a king, the king of your choice. You're not
happy with me, the king. You're not happy with me, the
sovereign. You're not happy with me, the
great monarch of all the universe. You won't have me to be king.
I'll give you a king and I'll just stuff him down your throat
and you'll get sick of him. and you'll want him removed.
I gave thee a king in mine anger and took him away in my wrath."
They wanted to be like every other nation. God had ordained a king for them. a man who would prove to be one
of, if not the greatest picture or type of our Lord Jesus Christ
of all the men in the Old Testament. Perhaps only Joseph in some ways
exceeds David as being a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. The names of David and our Savior
are forever linked together, David and Christ. The New Testament
begins this way, Matthew 1.1, the book of the generation of
Jesus Christ. And what is the first way that
the Holy Spirit sets forth our Savior? The Spirit of God says,
the Son of David, The son of David, the son of Abraham. Turn to a few verses with me.
Romans chapter one, please. Look at Romans chapter one. And I'll read the first four
verses. You see, God has forever linked the names of David and
Christ. Our Savior. They're never going
to be separated because, like I said this morning in the message,
the Word of God is everlasting. God's Word, it doesn't expire,
it doesn't get old, and it can't be changed. It may as well be like the king
who wrote something and said, what I have written, I have written.
And God's Word is written. It can't be changed. It's forever.
Look at Romans 1, verses 1 through 4. Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called an apostle. separated under the Gospel of
God, parentheses, concerning the Gospel of God, which he promised
afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning his
son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. There's his humanity. He's linked
to David. But look at verse four, and declared
to be the son of God with power. He's linked to God. He's the
son of God, he's the son of David. Our Lord over in the book of
Matthew, he asked the Pharisees, how can David be the son of Messiah,
the son of Christ, and yet be David's Lord? How can that be? Here's our Lord Jesus fully man. It's like was written of David
and Ron read this a little bit ago. He was ruddy. That's what
it says of David. He was ruddy, which means of
red dirt. That's what that means. Not so
much his complexion, but he was of red dirt because he was a
child of Adam, a son of Adam. And our Lord Jesus was ruddy
in that sense, a real man. That's real humanity. When Mary
conceived a son in her womb by the power of the Spirit of grace,
when that virgin then gave birth to that child, He was a real
baby in every sense of the word. No wonder we read, and without
controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest
in the flesh. Ready. Ready. That's our Lord Jesus. He's the
Son of David, and He's the Son of God. Look at Revelation chapter five.
Go all the way to the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter
five, and I'm gonna show you two verses here, and then I'll
go back to 1 Samuel 16. Revelation chapter five. This
is when John, John sees one sitting upon the
throne. And he had in his right hand
a book written within, without, and on the backside. And we've
talked about that before. That's all of God's predestinated
decrees. That's everything God purposed
before the world began. Who's going to take that book
and open it loosing the seals thereof, and bring to fulfillment
everything a holy God eternally purposed." It's a book filled with all of
God's predestination, His predestinated decrees. And there wasn't anybody
in heaven or earth or unto the earth who is able to even take
that book, much less open it and fulfill everything within
that book. But look at verse five. And one
of the elders saith unto me, to John weep not. Evidently John
started crying. And the elder said, behold, the
lion of the tribe of Judah. Watch it now, the root, the root
of David. You see, our Lord came forth
from David, but David came forth from our Lord. He's the root.
He's the root of David. He's the origin of David. He's
the one who gave David life, physical life and spiritual life. He's the one whom in old eternity
in the covenant of grace, David was rooted in him by the purpose
of God, joined to Christ, joined to the Son of God by God's decree. The root of David prevailed to
open the book. He overcame, he conquered, he
conquered every enemy. And he takes the book and the
rest of the book of the revelation is our Lord, loosing the seven
seals thereof. Somebody asked me this week,
what in the world is coming to this old earth? What's going
on? And I said, don't worry. And
this passage came to my mind, don't weep. Don't weep. The line of the tribe of Judah,
the roots of David, He has prevailed and on the basis of His sacrificial
death, He's been exalted, He sits on His throne, and every
single thing that is coming to pass or shall ever come to pass
will be by the decree of and the power of the Son of God who
loves us and who gave Himself for us. Don't worry. Don't be dismayed. Things may
or may not be going the way that you wish that they would be going. But I'll tell you whose way they're
going. They're going God's way. They're going the way that he
has ordained. Yes, this is our Savior. And
one other verse in Revelation 22. Revelation chapter 22. And verse 16. This is an amazing verse. Revelation 22, 16. I, Jesus,
have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the
churches. Watch it now. I am the root and
the offspring of David. Isn't that amazing? That's our
Savior. I am the root of David, and I'm
also the offspring of David. And he says, in the bright and
morning star. Who is our Savior? He's the one
from whom David came forth. And he's the one who came forth
from David. My, the mysteries of the word
of God. And this is our beloved savior. God and man join together. And he shall always be one God
man. And you can't divide him. You
can't divide him. He is evermore the son of God
joined to the Son of Man, He is the God-Man. And we know that
David was raised up, as you go back to 1 Samuel 16, David was
raised up for a glorious person, purpose, to establish the royal
line of Messiah. And if we had the time, we can
go back to the end of the book of Ruth, chapter four, where
Boaz and Ruth are married, and they have a child, and that son
grows up and he has a child, and that son grows up and he
has a child, and his name is David. David. And then fast forward hundreds
and hundreds of years, There's born in the city of David, Bethlehem, that one who is to be the king
of kings and the Lord of lords. So at this terrible time in Israel's
history, the Lord sent Samuel, God's prophet, sent Samuel to
the house of Jesse to anoint a new king, a man after God's
own heart. But Samuel didn't know who he
was, didn't know his identity. There had to be a divine revelation
for him to know who the king was. and you'll never know the
king of kings apart from a divine revelation. No man knoweth the
son but the father, and he to whom he will reveal him. Christ
is known by revelation, not by decision, not by your will, not
by answering yes to a few religious questions, not by being taken
into the back into a room and a counselor talking to you. He's
known by divine revelation. Paul says, the Son of God, Christ,
was revealed in me. That's what he said. Not just
to me, but in me. And that's what salvation is
in our experience of grace. It's when the Son of God is revealed
in us and you see His glory, you see who He is, you see what
He's done, what He's accomplished, the reason He had to die, the
preciousness of His blood, and how wonderful His righteousness
is that's freely imputed to us. You see the glory of the Son
of God. We find out that David is the
divine choice, the divine choice. But like I say, Samuel didn't
even know. He'll find out by revelation.
And I hope that all of you, I pray that all of you will find out
who the son of David is, who's the son of God, the only redeemer,
the only savior of sinners. I pray that you'll discover by
the very power of the Spirit of grace, who he is, and that
will be by divine revelation. Oh God, oh God, work in our hearts
to reveal the glory of the Son of God to us. You see, in Samuel, we have a
picture of every gospel preacher. In David, we see a two-fold picture. First of all, I would say we
see a picture or a figure of every sinner chosen by God unto
salvation. David is the elect one. David
is the chosen of God to be the king over Israel. That which
God ordained in His eternal council chambers is about to be revealed
who his choice is. It's about to be made manifest. David is a picture of us. I can't look into the Lamb's
book of life to see if my name's written there. And you can't
either. It's not my business to guess
who the elect are. If I started guessing, I'd be
kind of like Jesse, who brought forth his oldest son, Eliab. Stands head and shoulders above
everybody, saying, well, this has got to be God's elect right
here. Because, look, people will immediately
respect him. But he wasn't the one. You don't
know who God's elect are. Neither do I. That's why I preach
the gospel of the grace of God to sinners through the doing
and dying and raising again and exaltation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I'll leave it to the Lord
to plant the seed and then bring forth a harvest if that's his
will. The gospel itself, this is, it's
very encouraging to every preacher of the truth. The gospel itself,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, will search out and find
every lost sheep. The gospel will find the lost
sheep. The gospel is like a fan. The fan blows away the chaff
and leaves the wheat on the threshing floor. The Spirit of God's gonna track
down every one of God's elect, those who are the Lord's by divine
choice. The word to Samuel was, go anoint
my king. And in some ways, David represents
us. He's a picture of us because
you know what the scripture says? In Christ we're made. kings and
priests. We are royalty. All who are the children of our
God must be royalty. And we are. But neither the preacher nor
the sinner has any way of knowing who the elect are. We find out when grace works
in the heart and a person says, oh, I'm overcome with grief from
my sins and I need this savior you've been preaching about.
And I'm getting a glimpse of his glory and it's brighter than
the noonday sun. And I'll tell you when you see
his glory, then you'll know about a divine
choice It's because the Lord chose you unto salvation. And
then here we have a figure or a picture of Messiah. That passage that I began the
service by reading out of Psalm 89. You read in Psalm 89 and
you'll read about David. Turn over back to Psalm 89. Let
me just show you something here. Look at Psalm 89. And in this
Psalm, and this is typical of many of the Psalms, whenever
you read David, just read Christ, because that's who it's talking
about. The root of David. And the fruit of David. Look
here in Psalm 89 in verse 3. I have made a covenant with my
chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. And God made a covenant with
the Son of God before the world began, the Father, Son, and Spirit. A covenant of grace, all of grace. A people were loved, they were
loved eternally, chosen unto salvation. A covenant was made,
God said, with my chosen. Christ is called God's elect
in Isaiah 42. It says, I have sworn unto David
my servant, my servant. Look down at verse 19. Then thou spakest in vision to
thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. I have found David my servant. With my holy oil have I anointed
him. Remember, Samuel anointed David
with oil in his consecration. I have found David my servant,
with my holy oil have I anointed him, with whom my hand shall
be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy
shall not exact upon him, nor the son of wickedness afflict
him. And you just read right on through
the rest of the song. Here's our Savior. So David is a picture of you
and me in some ways. And in many ways, he's a picture
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's God's chosen. He was the
one ordained to lead the nation. And I'll tell you, we have a
magnificent leader. He's not only the potentate,
he's also our priest. He's not only the potentate and
the priest, he's the prophet. Oh, blessed prophet, teach me. Oh, blessed priest, you offered
the sacrifice for me. Now intercede for me from your
heavenly throne. And oh, great potentate, rule
the world and work all things in my life for good, for only
you can do that. In the few minutes that's remaining,
let me talk to you a little bit more about the divine choice
from 1 Samuel 16. I'll give you four words. The first word is commission.
Back to 1 Samuel 16, commission. In verse 1, the Lord said to
Samuel, you're back at 1 Samuel chapter 2. 16 verse 1, the Lord
said unto Samuel, how long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I
have rejected him from reigning over Israel? How long you gonna pray that
I'll reinstate him? You see, Saul wasn't God's choice. He was the people's choice. And
David wasn't the people's choice, but he was God's choice. They insisted on having a king
like the other nations had, and Saul was their choice. But Saul
was a rebel in his heart against God. And in time, that rebellion revealed
itself. In chapter 15, the Amalekites
were the enemies of Israel, and God told King Saul through Samuel,
kill them all. Kill them all. Kill all their animals. Wipe
them off the face of the earth. And Samuel came to visit Saul,
and I'll kind of sum up the story here real quick. And Samuel said,
you do what God told you to do? I sure did. And Samuel said, well, what mean
that this bleating of the sheep that I hear? Oh, you didn't kill
the sheep, did you? And what about Agag? How come
you let him live? How come you let the king live?
And I'll tell you, Samuel was a mighty prophet. He pulled out
his sword He cut that man to pieces. You read, you read there
in 1 Samuel 15. I mean, he dug into that fellow
and there wasn't much left of him. He put him out of business
totally. God rejected Saul, didn't do
what he told him to do. And now the Lord says to Samuel, Since Saul disregarded me, I
have rejected him, never was my choice to begin with. He says, I want you to go to
Bethlehem and anoint a new king. And Samuel, and I'm paraphrasing,
Samuel said, but if I tell Saul I'm going to Bethlehem and I'm
gonna anoint a new king, well, he'll put me permanently out
of business. He'll kill me. Lord said, you
go to Bethlehem, as he says here, with an animal. Take a heifer. If King Saul asked you, where
are you going with that heifer? Say, I'm going to Bethlehem to
meet with Jesse and the other people in the city, and we're
gonna have a worship service. Because you can't worship God
without a sacrifice. Now that's a standing rule. You can't draw near to God without
the blood, without an innocent victim dying in the stead of
the guilty, picturing the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then Samuel rejected Saul. And he goes to Bethlehem. God said in verse three, call
Jesse to the sacrifice and you do what thou shall do. Thou shall anoint to me him whom
I name unto thee. And then we come to the choice.
So he goes to Bethlehem to anoint the new king. Let me tell you several things
here. Just quickly. The brothers of David had no
idea he was God's choice. No idea. If you had asked them,
who's gonna rule Israel? And know, men, that the new king's
gonna come out of your family. They had City Lab. It was a total surprise to their
family members. And our Lord Jesus came to this
world, lowly, humble, meek, born in
poverty, unknown for 30 years, aside from
when he was 12 years old, going to the temple in Jerusalem. And then he began his public
ministry. And they said, who do you think
you are? You're nobody. Can any good thing come out of
Galilee? That's where you're from, aren't
you? We know your mom and your daddy. We know your brothers
and your sisters. And some of those people, by
the grace of God, found out, much to their surprise, that
that one that they belittled and spoke so harshly to was the
Son of God and the Son of David. I'll tell you somebody else,
it was a total surprise to Jesse. Why, when he heard the preacher
was coming, the prophet is coming, he sent David to watch his sheep. Can't be David. And you know, a question that
arises in my mind, wonder why he didn't have a hired servant
watch the sheep so that all of his boys could be there for the
worship service. That'd be my question. You see, David was the youngest,
and the word youngest, certainly it can mean the one who age-wise was the
youngest, but it also means the weakest one, the smallest one,
the one who didn't have much acclaim among the other brethren. It's a total surprise to Jesse. He was insignificant. David was
insignificant to his own daddy. Unimportant. Oh, how ignorant we are of the
ways of God. He's chosen the foolish things
to confound the wise. And God's own servant didn't
even know about David's election. because we look on the outward
appearance. I expect Samuel was thinking
as he looked at Eliab, firstborn, well, he can make a great contribution
to the kingdom of God. We could use a man like that
in our church. No, not him, not him. We're often surprised, preachers
of the gospel, at who God chooses. Aren't you surprised about Saul
of Tarsus? This is a guy who's going to
war against King Jesus. I'll wipe out everybody who believes
on him. I won't leave anybody. outside
the dungeons who believes in that way, that way of grace,
that way of salvation, that way of getting the glory by way of
the despised Galilean who was crucified. Who would ever thought Zacchaeus
would be one of God's elect? Or Matthew sitting at the seat
of custody. Or Peter, James, or John? Or you? Or me? As the fellow said, who'd ever
thunk it? But you know who was more surprised
than anybody? David. Me? Astonished that God would choose
him. You can read in 2 Samuel 7, 18
through 20. And basically David says, Lord,
you know me and yet you chose me. You chose me. I think Mephibosheth summed it
up best when David had chosen him to sit at the king's table
and share the blessings of the kingdom. which David did not
owe to him because he was Saul's grandson. Why shall I sit at
your table? I'm just a dead dog. I'm just
a dead dog. And then, here's the confirmation. Samuel said, these all your boys? He said, well, I got one more. He's out in the pasture looking
after sheep. Samuel said, we're not gonna
eat supper till he comes in here. Because Samuel now knew that
one he had never laid eyes on, he's one God chose. He's the
divine choice. And here's the divine designation. David comes in. And the Spirit
of God said in the verse 12, arise, anoint him. There's your
man right there. There's your man. Him? Yeah, him. And the Lord calls preachers,
preach the gospel. And then God reveals Christ to
someone's heart. And you say, that one, Lord?
That one? Yes. And then the last thing is consecration. In verse 13, Samuel took the
horn of oil, anointed him in the midst of his brethren. Oh,
right in the middle of the whole family. The other brothers looking
on. Much to their surprise, and really
much to their dismay. Because a little later, and I
may preach probably next Sunday night, preach about David and
Goliath. I'll tell you, Eliab, when David
said, you taking all this big talk from that enemy of Israel? Eliab, he put him down. He thought he put him in his
place. Who you think you are to come out here? You're not
a soldier. Go back home. Well, he's a man anointed. with the oil of gladness. He's
the one confirmed now as being God's choice as king. I'm telling
you, God has exalted his son, king of kings and lord of lords.
And there's a lot of people don't like that. They don't like the
fact he's sovereign, that he's the only potentate, but I do. Don't you? I do. I love his kingship. I love his reign because he rules
the world to fulfill God's eternal purpose and to work all things
together for the good of his elect. And we can just take it
easy and rest. And don't worry, our elder brother,
He's the king. He's going to take care of everything. And one of these days, he's going
to take us home to be with him where he is. And oh, what a wonderful
day that's going to be. Well, let's sing the closing
song.