Alright look back here with me
and You notice it says down here
in verse 7 You know in verse 6 Elias stood
before Samuel and he looked on Elias and and said, Surely the
Lord's anointed before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel,
Look not on his countenance, nor the height of his stature.
I refused him, for the Lord sees not as man see. For man looks
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.
You know when we look at things with our eyes, we automatically
most of the time make judgments by what we see. We look at things. And as we look at things, our
mind goes to work and goes to evaluate and goes to consider
what we're looking at. And so our vision and our sight
has such a profound effect upon our judgments, upon our things
that we evaluate. And we do that and we judge and
evaluate by what we look at. And that's why we see here all
the way, we see this all the way through the scriptures. And
you know, that's what our Lord said, if you're going to judge,
if you're going to judge, He said, judge your righteous judgment.
And so you see, and that's what happens here. And Saul, he was
a man that, boy, when you looked at him, you said, boy, this man's
a leader. He's taller than everybody, better looking than anybody.
And so that's the one that they chose. Oh, he was an imposing
figure. He was an imposing man. No, this
is what a leader should look like. But listen, he struggled. He struggled. God rejected him.
And he rejected him because he rejected God. He rejected God's
Word. He rejected God's commands. And
he rejected everything that God said to do. He did the opposite
and did not finish what God told him to do. And the reason he
did was because he was afraid of man. He had a fear of men. He said, I did it because the
people I'm afraid they'd get on me, that they would punish
me, they would judge me, they'd mistreat me if I didn't let them
have their way. And this problem here, Samuel
is in the same boat. God rejected Saul as king, and
he's still in the place of power and ruling. Oh, God's not blessing
him anymore. Look what it says down there
in verse 14 here. But the spirit of the Lord departed
from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Troubled
him. But I tell you what, God rejected
him and that means that God is not his son, is not going to
reign in his stead. And God sends Samuel to anoint
a king over Israel. God's king. And he has a mission. He has a mission that God calls
him to do. And I tell you, look what he
said there in the first thing. And the Lord said unto Samuel,
How long wilt thou mourn for Saul? He said, I reject him from
raiding over Israel. Here he is. What he's saying
is, is that Samuel? I've rejected him. You're going
to reject my will, my counsel, my purpose? Are you going to
mourn for this person after I've done told you that he's not...
I've rejected him, I'm not going to bless him, I'm not going to
use him? And you're upset with me because I've done that? Get
up! It's not time to stop from doing that. And I want you to
go and anoint a man that I'm going to show unto you. And that's
the first thing Samuel did, beloved. He was so sad over Saul. Sad
over Saul. And I tell you, because the people
had chosen Saul to be the king, that's the reason why he did
not... When men choose men, they're
choosing somebody just like themselves. Choosing somebody a failure.
They look at somebody, they look on the outward appearance just
like God said. They're looking on this outward
appearance. They looked and they saw this great big tall man.
This extremely handsome man. Oh boy, that's keen material
right there. There's leadership material right
there. And when they got him, he wasn't anything like they
thought he was going to be. And God rejected him. And so
he knew what God said. And look what it says down here
now. And he says in the latter part of that verse, Fill thine
horn with oil, and go. I will send thee Jesse the Bethlehemite. Now listen to this. Now listen
to how God says this. For I have provided me a king. They chose them one, but I provided
me. He said, this king's for me.
This king's my choice. I'm going to provide this king.
This is of my providing and I'm providing for myself. And that's
what our Lord Jesus Christ, God provided Him first and foremost
for Himself. God had to do something for Himself
before He could ever do anything for us. That's why He was called
the Lamb of God. That's why He's called the Savior. And oh my, and oh He's gonna
go down here and He's gonna anoint a new king, going to anoint a
new king. They had one, but God's going
to give them his king. And people have certain ideas
of where a king is supposed to be. But they anointed one that
when he was going to go down there, he was going to anoint
a king for God. God said, this is my king. I'll
provide me a king. And God provided himself a king. And he set him on his throne.
And oh, look what happens now. But I tell you this king, David,
that he's fixed to anoint. He's just a shadow. He's a type. He's a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ, God's king. You know, Herod wanted to kill
him and sent men to kill him. But for every child under two
years old, because he heard that he was born king of the Jews,
have been born. And he said you go down and kill
everybody under two years old. He wanted to kill that king.
Kings don't want to give up power. But our Lord Jesus Christ is
not a king like these earthly kings. And I tell you what, here
Samuel, he had to do what God said. Saul was rejected, a new
king is going to be anointed. The old is gone. God is going
to bring in the new. And look what else happens now.
He gets afraid. He gets afraid. Now he has fear.
Even prophets have fear. We all have fears. And Samuel
said, how can I go? How can I go to Bethlehem? How can I go down there and anoint
a king? Samuel said, how can I go? If
Saul hears it, he'll kill me. Saul hears me going down there
to anoint a king. He will kill me. I got on his
way down there. He had to go through where Saul
lives, who is Saul's hometown. And he finds out I'm going down
there to anoint a king. He will kill me. Now you know
what this tells you something about Saul. A man that has such
hatred and such animosity and such arrogance and such pride
as he got older and that he said, that Samuel said, that man has
such a sinful disposition, such a mean disposition that if he
knows I'm going down to anoint another king, he'll kill me.
He'll kill me. And ain't that the way they felt
about our Lord Jesus Christ? Oh, how many times did they lay
wait for him? How many times did they try to
tempt him? How many times did he say, mine hour has not yet
come? Oh, this is a sin and corruption
in Saul. And Saul will do about anything
to hold on to his power. So what does God tell him to
do? What does God tell him to do? Verse 2, And the LORD said,
Take a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to
the LORD. you say oh my this is a story
that God provided so that when he went down through there now
listen this is a pretext I'm telling you you know but what
God does is right God cannot possibly do wrong God cannot
sin but he said I'll tell you how you can get down there and
Saul will never know what in the world is going on and he
just gave him just the right information God said this is
what you do take you a heifer and go down to Bethlehem and
if anybody asks you where you're going said I'm going to go make
a sacrifice to the Lord down in Bethlehem Don't tell him any
more than that. And that's what he was going
to do. He was going to go down there and offer a sacrifice.
He's going to go down there and he's doing what he said he's
going to do and he does what he said he did. Was going to
do. Offer a sacrifice. And that's why when Saul didn't
find out about, well where's Samuel going? He's got a heifer
I reckon he's going to go sacrifice. And oh my, look what happens
now here. And he said in verse 3, Call Jesse and here's the thing
we sacrifice to the Lord Christ became our sacrifice to the Lord
and called Jesse to the sacrifice and I'll show you what you should
do and what you're gonna do and you shall anoint him whom I name
unto thee and So they say down there in verse 5 for Samuel did
which that which the Lord spake. Oh My he done what God said He
done what God said. God said go, he went. God said
take a sacrifice, he did. God said to go. And then he got
down there and he said in verse five, in verse four they said,
and Samuel did that which the Lord spake and came to Bethlehem.
He did just exactly what God told him to do. And the elders
of the town trembled at his coming and said, Comest thou peaceably?
Why would they tremble? Has he come down here to judge
us? Has he come down here to condemn us? If we sin, does Samuel
come down here? Is God sending him down here
to judge us? God sending him down here to
offer a sacrifice? What have we done? They trembled. Because when a prophet come among
them, they said, My, is he down here to condemn us? See down
here the judges that we sent and God sent him down here to
reprove us and rebuke us. That's what they were worried
about. Oh, that's what they were worried about. If you come peaceably
or if you come to stir up trouble, if you come to set up and then
judge all of us, you come to condemn us, if you come to call
our sin to remembrance, is that what you've done? so he obeyed
and then this town Bethlehem this town Bethlehem a thousand
years later thousand years later there was going to be a child
born in this same town and the angels
the shepherds were out on the side of the hills doing just
what David was doing when he had to come in out of the field
tended sheep and they saw this great light they saw these angels
singing and they got afraid and an angel said to them fear not
for unto you is born this night in the city of David in Bethlehem
a Savior which is Christ the Lord Glory to God in the highest
and on earth, peace and goodwill toward men. God said, I've got
goodwill toward men and I've got peace to give to men. And
that goodwill and that peace was in a savior, Jesus Christ,
born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger and wrapped in swaddling
clothes. That was the one that God sent
here to do. The son of the highest sent him
here to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, and do
for all them of the Old Testament saints. Oh my, thank God, thank
God that there was a time and a place where Christ came into
this world. Somebody asked me the other day,
I forget, who was it asked me, said, do you know any pastors
under 50 years old now? I said, they're all getting old.
And I thought about that a few minutes. I said, well, Dave Starnaker,
Joseph Murphy out in Texas where Jack was, and Paul, not Paul,
Clay Curtis, he'll be 50 his next birthday. And another preacher,
when we dealt with that, he said this, he said, God ain't raising
up no new preachers. There's no young preachers being
raised up. One or two here and yonder, a
couple in Todd's church, but a pastor, to be a pastor's material,
be called of God to pastor a church. He said, they're just not hacking
it. So he said, you know what that tells me? That tells me
if God ain't raising up young pastors and young preachers,
that He's gonna come. I said, that makes sense to me. You know, we're all getting older.
David Pech is 80 years old, still preaching, still pastoring, and
you can't tell any difference in him now than it was 30 years
ago. Now who's going to step in his
shoes when he's gone? That's what we're talking about
here. And I'll tell you what, but God's
always got somebody somewhere that he's going to use. And all
have thanked God that our Lord Jesus Christ came. And since
He came then, He said, the way you see me leave, when they stood
outside Jerusalem there on Mount Olivet, and they watched Him
ascend up through the clouds, those two angels stood there
and said, you men of Israel, why stand you gazing? This same
Jesus shall come back just like He left. And that'd be alright
if he'd come, you know, be alright if he'd come tonight as far as
I'm concerned. Be changed in a moment in the
twinkling of an eye, raised up to meet the Lord Jesus Christ
in the clouds of the air. That'd be much better than going
through the grave just to be changed right here. Blink your
eye and you're a different person. He can't snap your fingers. It
takes longer to snap my fingers than to have a twinkle of an
eye. Well then he comes to anoint
David. He comes to anoint the king. And so he told them there
in verse 5, he said, I've come peaceably. Yeah, I've come peaceably. I've got no arguments with anybody.
Didn't come to condemn nobody. Didn't come to judge you. Didn't
come to call your sin to remembrance. He said, I've come to sacrifice
unto the Lord. I've come to worship God. I've
come to come into the presence of God by blood sacrifice I've
come to come into the presence of Christ by sacrifice and he
said sanctify yourselves set yourselves apart and come with
me to the sacrifice and he sanctified Jesse and his sons and called
them to the sacrifice oh my Well here we go, here's this looking
I'm talking about, the way we view things, the way we view
things. And it came to pass in verse
6, when they were come, Jesse and his sons came to the sacrifice. They see him with that horn of
oil, he had a horn that was full of oil. the old of the apothecary and
all he said and then it came to pass he said here's my son
alive here's my son alive he's like like Saul big old strapping
boy big old tall husky handsome man well built look great and
he looked on alive And here he did, he done just like they did
with Saul. This is where we are. He looked
at him and said, boy what a, boy that, surely, surely this
is the Lord's anointed. This gotta be him. He's too handsome,
he's too tall, he's too, he's just got, he's got everything,
every quality that somebody needs to be a king. Surely the Lord
has anointed this before him. But now look what happens now.
And this is where we... He was judging by the wrong standard. And we do when we do that. We
judge by the wrong standard. Whenever we just judge something
strictly with our eyes. Strictly with our eyes. Without
considering the whole situation. And the Lord is going to teach
Samuel something here. Going to teach all of us something
here. And the Lord said unto Samuel. Jesse didn't hear him. Nobody else in that house heard
him. The Lord said unto Samuel, Samuel don't look on his countenance. Don't look on his face. Don't
look how handsome he is. Don't look at his hair and how
thick it is and how dark it is. Don't look at his countenance.
Don't look at his countenance. Don't look at his eyes. Don't
look at his countenance. Don't look how tall he is. Don't
look at the height of his stature, don't look at how tall he is.
Now this is reason, because I refused him. I don't look at people,
that's why God said, I don't look at people the way men look
at people. And what did God say? For the
Lord sees not as man sees. Wouldn't you love to be able
to see by faith really see things by faith the Lord sees not as
man sees for man looks on the outward
appearance but the Lord looks on the heart
he looks past us past us past our countenance past our work
ethics, past how much we have and how much we don't have and
he looks on the heart. And he looked in Elias heart
and said that's not him. He looked and he looked and I'll
tell you what, we tend, most of us, make our judgments on what we
can see with our physical eyes. What we're looking at is not
all that we can see. What if it's not what we can
see? What if the truth is just barely out of sight? And that's
the way it was here. What we do, and this fellow said
this, we are too often impressed by the impressive. We're too
often impressed by the impressive. I hope I say this right. I hope
I say this right. You know, people that want to
be impressed and want to impress people, they do it with things. They try to impress them with
homes, million dollar homes, real expensive cars, real expensive
clothes, They do these things to impress other people. And we're easily impressed with
those kinds. Boy, that fella, he's got it
going on, don't he? If you don't know Christ, he
ain't got nothing going on. He's just living in a house,
just driving a car, and fooling, he's impressing himself more
than impressing anybody else. You know what? Me and Todd Nibers
talked about this, and I believe I've told you this before. You
know what impresses me more than anything in this world? And I believe every preacher
is this way. A person's relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. If
I'm with a person, I don't care what kind of house they live
in, what kind of car they have, that don't be the end of the
equation. The equation is, what kind of fellowship do we have
in Christ when we're together? Why do we enjoy one another in
Christ? And that's the thing that we
look at. What's your relationship with
Christ? And so you know that's why we go by and see Joe and
Bruce, because we have this wonderful fellowship in Christ. And then
when you go to these meetings, you see all these people, they've
come from all over, and they went to great expense to come
to hear the gospel. That's impressive. What do you
think about Christ and your relationship with Christ? What's impressive?
Do you care about the Bible? Do you care about truth? Do you
care about your relationship with Christ? Do you care about
hearing the gospel? Do you care about the fellowship
of the saints? And that's what we look at. We
look on this outward appearance, but oh my, Whenever you're with
it, the two most enjoyable things, and I know I've told you this,
the most enjoyable thing that for me in this world is to sit
and hear the gospel like I did last weekend. Oh, to sit and
hear God's word. And I don't care which one of
them is preaching it, they all preach the same thing. And I
was blessed by everything everybody said. And the second thing, that my
second most enjoyable thing in this world is to be with the
Lord's people and fellowship with Him. Sitting, being with
Him and enjoying Him. I'd like to enjoy you all. That's
why we get together every opportunity we can. We may have to do it
around the meal, but we try to get together. Oh my! We need to see like God
sees. And you know what, when we see
like God sees, you know what that's called? That's called
faith. Faith. Faith is not a hand that
reaches out and takes its eyes and see. Abraham went out not
knowing where he went, but you know what he was looking for
all the time? He was looking for a city. All the time he was out there
rambling around in that tent, he was looking for a city. What city are you looking for, Abraham?
A city that God built. I'm looking for a city that God
laid the foundation and I get to live in it. And oh, they went
out clearly, they said, clearly, clearly, There's something in
front of me. And they said if they could have
been mindful there, they would have turned around and went back.
But oh my, where are we going to go back to? Go back to sin? Go back to rebellion? Go back
to darkness? No. No, no. And I'll tell you what. They that say such things declare
plainly that they have a city whose builder and maker is God.
That's what we're looking for. We're looking for Christ and
we're looking for a relationship with Him and we need our hearts. And that's why he's saying here,
God looks on the heart. And I know we can't look at one
another's hearts, but I do know this, that watching the heart
is going to come out the mouth. Watching the heart is going to
come out in your actions. Watching the heart is going to
come out in how you treat people. Watching the heart is going to
come out in how you regard God's word. Watching your heart is
going to manifest itself. Oh, it's a hard lesson for us
to learn. But God's given us His Word and God's given us His
Spirit that we, by His blessed grace, might see as He sees.
And I tell you what, if we don't see Him, if we don't see Him,
we may miss God's anointed, David, and then we may miss God's real
anointed, Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, and I don't want to miss
Him. Don't want to miss Him. Don't want to miss Him. And think
of all the ways, think of all the ways that we evaluate and
look at things primarily on the outward things. You know, when
you're looking for somebody to marry, the first thing you're
looking for, why they look like you. When you see somebody good
looking, nobody looks for an ugly woman. No woman looks for
an ugly man. Just don't do that. I don't mean
to be funny, but you know, we was all better looking when we
was younger. But you know, you go through
life and you go for a while and you meet all these people and
all of a sudden, lightning strikes. And when it strikes, you know
it and she knows it. And you don't consider anything
else after that lightning strikes. But there has to be this thing
with the eyes. And oh my, when we're looking
for a leader, We look, first of all, what they
look like, how they act, you know. When we judge a church,
when we judge somebody's ministry, we do it on our end. I know when
I go in, I went in services before and I say, boy, how in the world
does a preacher keep from being discouraged with so very, very
few to preach to? I know a couple of people that,
I preached for them one Sunday
morning, Five people, it was all in the building. And the
building is just about as big as this and almost. One day.
Five people. But that preacher, he's just
as faithful. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
And if there ain't but two or three there, like Wayne Boyd
did, he preached to his wife and his son lots of times when
nobody showed up. And he'd go ahead and preach.
Go ahead and preach. I'm going to stop and tell you
a story. There's this fella. The preacher is going to preach
and he is ready to go and ready to preach and for some reason
folks didn't show up and there was one old farmer showed up.
One old farmer showed up. And that preacher said, well,
you know, ain't nobody here but you. You want to just call the
services office and go home? And he said, no, no, no. He said,
I'm a farmer. He said, if I got anything to
feed, I had to feed it. And so, you know, I'm here. You're
here. You ready? He said, I am. So
just go ahead and preach to me. And he preached and he preached
and he preached and he preached. And when he got done, he said,
preacher, He said, when I go out to feed my animals, I take
a bucket of feed, and I give one bucket to a whole bunch,
but you gave your whole bucket to one. And so I get a full bucket,
but one don't get it all. Somebody told me that the other
day. But now watch what happens now. And so we go on down here
in verse 8. Then Jesse called Abinadab and
made him pass before Samuel. And he says, neither hath the
Lord chosen this. Then Jesse said, well here's
Shammah. He walked by in front of Samuel. All of them walking
in front of Samuel. Letting Samuel be the judge. And he said, neither hath the
Lord chosen this. And when it comes by here, there's
a procession. Seven sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, the
Lord's not chosen any of them. Huh? And oh, I mean, this went
on for a long time. You know, one after another,
after another, after another. He rejected all of them. Seven
sons, seven no's. Seven no's, not chosen. Minutes
passed, hours maybe. No, no, no, no, no, until what
you said now. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are
these all your children? Are these all your sons? Are
these all your sons? And he said, Well, there remains
yet the youngest. There's the baby of the family.
That's what he said. And behold, he keeps the sheep.
He's not even important enough to be around here in the house.
And he keeps the sheep. And what now, Lord Jesus Christ,
that he called the chief shepherd, the good shepherd, and the great
shepherd? Oh, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. And he keeps the sheep. And Samuel
said unto Jesse, send and fetch him. When God says send and fetch
him, He means get him and fetch him. Keep coming. It's like when
David said, go fetch him. Go fetch Mephibosheth. Send and
fetch him. We're not going to sit down.
We're not going to sit back down. We're not going to do anything
until he gets here. Until he gets here. And he sent
and brought him in. And oh yes, here comes the shepherd
in. Here comes the shepherd in. and
all he sent and brought him in, brought him in before Samuel.
Now he was ruddy and withered of a beautiful countenance. Now
he is a nice looking young man and that of a beautiful counsel
means he's fair of eyes and goodly to look to. Oh my! But all these things being handsome,
being a ruddy complexion and being Beautiful to look at beautiful
countenance and beautiful eyes. There's all those things. Is
that what qualifies him to be king? No, and the Lord said arise
anoint him for this is he No, you know why he's fit to be king Is because God gave him God chose
him God chose him for himself. God chose him for his people.
God chose him for his throne. And God enabled him to do the
work of a king. And our Lord Jesus Christ, God
chose him for himself. This is my beloved son. I'm well
pleased in him. I gave him a work to do. And
he said, Lord, I finished the work you sent me to do. It's
done. And when he said it is finished,
it was. And he was chosen by God for us to be our Savior. He is chosen by God to sit on
the throne. And God enabled him to do his
work. And look what happens now there
in verse 13. Then Samuel took the horn of
oil, turned it up on him, and anointed him and all his brothers
standing around. All the brothers, he takes that
oil and starts pouring it over David. And when he did that,
look what happens. The Spirit of the Lord came upon
David from that day forward. Samuel said, I'm done, so he
left. And I tell you what, he was already a believer. And the
Spirit of God came upon him. And it's going to be 10 long
years before he ever ascends the throne. And in those 10 long
years, God's going to prepare him, trouble him, give him trials
and troubles and testings. And God's going to make out of
him. And he compares every king after David to David. Don't he,
Gary? Every king after David to David. They didn't serve God, didn't
worship like David did. He's a king after David. Noah,
nothing like David. God compared every king after
this, after David. And now, no, God don't compare
anybody to his blessed son. And there's gonna be hard days
of darkness for this young man. But beloved Samuel, sent and
anointed this king and the thing is that he did it because it
was God's choice they had their choice and look what happened
and God thank God that God if he looked on the outward appearance
on the outward appearance and on what we did that boy he looks
and you know what he looks on a heart that he himself put inside
us. He said, I took out the stony
heart and I put in a heart of flesh. I put in your heart to
know me. So he's looking on a heart that
he himself gave you. All right. Our Father, in the blessed name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, Thank You for allowing us to meet here
tonight. Thank You for Your precious Word. Our prayer is a blessing
to Your people. Lord, help us to see by faith,
not look so much on these outward things. Oh Lord, don't let us be impressed
with this world and the things of it. Help us to be a heart
fixed on You to walk by faith and not by sight, to lift our
eyes up to you. Whom have we in heaven but thee,
and who do we desire on earth besides you? God, please work
that in our hearts and in our minds. God bless these dear saints
as they go their ways. Meet the needs of those who we
prayed for, Bruce and Joe, Kyle and Annie, Bill and Dorothy.
Oh Lord, God bless them. Meet their needs for Christ's
sake. Amen.