As we dealt with last week from
1 Samuel, the people of Israel, in a sinful way, had expressed
their desire for a king. And remember I said last week
that their desire for a king itself was not sinful because
God had promised them a king. And we looked at several scriptures
You know, they didn't have a king during the time of the judges
when they entered into the promised land and their first years in
the promised land, they had judges. And you know how that worked
out. The book of Judges closes out. It says, in those days,
there were no king in Israel and everybody did that which
was right in their own eyes. And of course, that's the way
false religion is. If you don't see the Lord as
king, and that His Word is true and His Word is sovereign, then
everybody does that which is right in their own eyes. And
you can see that in false religion. Some worship this way, worship
that way, but they're worshiping idols because they don't know
the true and living God. I'm gonna talk about that this
morning in the message about glorying in the Lord. What is
God's glory? God's glory is who He is. You say, you know, human beings,
you know, a lot of times we take pride in who we are and then
some people get a good reputation and who they are means something
to people. You know, whether they're honest
or whether they're smart or whatever, you know, rich or whatever. And
compared to God, we have no glory. But God's glory is who he is,
and whatever this book says he is and what he does, that's his
glory. I'm not gonna preach that message
twice. But that's what this is all about. And so they asked
for a king, but they wanted a king like the other nations, the heathen
nations, the ungodly nations had. And those kings, as you
know, they weren't godly men or they weren't, most of them
weren't honest men. You know, you think about the
history of royalty down through, you know, we all love to read
about royalty, you know, when Prince so-and-so or Princess
so-and-so does something and it's all over the tabloids and
everybody just wanting to hear about them, you know, and all
that. At most, if you look at the history of royalty, it's
a history of depravity and debasement, debauchery and sin. Of course,
that's the history of the human race, isn't it? And most kings,
they did like Saul. You remember where Samuel said,
now this is the king he's gonna give you, and he'll take, he'll
take, he'll take, he'll take, he'll take. And I said, it sounds
like Washington. That's what they do, they take.
but the king that God has in mind is one who's supposed to
give and give and give, and that's Christ, our king. The only thing
he took from us was our sins, which were imputed to him, our
debt. He took our debt, and he gave us his riches, and he gives
and gives. That's what grace is all about.
Well, Saul reigned about 40 years in Israel, and his reign was
marked with a lot of disobedience, God through Samuel, Samuel was
a prophet and a priest, and God through Samuel would tell Saul
what to do. Saul sometimes did what Samuel
said, but most of the time he didn't. And one of the acts of
disobedience that Saul did was an unlawful sacrifice. Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin,
And he was not a prophet. He was not a priest. You know,
those offices in Israel, prophet, priest, and king, that's a type
of Christ. Only Christ is all three. The prophet, the priest, the
king of his people. Now Samuel was a prophet and
priest, but Saul wasn't. And Saul, after he had done something
and had a great victory, or he was getting ready to go into
battle, he took upon himself to go in and offer the burnt
offering, offer sacrifice, which it was illegal for him to do.
Only the priest could do that, you see. And Saul, because he
was lifted up with pride, he said, I'll do that. And he sought
to come before, and really what that typifies is a person, a
sinner, seeking to come before God without a sacrifice, without
a priest, without the blood, the proper one. And that's a
picture of how we cannot come to God and be accepted, except
through Christ. We can't come on our own of our
own merits. And Saul was impatient. Samuel
had not gotten there yet, so he went ahead and he did this. And the sacrifice could not be
accepted. You remember there was another
king later on, much later on, who did that. His name was Uzziah.
You remember Isaiah and Uzziah? Uzziah came in and brought strange
fire into the holiest, not the holy of holies, but the holiest.
Remember, God made him a leper. And Uzziah, up to that point,
he was relatively a successful king in Israel. But that's what
Saul did. And so the king, here's the problem,
the king who was supposed to lead the people in the law of
God, in obedience, the king who's supposed to be humble before
God, and before the people, and the king who was supposed to
represent the king of kings, which is Christ, knowing that
his throne was a typical throne, because that was established
way back in Genesis 49, when Jacob blessed Judah, the king
misrepresented God. misrepresented himself. The Bible
says there's one God, one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. And so however Christ, the Messiah,
who is promised and typified through that old covenant, those
sacrifices, the tabernacle and the priesthood, however the Messiah
was represented and symbolized and typified in those things,
that's the way the prophets of Israel, the priest of Israel
and the king of Israel was to do. To come before God in any
other way but Christ is to come before him without a righteousness
by which God justifies his people, and that's damnation. Well, Christ
is our righteousness. Well, there's one thing I wanna
get into before I go into David here. Back over in chapter 15,
just look across the page, and the reason I do this is because
Ungodly religious people use verses like this to misrepresent
God, and that's what we're talking about. We're gonna talk about
Saul who, we've talked about Saul who misrepresented God,
now we're gonna begin to talk about David who represented God
right. Now not all the time in all of
his life, we know about David, we know the biography, but I'm
talking about in the initiation and the appointment of his being
king. And it says over in verse 11 of chapter 15, it says, and
Saul said, or verse 11, yeah. It says, we'll look at verse
10. Then came the word of the Lord
unto Samuel saying, now this is after Saul had done what he
did, disobeyed. And God said in verse 11, it
repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, For he has
turned back from following me and hath not performed my commandments.
And it grieved Samuel and he cried unto the Lord all night.
So God said it repented him. And then if you'll look over
in verse 35, the last verse of chapter 15, when Samuel went
up to his house in Gibeah of Saul, and it says in verse 35,
and Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death.
Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord repented
that he had made Saul king over Israel. We have God repenting.
Now, when repentance is applied to us, we think of it as a change
of mind, a change of spirit, a change of heart brought about
by God. True repentance is the gift of
God. But look over at, let me see if I got it. Yeah, look at
verses 28. Now, look at verse 28. of chapter 15. Now listen to this, it says,
and Samuel said unto him, that is to Saul, the Lord hath rent
or torn the kingdom of Israel from thee this day and hath given
it to a neighbor of thine, now that's gonna be David, and it
says that is better than thou, he's gonna give it to somebody
that's better than you. Now, does that sound like God looked
at David and said, well, he's a better man than, well, no,
that's not what it's saying, but we'll get to that in just
a moment. But look at verse 29. It says, and also the strength
of Israel. That word strength there means
eternity, means victory. That's talking about God. And
it says, the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for
he is not a man that he should repent. Now, how do you figure
that? Here God says, it repented me
that I made Saul king twice, but then it says he's not a man
that he should repent. Well, here's the explanation
of it. We don't always have to reconcile
these things that seem contradictory in our minds, but a lot of times
in the Bible, human attributes are attributed to God, not literally,
but to make a point. For example, a lot of times you'll
hear something about the eye of God or the arm of God. That's not literally, that's
talking, the eye of God is the all-seeing omniscience of God. He knows all, he sees all. Nothing
can be hid from him. He didn't have literal, what
color are God's eyes? It's not like that, see? The
arm of the Lord, that's his power. To whom hath the arm of the Lord
been revealed? That's Christ. That's not God's
literal arm. But because of our limitations
in our understanding, sometimes we have human traits and attributes
assigned to God, but it's not to be taken literal. And whenever
the Bible talks about the Lord repenting, all it simply means,
it's a statement, not that God changed his mind or changed his
purpose, We know that it was his purpose all along to do these
things. Everything that happens here
is his purpose and decree. And he doesn't change his mind.
He's not, as we talk about, that cosmic chess player who makes
his move and you make your counter move, or that cosmic janitor
who we mess it up and he comes behind us sweeping up the mess.
That's not the God of the Bible. What is simply shown in his repentance
is how much he hates sin. And that's it. We don't need
to go any further with that. But God does not repent. He doesn't
change his mind. Why would he have to? Somebody
said if you change, you either gotta change for the better,
which God cannot do because he's perfect, or you gotta change
for the worse, which God cannot do because there's no worse about
God. He's perfect, he's holy. In all that he does. So that
brings us to chapter 16. And in the first 13 verses of
chapter 16, I'm not gonna read all of these verses, you read
them. But this is the account of the Lord revealing who his
true appointed king has always been, and of course you know
it's David, the son of Jesse, one of the sons of Jesse. And
recall that Jesse, you remember Jesse, he was the son of Obed,
who was the son of Boaz and Ruth, Remember that back in Ruth chapter
four. And here's what we see here.
We see two great scriptural revelations in God's appointment of David. And I'll just read a few verses.
Look at verse one. The Lord said unto Samuel, how
long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from
reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and
go I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have
provided me a king among his sons. The king's coming from
the sons of Jesse, the Bethlehemite. And what we have in this is two
great scriptural revelations. Number one, we have revealed
here David, and that's who it's gonna be as you go down through,
the youngest son of Jesse, the most, the one that nobody would
pick, that's who God picked. That's who God set up. And so,
number one, we see David as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ as the
shepherd king of Israel. You know who David was? He was
a shepherd boy, wasn't he? He was out tending sheep when
Samuel came down and told Jesse, bring all your sons here, but
he didn't bring David. David was the youngest, and he
was out tending the sheep for his father. And you remember
what happened there. We'll go into it in just a moment.
But he's the shepherd who became king. He's the shepherd king.
That's Christ. That's a type of Christ, isn't
it? The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. The good shepherd
giveth his life for the sheep. He said, other sheep I have that
are not of this folk, them I also must bring. That's Christ. He's
our shepherd. He's our good shepherd. He's
our great shepherd. He's our chief shepherd. And
the shepherd died for his sheep. The shepherd saves his sheep.
The shepherd knows his sheep. And that's Christ. And then he's
our King. Remember Psalm 23, the Lord is
my shepherd. Psalm 24, who is the King of
glory? That's Christ. He's our shepherd
king. So we have David as a type of
Christ. That's one of the great revelations of the book of God,
the Bible, the gospel. And then the second great revelation
here is we see the human lineage of Christ narrowed down, beginning
to be realized in the line of Judah as prophesied back in Genesis
49 by Jacob, and narrowed to the line of David. He was made
of the seed of David according to the flesh. That's what the
scripture says. If you read the genealogy in
Matthew chapter one, it comes from Abraham to the line of David. He sits on the throne of David,
Revelation 22 tells us. And so Christ was prophesied
by even Isaiah to be a rod out of the stem of who? Jesse, David's
father. He came through that human lineage
according to his humanity, his sinless humanity. And as the
stem of Jesse, Isaiah said in Isaiah 11, he would establish
righteousness by his obedience unto death for his sheep, and
then he would rule over his people. He would rule over spiritual
Israel. That's every one of God's elect out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation, Jew and Gentile. So you see that. So the Lord
told Samuel, he said, go down to Bethlehem. That's also called
Bethlehem Judah. It's also called Bethlehem Ephratah. And this would later be identified
as the city of David because it was the city of David's birth.
Later on, Jerusalem would also be called the city of David because
that's where he reigned as king. So you see the city of his birth,
the shepherd, and the city of his reign, Jerusalem. Now what
a type of Christ that is, the shepherd king. And so Christ,
our shepherd king, came out of, in his humanity, he came out
of Bethlehem, the city of David. See, this is where we see these
prophecies getting more specific, to show that this is the Christ
This is where he's coming from, the tribe of Judah, through Abraham,
then from the tribe of Judah, then from the stem of Jesse,
and then David, and then out of Bethlehem. So Christ, who
is our shepherd king, came out of Bethlehem as to his sinless
humanity. He reigns as king over the new
Jerusalem in his eternal kingdom, populated by every sinner whom
God gave him before the foundation of the world and for whom he
died and redeemed on the cross. That's what the scripture says.
So all of this is beginning to speak of the person and the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he? Now, you know, as
far, if you read here in these verses, it said Jesse brought
all of his sons except one to see Samuel. And that, you know,
the one that he left out was David. And look at verse six. It says, it came to pass when
they were come, all these sons, that Samuel looked on Eliab and
said, and that's the oldest, And he said, surely the Lord's
anointed is before him. And so look at what the Lord
said to Samuel though. Now you remember he had already
said over in chapter 15 to Samuel, he said, I've got somebody in
mind that's better than Saul. And here he says in verse seven,
he says, but the Lord said unto Samuel, look not on his countenance,
nor on the height of his stature. All right, see, that's his appearance.
Don't go by appearance here. Because I've refused him. It's
not Eliab. For the Lord seeth not as man
seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord
looketh on the heart. So you see there? Now, as I said,
God had already said that I've got somebody of mine who's better
than Saul. And here's what I want you to
understand. It's true that David, David's heart was better than
Saul's. Saul had a wicked heart. I believe
Saul had an unregenerate heart. Now a lot of people would argue
with me on that. They think Saul was a believer
who just went awry, but I don't think that, but it doesn't matter.
God's dealt with Saul, and he's the judge. And so when we understand
that this boy named David, chosen by God, and he has a better heart
and he's better than Saul. All that goodness and betterment,
that better heart, that's all by God's grace. You understand
that? I mean, to go back here, we gotta
look at the whole of scripture now. And you think about David's
history and what happened with David. God didn't look down through
a telescope of time and say, look there, that shepherd boy,
he's such a good boy and a good heart, I'm gonna choose him.
You know better than that. God doesn't deal with sinners
that way. God doesn't deal with humanity
that way. The Bible says that God loved
Jacob and hated Esau before there was ever any works done by them.
We know that God's choice of anyone for anything is His sovereign
prerogative, without any consideration to who the person is or what
they would do. That's why salvation's by grace. It's all of grace. And so if
David had a good heart, I can tell you something about David.
He was regenerated by the Holy Spirit. He was one of God's elect
for whom Christ would die, And I know this about David according
to his own words. The only righteousness that David
had before God is the imputed righteousness of Christ. You
say, well, preacher, how do you know that? Well, David made this
statement in Psalm 32. He said, blessed is the man whose
transgression, whose sin is covered. or transgression is covered and
sin is forgiven, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity and in whose heart there is no God. And Paul commented
on that in Romans chapter four and he said David was saying
there, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. David knew that God is the God
who justifies the ungodly. and he knew it was all of grace.
And so we know that David, he admitted all of this. And especially,
I think he admitted it all the time, but in times of his great
sins, read Psalm 51 after David's sin had been pointed out at him
by the prophet Nathan about what he had done to committing adultery
with Bathsheba and having her husband murdered. David knew,
and look at verse 12 of chapter 16. Here's a description of David's
physical appearance. It says, and he sent and brought,
that is, When Samuel, he saw that the eldest sons of Jesse
were not the ones, he said, is there another one? He said, my
youngest who keeps the sheep. It says, and he sent and brought
him in. Now he was ruddy and with all
of a beautiful countenance and goodly to look to. And the Lord
said, arise, anoint him, for this is he. Now are we to take
from that verse that God chose David because of his goodly appearance? Well, what had God already said
back here? Look not on his countenance.
Now, David was a good looking man, a boy, you know, and he
was obedient to his father. But here's the thing. If God were to choose him on
this basis, he'd be contradicting himself. And we know that's not
going to happen. The Lord doesn't see as a man
see it. But David, even as being as goodly as he was, he was the
last one that his father considered to be the future king of Israel. Or Jesse would have brought him
up with the other children. But he didn't do that. And so,
the description of David, I believe, all these descriptions can be
applied to Christ. spiritually speaking. When it
says here that he was a beautiful count, ruddy and a beautiful
countenance. Now to the natural man, Christ
does not appear beautiful. Remember Isaiah chapter 53, man
of sorrows acquainted with the great, we esteemed him not. But
when God gives you a new heart, Christ is the most beautiful
person in all of eternity. He is the beauty of the Lord,
David wrote in Psalm, what is it, 25 or 27, I can't remember.
But David's anointing of God is described in these verses.
And then it's typical of Christ being anointed by the Father.
You remember when Christ was baptized, how the dove descended
upon him, the spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove.
And then the father spoke from heaven, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. See, that's Christ. So there we have that. And then
the rest of this chapter from verses 14 through 23, this is
when David is brought before Saul. Now David is God's appointed
king. And David was brought before
Saul and we're told the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul
and Saul was troubled by an evil spirit. This was a mental spiritual
thing that Saul was going through. We know that back then in the
Old Testament, the spirit worked providentially even with unbelievers,
but the spirit of the Lord had departed. Saul was under God's
judgment. And this would be the way of
all of us if it weren't for the grace of God, wouldn't it? We'd
be under God's judgment. It's what we deserve. But Christ,
our shepherd king, what did he do? He took our judgment for
us on the cross. Died for our sins and gave us
his righteousness as a result. Well, God had gifted David with
the gift of music and the gift of Psalms. And he brought him
before Saul, and you'll notice as you read these verses, David
didn't come before Saul and say, now look, buddy, you're off and
I'm in. He didn't do that, did he? He bowed to God's providence
in this thing. And you know it was much later
that David actually took the throne. And you will see how
Saul was stirred up against David and how he went after David and
wanted to kill David and all of that. David went through some
rough times. when he was appointed to be king
of Israel. But he didn't in pride go up and say, Saul, now you
disobeyed God and you're out, I'm in, get off the throne. No,
he came before Saul and he served Saul. And it says, look at verse
16. He says, 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 when
the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with
his hand and thou shalt be well. And Saul said unto his servants,
provide me now a man that can play well. and bring him to me. So David was gifted with music
and with Psalms and he played for Saul and that soothed Saul's
troubled spirit mentally. That's what it did. And I think
about Christ there. He's our psalmist, isn't he? He's got the music that plays
for us in the gospel. when that music plays and he
gives us a song. Worthy is the land that was slain. That's our song, isn't it? And
doesn't that soothe us in times of trouble? I know we'll go through
many times of trouble here. But here, if we see David as
a type of Christ, we can see all of these qualities that's
attributed to David. Look at verse 18. He says, then
answered one of the servants and said, behold, I have seen
a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite. Well, Christ is a rod out of
the stem of Jesse, came out of Bethlehem according to his humanity.
Cunning in plain, that means he was masterful in plain. Well, Christ is the masterful
shepherd king. What he does, he does well. He
kept the law perfectly and went unto the cross. Did a perfect
work. He was able and willing to die
for our sins. A mighty, valiant man. He had
courage. Christ set his face like a flint
to do his work. A man of war. He was a man of
war. He went to war against sin, against
Satan, against the world, against the flesh, and he conquered them
all. Prudent in matters. That means
wisdom, knowledge and wisdom. He knows it all. He knew. Bible
says he knew the hearts of men, Christ did. So he knows, he knows
us, he knows his people. And a comely person, again, that's
beauty. And as I said, the natural man
doesn't see him as beautiful. When the true Christ is preached,
the natural man rejects him. But when God gives us a new heart
to look to Christ, we look unto him, he's the only beauty we
have. He's the only righteousness we
have. And it says, the Lord is with him. Well, the Lord, he
is God manifest in the flesh. He didn't have the spirit in
measure. He had the spirit without measure. All of this applies
to Christ, our shepherd king. Okay.