The One God Cares About

When your child brings a friend home, what is the first thing you notice? Do you wonder how big the family’s apartment is, or what the parents do for a living? Or do you try to talk with the friend so you can see what kind of heart they have? Perhaps you might care most about whether the family is well off. And though you dislike the way the friend behaves, you might tell your child to stay close to them after hearing that the family is rich. You may even persuade yourself that this worldly attitude is a parent’s love, helping your child find good friends. But it is the evil of the human heart, wrapped up as love. Parents must always pay attention to whether their children are making the right friends; but urging them to choose friends by the world’s standards is feeding them poison, and it stands in the way of God’s helping them.

Even if we go to church, as long as we cannot overcome the human nature lodged deep in our hearts, we will make the same choices the people of the world make. Life in the world has a great effect on our spiritual walk, and so we must strive every day to cast off greed and lust. That calls for sound judgment: we must keep our distance from the circumstances and people that hinder our faith, yet still do our utmost to bring those very souls to Christ.

What I want to say is this: a moment’s poor judgment can bring down your faith, and a friend can lead you onto a path of disobedience you never wanted. Relationships matter, then, but you need the wisdom of the word. You must beware not only of people whose hearts are wicked, but also of those who are kind at heart yet will never receive Christ, because if you cannot keep a firm distance, your faith may crumble. I am not telling you to quarrel with them. Keep on good terms, but stay on guard so that they cannot unsettle your walk with God. With the people around you, look at the spirit rather than the outward appearance, and see whether their words and deeds agree. Only then can you stand firm, unshaken in faith.

In 1 Samuel 16, when God told Samuel that he had appointed one of Jesse’s sons to be anointed and sent him to find him, even Samuel, who had served in God’s work for so long, ended up looking for a king by outward appearance. Samuel knew the heart of God, yet there he was, studying the looks of Jesse’s sons and wondering, ‘Could this be the king?’ That scene shows how hard it is for a person to be truly born again. The chapter also depicts Saul, made king without the training of hardship, failing to live by God’s will and at last collapsing under human greed and lust. Chapter 16 sets these two accounts side by side to show us that God goes on with his work regardless of Samuel’s misjudgment or Saul’s pride.

In verse 1, Yahweh rebuked Samuel, who was grieving day after day: he had already rejected Saul, so how long would Samuel go on despairing over him? People are bound to one another less by interest than by affection. When someone you have prayed for and cared for with all your heart leaves God and leaves you, the time you spent loving them makes it hard to let them go. I feel this too. When a church member I have loved turns away coldly, there are times I want to close my heart in return; but because of the hours I have spent praying for that person’s soul, letting go does not come easily, and the wound runs deep. Just as Samuel wept and prayed for Saul even though he knew his sin, I keep on praying because I cannot let go, and at times God tells me that for someone who keeps going back and forth between faith and the world, suffering is a blessing — and that I must give them up without sentiment.

Samuel clung to Saul’s soul, grieving and weeping, most likely because he longed for Israel’s first king to stand upright. But God, who sees much farther, had to do his work through David; that is why he told Samuel to stop grieving. Though Samuel wept for Saul, God would not listen; nor would Saul turn back, however Samuel urged him. So God commanded him to settle his heart and to make David king for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

God said that he had found a king for himself among the sons of Jesse the Bethlehemite. When Saul, who had received God’s special blessing, turned his heart toward the world, God’s attention turned to David, the son of Jesse who was living by faith. Here you must see the providence of God. After the prophet Malachi, four hundred years of darkness covered Israel, and at the end of that darkness God prepared the birth of Jesus the Messiah. The deeper the darkness, the brighter the light shines.

When Saul fell away, failing to hold his throne by faith, God was already preparing David to raise Israel up. Saul was plainly still on the throne, yet God said he had rejected him; and though God could not yet make another man king, he had already set a king in place elsewhere. No one, however deep their spiritual life, can fully grasp this providence of God. We must therefore meditate deeply on the word and live it out.

Eli was a priest, yet when he fell into corruption, God raised up Samuel himself. Had Samuel remembered that, when Saul fell, God would again appoint someone else, he would have recognized David at once. Whenever the judges fell away, God promptly prepared another judge and had that judge deliver the nation. If I, as a pastor, stopped preaching the word of truth and preached falsehood instead, God would cast me aside for the sake of Watercourse Church and the souls of its people. Yet because I would still be the pastor of Watercourse Church so long as I did not resign, to others nothing would seem to have changed. God, however, would no longer recognize me as a pastor. A ministry without God’s approval means nothing. Saul was certainly the king of Israel, but he did not have God’s approval. He sat on the throne, but earthly wealth and glory, enjoyed apart from God, are nothing but rubbish.

Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint a king. Jesse lived in Bethlehem, a name that means ‘house of bread.’ It was there that Jesse was born, the son of Obed, whom Ruth the Moabite woman bore to Boaz, and Jesse had eight sons. The youngest of the eight was David. God had chosen David as king but had not told Samuel his name, so Samuel had to meet every one of the sons. Our own lives are like that. God chooses, God leads, and all of it lies within his plan, yet because he does not tell us in advance, we have to go, and look, and endure. But because God has already given it, only those who obey receive it.

When God told Samuel to anoint Saul, he called him a prince; but when David was to be anointed, God said king — melek. God’s heart toward Saul and toward David was very different. Both men were living out their own lives, but God, who saw how they lived, dealt with them this differently. To human eyes both were kings alike; yet depending on the faith each held, one became a rejected king and the other an ancestor of Jesus.

In verse 6, when Samuel saw Eliab, the young man was so handsome and impressive, like Saul, that Samuel wondered whether he was the one God had chosen. Samuel had spent his whole life laboring in God’s work, yet he too was not without flaw. If we cannot let go of human thinking, we will end up in the seat of the sinners who sang Hosanna while Jesus worked miracles and then forsook him when he took up the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:16

16Therefore we know no one after the flesh from now on. Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.

Everyone, the apostle Paul included, refused to believe when Jesus, so lowly in appearance, said that he was the Son of God, Lord of the Sabbath, and the temple. But when they saw that he had carried the cross, risen from the dead, conquered death, and ascended, they believed that he was the Christ. He had seemed far too poor to be the Messiah: born a carpenter’s son, without learning, insignificant and lowly. Yet when Jesus overcame death and rose again, all who believed in him ceased to judge him by the world’s standards.

When Samuel looked at Eliab’s appearance and height and thought this man was surely the king God had chosen, God, reading his thoughts, told him not to look at the young man’s outward appearance, for he was the God who looks at the heart. Consider the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector as well. People praise the Pharisee who boasts of his faith, but the Lord commended the faith of the tax collector, who confessed his weakness and gave thanks for the leading of the Holy Spirit. When you deal with people, which do you care about more — the outward appearance or the heart? If you judge people only by their schooling, wealth, and looks, God would tell you that outward appearance can easily deceive, and that you should look at the heart, as he does.

All seven of Jesse’s sons passed before Samuel, but God chose none of them. Samuel knew God well, and he sensed that the one chosen to be king was not there. When he asked Jesse whether all his sons were present, Jesse said there was still the youngest, who was keeping the sheep. Why would a father leave out his youngest, David, at so important a moment? Jesse acted this way because he considered David too young and too weak to be king.

God caused the mistakes of both Samuel and Jesse to be recorded in chapter 16 so that through their mistakes he might spare us our own. He is telling us to look carefully: is anyone being passed over because they seem young in your eyes, incapable in your eyes, someone who in your eyes could never do it? Even his father left David out, convinced that he was too young ever to be king, but God chose David, a man of faith. God looks only at the state of the spirit; he knew the David who would be transformed after his training, and for that reason chose him as the great king who would build a united kingdom. Is there anyone to whom your worldly judgment has not given even a chance? If you look not at what they are right now but at the soul that will be born again once you have taught them the word and trained them, you will not be able to cast anyone aside lightly.

From the day in verse 13 when Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed David, Yahweh’s Spirit came mightily on David, and he was given power and wisdom. When God came down upon a lowly bush, that bush became a thing of awe to Moses; in the same way, when the Holy Spirit came upon David, who had done nothing but tend sheep and run errands for his brothers, he began to see the world with different eyes and overflowed with wisdom and fullness.

1 Samuel 16:14

14Now Yahweh’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh troubled him.

From the beginning, humanity has been under the dominion of evil spirits; but when Yahweh pours out the Holy Spirit, we are no longer under their sway. Saul, however, lost Yahweh’s protection through his own sin, and an evil spirit ruled him once more.

Now the meeting begins between Saul, who has left God’s protection and is afflicted by an evil spirit, and David, whom God has chosen. Spiritually, the situation could hardly be more serious; in worldly terms it is simply a meeting between an earthly king and a shepherd boy. Samuel described David as ruddy, with fine eyes and a handsome face, and when one of Saul’s servants introduced him, he called him skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person. From all this, David certainly seems to have been an exceptional young man.

When the evil spirit tormented him beyond bearing, Saul summoned David, with whom God was, and had him play the harp. David had not prepared in expectation of such a day, but he had always labored faithfully, and that labor made him ready. Like David, may you be made ready by a life of steady faithfulness.

A shepherd could never meet a king; yet God himself sent David to King Saul, and in that we see that God governs all things. It was not people who exalted David. God saw that David was ready and led him on just as he had planned. Because God always works through people and circumstances, you too must live faithfully and honestly, with a heart that is always prepared.

David’s playing on the harp did not in itself drive away the evil spirit that tormented Saul; the spirit left when Yahweh’s Spirit helped David. This is the very reason God’s people can prevail when they wage spiritual war against the world. Just as David received power and drove Satan off, when we boldly proclaim the word, Satan will release the pitiful souls he afflicts and withdraw.

The Holy Spirit is helping those whose faith obeys the word. Even if their opponent is a king of this world, those whom God helps have nothing to fear, and they can drive off the spirit of Satan as well. I hope you, too, will set the word at the heart of your life and, like David — precious to God, a man of high character in body and spirit alike — be approved by God.

May your life always be precious, kept under God’s protection through faithfulness. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 17:37-49

37David said, “Yahweh who delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go! Yahweh will be with you.” 38Saul dressed David with his clothing. He put a helmet of brass on his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. 39David strapped his sword on his clothing, and he tried to move; for he had not tested it. David said to Saul, “I can’t go with these; for I have not tested them.” Then David took them off. 40He took his staff in his hand, and chose for himself five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag which he had. His sling was in his hand; and he came near to the Philistine. 41The Philistine walked and came near to David; and the man who bore the shield went before him. 42When the Philistine looked around, and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and had a good looking face. 43The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” The Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.” 45Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you, and take your head from off you. I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines today to the birds of the sky, and to the wild animals of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh doesn’t save with sword and spear; for the battle is Yahweh’s, and he will give you into our hand.” 48When the Philistine arose, and walked and came near to meet David, David hurried, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 49David put his hand in his bag, took a stone, and slung it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.