The Heart Judgment
David Anointed King • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 3 viewsNotes
Transcript
1 Samuel 16:6-10 ESV
6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.”
This morning, as we continue in our series of messages from the beginning of first Samuel, chapter sixteen, we literally come to the heart of the matter at hand.
In our sermon from last week, we finished our text by speaking of how Samuel had traveled to Bethlehem and had then requested that Jesse and his sons be consecrated and were then invited to partake in the sacrifice that Samuel would make.
And as we come to our reading for today, as our reading opens up, what we see is how the sons of Jesse are introduced to Samuel.
But when Samuel sees the sons of Jesse, he immediately makes a mistake that is so woefully common among basically all people. He had immediately done what we call, “judge a book by its cover”.
Now, that saying is a common saying, more particularly, the saying is, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, and essentially, what that saying means is that you shouldn’t judge someone, or something based only on what you see on the outside or only on what you perceive without knowing the full situation.
I remember witnessing a situation just like this when I was in Junior High School. There was a particular friend of mine who I have known literally my entire life. Our dads were friends, and thus, he and I were immediately friends. And we’re still friends to this day.
Well, come about seventh grade and my friend shot up. He left sixth grade at about five feet and five inches and came back to the seventh grade at about six feet and two inches. Well, coming back to school and being so tall, the basketball coach immediately approached him and started to encourage him to play for the team once the season started.
Now, he was certainly tall enough to be an effective player on the basketball team, so long as he could couple his height with good, athletic ability. The problem though, was that my friend didn’t have good, athletic ability to couple with his height, therefore, the basketball coach found himself to be a little disappointed when he saw how my friend had performed at the first practice… he had judged the book by its cover, so to speak, but as he began to flip the pages, he found that he really didn’t like the contents.
Well, as I’ve already said, when we look at our reading for today, we see that Samuel, when he was introduced to the sons of Jesse, had done something similar. And because Samuel had done this, because he judged a book by its cover, so to speak, it would make God’s revelation in this matter all the more meaningful.
God had revealed to Samuel that He had already chosen one of the sons of Jesse to be the king who would reign over Israel in place of Saul, whom the Lord had rejected.
With this information being supplied to us, we go into our reading by looking first at verse six, which reads:
1 Samuel 16:6 ESV
6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.”
The author tells us that as the sons of Jesse came before Samuel, he immediately looks at Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab. Being the oldest son, Samuel would immediately think that Eliab would be a likely candidate for God’s selection.
But in addition to being the oldest son of Jesse, Eliab was also tall and handsome. He probably looked a lot like King Saul, who was also tall and handsome.
Thus, with this being the oldest son of Jesse and also, likely being the tallest and most handsome son, and also considering the fact that God had chosen a tall and handsome king before when He had chosen Saul, Samuel thought that he had already found whom God had set him out to anoint.
Indeed, he was so confident in the matter that he thought to himself, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him”. He didn’t think, “There is a really good possibility that Eliab is the one!” No, he thought to himself, “Surely”, “there is no doubt about it! This has to be the one whom God has called me to anoint as king”!
And of course, God is omniscient, He knows all things, so He knew what was in Samuel’s heart and He knew what Samuel was thinking. So, as we look now to the first part of verse seven in our reading, we see God making known to Samuel His determination concerning Eliab, where we read:
1 Samuel 16:7a ESV
7a But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.
God says to Samuel, “Do not look at his handsome appearance or his tall stature and conclude that that qualifies him for kingship over My people. Because while you Samuel, and many others perhaps would conclude that this qualifies him for kingship, the reality is that I have rejected him”.
Indeed, Eliab is not God’s choice, he is not the one whom God has chosen to be king over His people.
But if that doesn’t qualify someone to be king, then what possibly could qualify them?
Well, God reveals this qualification to Samuel in the second half of this seventh verse, when He continues to say to him:
1 Samuel 16:7b ESV
7b For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Now, when God says that He does not see as man sees, He is not saying that His vision is different than man’s, He can clearly see that Eliab is tall and handsome, indeed, God made him tall and handsome. No, what He means is that His standard of qualification is not in accordance with outward appearance.
Man has a tendency to look at someone’s outward appearance and immediately make certain judgments concerning that person based on that, on what they can visibly see.
We see a handsome man, or a beautiful woman and we almost immediately say that such a person is this or that based on what we outwardly see.
But God says that He judges based on what man cannot see. What God says He sees and makes His judgment based on is “the heart”.
Now, this does not mean that God is some kind of cardiologist that makes judgments concerning people based on the physical condition of their heart. No, the heart condition that God is concerned about is of a spiritual nature.
And this state of the heart is the focal point of our sermon today, so let’s take a brief look at just a couple of other biblical verses that speak of the heart.
First of all, we need to turn our Bibles over to the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter 17, and verse 9. And there we see the natural condition of every person’s heart, when God says to Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 17:9 ESV
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
So, in our natural state, apart from the grace of God, this is the condition of our hearts, of our deepest-seated affections. In our natural state, that which is most intimate and personal to us is sick and it is deceitful. Not a very pretty picture.
But fortunately, this isn’t all that there is when it comes to the heart of man. Because God, when speaking to another prophet, the prophet Ezekiel, He describes that for some people, God performs a heart transformation, or more accurately, a heart transplant. We see this in the prophecy of Ezekiel, chapter 36 and verse 26, when God says:
Ezekiel 36:26 ESV
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
So, we see a progression here. All people are naturally born with a sick and deceptive heart, but for some people, God chooses to graciously give a new heart. And this new heart is not sick and deceptive, but rather, it is a heart that loves God and longs to worship Him.
And lastly, we see the effect that those whom God has given this new heart to makes on others, in the book of Proverbs, chapter 23 and verse 15, where we read:
Proverbs 23:15 ESV
15 My son, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad.
The beginning of wisdom, we read elsewhere in the Proverbs, is the fear, reverence, love of the Lord. Indeed, we may say that the beginning of wisdom takes place when God gives us the new heart that He speaks to Ezekiel about. And when God gives His people this new heart, it affects others in a positive way.
Thus, according to our reading and according to the unified testimony of scripture, the qualification that God is looking for here is the qualification that He freely gives to whosoever He wills to give it to.
A new heart that is capable of loving God, that longs to worship God, and positively affects others.
And while Eliab may be tall and handsome, what he apparently lacks is this new, God-given heart. It would seem as though Saul, like Eliab here, also lacked this God-given heart, and so, to make Eliab king would probably be a lot like having another Saul reign as king over Israel.
And while God may have willed for that to happen before, that is not His will and His intention here. What God willed for here is to place upon the throne one who had this God-given heart, indeed, a man after God’s own heart.
And so, having rejected Eliab, what Jesse sees is that Samuel is looking for a particular son of his for a particular reason, and so, he makes all of his sons pass before him. We see this in the last three verses of our reading, verses eight through ten, where we read:
1 Samuel 16:8-10 ESV
8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.”
Now, when the author speaks of these sons passing before Samuel, he probably means that these sons approach Samuel and introduce themselves to him.
And so, here comes Abinadab, probably the second-oldest son, he comes to Samuel, but the Lord makes plain that He has not chosen him to be king over Israel.
Then comes Shammah, probably the third-oldest son, but the response is the same; the Lord has rejected him.
Indeed, seven of Jesse’s sons are present and all seven of them pass before Samuel, and all seven of them have been rejected by the Lord.
Indeed, Samuel explicitly tells Jesse that God has sent him to choose one of his sons for a special purpose, and yet none of these sons have been chosen by the Lord.
And while there may have been yet another son who wasn’t present at this time, which we will talk about next week, still, to Jesse, and to the sons of Jesse, it only made sense that if God was going to choose a son of Jesse, it would have to be one of these sons.
Why would they reason like that? Likely because they reasoned the same way that Samuel had reasoned when he first set his eyes on Eliab, the oldest. Probably because, in their eyes, if God was going to choose a son of Jesse to a special, sanctified task, it would be one of these sons.
Outwardly, they seem to be more significant than that eighth son of Jesse that we will speak of next Sunday. Indeed, they seem to be so much more significant that when Samuel told Jesse to bring his sons before him, Jesse didn’t even bother to go after that eighth son.
But though these sons seem to be a more logical choice, and outwardly more impressive, still, all of them had been rejected. And one would have to imagine that they all had been rejected for the same reason why Eliab the oldest was rejected, because they didn’t have a new, God-given heart.
Indeed, this was a heart judgment, and the heart that God was looking for was the heart that He had given to but one of the sons of Jesse.
God gives that heart, and He doesn’t give that heart based on anything that anyone does; He gives it to who He is pleased to give it to, for His own glory. It is a heart that He gives as a result of His own sheer grace. A heart that no one deserves. Indeed, it is a heart that all who will one day dwell in the New Jerusalem will possess.
Without that God-given heart, like Eliab and the other sons of Jesse, we will be rejected by God, barred entry from that holy city in the new heavens and earth.
Thus, if you have that heart today, you must know that you have received it not because you earned it, you have received it not because you asked for it or “accepted” it, you have received it because in deep, eternal love, God freely gave it to you.
And He gave it to you so that you will worship Him. Therefore, my beloved brethren, may we worship the Lord Who gave us a heart to worship Him.
Amen?
*Communion
