Although I would like God to work a little faster in my life sometime. It's never my spirit. The spiritual man in me just always submits and is fine with it. It's the flesh. And that's why I.
Make light of it because I know there's no one else. Who believes in the Lord? That's any different. Our flesh always rears up in protest, it is the opposition party within. If you wanted to eat chocolate ice cream, the flesh would tell you to eat vanilla.
If you wanted to eat vanilla, the flesh would tell you to eat chocolate. It's uh how it is. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. David is the title of Pastor Rick's message, and today he'll be teaching in 1 Samuel chapter 16.
Now looking again at verse 1. He's sending him to Jesse the Bethlemite.
Well, this is the son of Obed, the grandson of Boaz and Ruth. And it's an interesting thought. He's sending him to Bethlehem. David's going to be out in the field with the sheep. Of course Samuel doesn't know this.
But The shepherds were in the fields surrounding Bethlehem. At the announcement, Of the birth of Christ.
Well, the birth of Jesus, technically, well, I don't want to spell the airs, we just go with that. And they were keeping watch over their flock. Luke chapter 2, verse 8.
Now there were in the same country, that's Bethlehem, shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Was David shepherding when Samuel comes, was David shepherding in the very same field? That would later be the place where the angels, where the messenger, the angel would announce the coming of Christ. I don't know, it's just fun to talk about those kinds of things. Very, it could have been the other side of town, but you know what?
David was on the north side of Bethlehem. They were on the east side. I don't, but. It would be consistent with the Holy Spirit, with God. To make that connection, at least in our minds, to see the possibilities.
Anyway, continuing here in verse 1, well, verse 1, am I just jotting down things, took up a page and a half. For I have provided myself a king among his sons, because nobody else could provide one. And Samuel seems to withhold this detail. From Jesse and everyone else, and David included, when he does the anointing, because he won't mention, he says I'm come to anoint him, but doesn't say what for. And they such awe, they held Samuel in such awe, rightfully so, nobody seems to dare to ask.
Well Proves they were probably all men there, because one of the women would have said, Excuse me. Why are we doing this? But the Memoley, I'm not asking him. He'll tell you, sister, but he gets mad at me.
So we have this law of contrast that pervades in scriptures where he says, For I have provided myself a king from his sons. And this follows true in life, the law of contrast. Prevail prevail uh prevails in life. And hopefully we prevail because We have chosen the king. But it was against this contrast That we find Samuel And the sons of Eli.
That was a stark contrast. They're all over the scripture. We have here the contrast of Saul's rejection. And David's anointing. We have Cain and Abel.
They have a softer one, but one nonetheless, Abraham and Lot. What a contrast. Abraham said, Lot, just pick wherever you want to go, and I'll go the other way. And that's what he taught. He said, we need to get away from each other.
Family.
So he tells him.
So, of course, what does Lot do? He looks towards Sodom and Gomorrah. And he tries to mingle it in. It's like, you know, the garden of the Lord. And he just tries to just, and it's a failure, it's a complete disaster.
But Lot was a believer. Peter says he was righteous Lot. But does the contrast exist nonetheless? There are the crucified outlaws. One got the message, the other did not.
There are the two people in the church. One is sleeping for the powerful sermon, and the other is not. Huh.
Okay.
So to retaliate, the pastor starts sleeping during the sermon. I'll get even with you, buddy. I'm... Anyway. What a contrast between Stephen and Saul of Tarsus.
Both of them exposed to the same law. One saw Christ as their Messiah, the other one hated. the person that dared make that confession. The law of contrast, they They are everywhere. Matthew twenty five, verse thirty two, All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
And we do good to know this, we do good to preach it.
Well, now we get to verse 2. Do you get another sermon? And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. But Yahweh said, take a heifer with you and say, I've...
Come to sacrifice to Yahweh. I love this. I love this because it is not what it looks like. But it is what exactly what it says.
Somewhere in Samuel's rebuke of Saul, maybe before, but the closest I can link it. When Samuel rebuked Saul For half obedience, which is no obedience, and for lying to his face. He detected, he realized, That Saul was now deadly. We're not told, but he detected that there were tendencies towards murder in Saul. even the murder of a great prophet such as himself.
Maybe it was a remark, a passing remark that Saul made. Maybe it was a squint in his eyes when he looked at Samuel just the wrong way. That alerted the prophet that there's a darker side in this man, and it is now. dominant.
Well Samuel now knew that he was dealing with a killer, One that would not kill his enemy Agag, but would not hesitate to kill him. for going to make another king. To follow the orders of God, to exercise his duty as a prophet. And so, Samuel, discerner of danger, makes this known to the Lord. And the Lord does not disagree with Samuel.
Instead, he points out the solution. To Samuel's concern.
Now, here's the fun part. He says, But Yahweh said, Take a heifer with you and say, I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. In effect, in de facto, he's agreeing with Samuel. Yeah, he's deadly. Kill you for this.
Now, God is not going to let the dirty hands of Saul do anything to his prophet. But he's not telling Samuel that, because he just does that to us. Little humor there. God's like glory. You know, one of the most upsetting parts about.
The Wizard of Oz Is that she could have gone home at any time? And the good witch knew it, which makes her a bad witch. Because you didn't tell her. Oh, Dorothy, you could always go home. I would have punched that woman.
Monkeys chasing me, straw men being ripped apart, and I could have just clicked my heels and ended this. Anyway, that didn't mean to go there. Back to this.
Some of you, if you've not seen The Wizard of Oz, this is part of your cultural education. You've got to, I mean, you've got to have a nightmare or two over that as a kid.
So those monkeys m anyway Glad the monkeys that could fly had pants on.
So Sorry, sorry.
Okay.
One commentator remarks about this. He said that. God had given a plan to deceive Saul to Samuel, and I vehemently disagree with that. I don't think God gave him a plan to deceive at all. That's character, conduct unbecoming of our God.
I know the commentator meant well, and otherwise, not a bad one, not a great, and I'm sure he picked it up somewhere else, as we tend to do. But anyway. God would simply have Samuel Do this, Saul or no Saul? And you say, well, what is the proof of that?
Well, when Samuel went to anoint Saul, it was accompanied by a sacrificial dinner. A protocol had been established. And God is telling Samuel, uphold the standard. When you anointed Saul, there was a sacrificial meal. And now I want you to anoint David?
A sacrificial meal is going to happen anyway. And it's very complicated. Pretty much solves the any, if it serves as a smokescreen, so be it. But God would have probably sent him to do this nonetheless. And I love the way Samuel brings it up, and God says, You know, I was going to send you there with a heifer anyway, but now that you mentioned it, just do this and it'll fix it.
And Samuel says, That's a good idea.
Well, anyway. Verse 3, then invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for me. The one I named to you.
Now, not all invites by God are welcomed by people who claim to be people of God. Rebels Mm-hmm. Do not rush when summoned by God. In Numbers, you know Moses is authority. How do you attack the authority of Moses?
After you see him part the sea, that should have been a deal, the sealed a deal. Like, I'm never going to talk bad about that guy. If I steal anybody's chariot hubcaps, it's never going to be Moses. He just did stuff that made you know God was with him and not that much with you. But this Datham and Abiram They they didn't see it that way.
And Moses sent to call Datham and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, We will not come up. And then they rambled on a little bit more and said, We will not come up twice. And so they went down into the ground that swallowed them up ultimately. Uh my point is just because uh righteous people Know better doesn't mean, well, not righteous people, because I'm not ready to say those men were righteous, but just because people who use the religious language.
as did Cain, doesn't mean that they are righteous. Jesse, on the other hand, was an honorable man and a good father, and And his name carries into the New Testament. He was no rebel, and his sons will get to that. When dad said something, they acted. And it's just a little subtle thing about that that shows up.
But anyway, continuing in verse 3, and I will show you what you shall do. Even a veteran prophet like Samuel. Was subject to progressive revelations of God's will. God didn't say, okay, this is what we're going to do, step one. You go to Bethlehem, step two: you take your load, got your horn of oil, you got that.
He doesn't lay it all out. He says, okay, fill the horn. Here's where I'm sending you. Here's the family you're going to meet, and then I'll tell you more when you get there. I kinda I find comfort in that.
Although I would like God to work a little faster in my life sometime, It's never my spirit. The spiritual man in me just always submits and is fine with it. It's the flesh. And that's why I. Make light of it because I know there's no one else.
Who believes in the Lord? That's any different. Our flesh always rears up in protest. It is the opposition party within. If you wanted to eat chocolate ice cream, the flesh would tell you to eat vanilla.
If you wanted to eat vanilla, the flesh would tell you to eat chocolate. It's uh how it is. Anyway, actually the flesh will say, no, eat them both and anything else you can eat.
So he says, I will show you what you shall do. As I mentioned, the progressive revelation: you shall anoint for me. The one I named to you.
Just think, some of you, you teens here. One day you're going to have kids and you're going to be giving them all these Bible stories. And sometimes they're going to be looking around. And sometimes they're going to be into it, and the cycle repeats itself, and it is a good cycle. And I am looking forward to the day when you say we want to dedicate our child in front of the congregation.
That's going to be exciting. Anyway, you shall anoint for me here in verse 3. The one I name to you. This anointing, the oil that he's taken, it's a patent solution. In Exodus chapter 30, where God gave the ingredients for the anointing of the temple and the sons of Aaron, and Aaron.
God said, You can't make this for anybody else. And if anybody else gets caught using this mixture, this particular mixture, they will be cut off from the land. And so. Uh it's Samuel being of course Having access to this, it's anointing the king, it's likely the same.
Solution. But when he says, You shall anoint for me the one I named to you. With all the hardship and the perplexities and the defeats and the failures still to come. In this king's life, he's still going to be God's anointed, and that is true for us. And so, with that part that says, You shall anoint for me, that is the Christian.
That's us. We have been chosen by God because of our submission to the gospel. our acceptance of his terms. Every election is, you know, you hear guys argue for books, books, books, the top of books about election. And an election is always based on a choice.
Else it's not an election. Yeah, I mean, you just does any you make a choice. Which one do you elect? Or let me put it in another way: which one do you choose? Do you choose the gospel message or not?
I do not believe for a moment that This election cancels out our free will. that were the case, we just You know, there'd be no such thing as a free will offering a choice or anything else. Like, I don't want to go into the Calvinist thing. Then, why'd you go into it? I don't know.
I just got to find myself there. Verse 4.
So, Samuel, listen, you younger ones that don't know about Calvin, you're not missing it, but you later on may get exposed to it. Verse 4.
So Samuel did what Yahweh said and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, Do you come peaceably?
Now you've got to love that. These guys know what he did to Agag. Just saying. That's really not really probably not the first thing on their mind, though it's in there. But here's an interesting point.
Samuel did what Yahweh said. He went to Bethlehem. He conformed to God's will. This is what God wanted him to do. And that outperforms grief.
That's what we're seeing there. The human failure, it outperforms serving God, getting up and doing what you have to do in spite of how you feel. I had to wait to do things because we know this. I mean, you're driving to work in the morning and you're in rush hour. You don't feel like doing it, but you have to do it.
Samuel's strength, one of his great strengths is he did what God told him the first time.
Now again, he said in Bethlehem, where Boaz courted and married Ruth, about 15 miles from Samuel's home. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, Do you come in peace? It's a scary unannounced visit to see this man of all the people. And if Saul showed up, they might have been, you know, certainly, you know, what's going on, but not as nervous. I think they were more concerned because Power of this prophet was legendary.
In chapter 7 and in chapter 12, I mean, he made it thunder. Who can do that? And he did other great feats as a man of God. Saul ruled as king, but Samuel was ruled by God, and that made all the difference. These people knew it.
And if God did not extend power to his prophets, They would not have been prophets. Why would anybody ever listen to them? There had to be something about these men that made them difference. Even Deborah or Deborah, you know, and she was a prophetess in Israel. There had to be some signature from God on her life, or else no one would have submitted to any of her authority as a judge in Israel.
Verse 5, and he said, peaceably, this is the answer. And we paused there. It was a big sigh of relief in the village that day.
So I've come to sacrifice to Yahweh. Sanctify yourselves and come to me. uh to the sacrifice And then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.
So he pulls them aside, he says, you know, the Lord's blessing's on you. And I want you to come to this sacrifice. And he says, go clean up, then show up. That's when he's sending everybody to sanctify themselves. You know, don't come in your work clothes.
Clean it up a little bit. This is Uh an official Gathering.
Now, the sacrificial feast was then, of course, prepared. That would mean there's some time lapse here. You have to, you know, you take the heifer, you cut its throat, you bleed it out properly, you skin it and dress it, and you get the meat, then you gotta cook the meat. First, you gotta go home and wash up and get your clothes on if you come here.
So there's a lot of time going by. If you can just read it, you say, well, it just took me like 30 seconds to read it, they were probably all there. And it took some time. Verse 6 So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, Surely Yahweh's anointed is before him. These are the sons of Jesse.
So it was, they came, the sons of Jesse. This is, you know, the chieftains of Bethlehem are gathered here, the dignitaries. Doesn't mean they're bad people at all. He says that he looked at Eliab and said, Surely Yahweh's anointed is before him.
Well, it's no surprise that Samuel expected This subject before him to be an adequate replacement. Or have adequate stature to replace Saul.
Now, Samuel doesn't know how long this stuff is going to take. It's not going to happen in his lifetime, as a matter of fact. He's probably thinking it's going to be in a week or two. I don't know. It's not going to happen right away.
But this this is very Helpful. God saw David's brothers. And he saw beyond them. To the valley of Elah, all the way past them here in Bethlehem to the valley of Elah, the battle that was going to take place. He saw Eliab at that battle.
all of his strength and stature afraid of Goliath. God saw that. As were David's brothers. As were his countrymen, and as was their king. God saw it all.
He knew one person. That day in Bethlehem, Was the one that could be king. And he wasn't going to be hiding amongst the equipment. And he wasn't going to be searching for donkeys either. that he never found, incidentally, saw.
David alone had the heart for God. And because of that, he had the courage that comes with it to face the menace when nobody else had it.
So he writes in his Psalms with the fear of the Lord, I can run against a troop. I become like a superpower, I get a superhero. David alone slew the giant, but there was so much more inside this man than the slaying of the giant. What if you take chapter 17 out of the Bible of 1 Samuel, David killing Goliath, and you just leave everything else about David? You're no less impressed.
It's just, I mean, the the giant thing is just a giant treat. But there was so much in him Just waiting to blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, or sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. I mean, that's David, Psalm 1. And on and on, he just goes, you know, I've been old, I've been young. You know, I mean he says I've Never seen the righteous forsaken or their offspring begging for bread.
He just lays out these powerful blessings throughout. He talks about the in. Psalm one ten I should have bookmarked it. In Psalm 110, he has some interesting things to say. He said, Well, the first verse: the Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.
David was a prophet. Total prophet, just as much as any other prophet, just as much as Samuel, not yet, but he's going to be. But then he talks about these other things. He says, Your Lord is at your right hand. He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath.
He shall execute. Speakers of the House, presidents and vice presidents, in the day of his wrath. It doesn't matter their position, it means nothing to him. He shall judge among the nations. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies.
He shall execute the heads. of many countries. I mean, he just continues on and on. I know, I'm getting a little excited. Because it's so prophetic.
He's looking down like a telescope down through the ages. And this is David. There's more to him than killing the giant. That God is going to squeeze out of him. and how many countless multitudes have been blessed by his words and his deeds.
Here's an interesting thing about David killing the giant. We have no psalm of him singing about killing the giant. That would have been my first song. I killed a giant, you did not. I killed a giant.
I would just be, every little kid would know that song. Rick killed a giant. We did not. But David doesn't do that. Yeah.
Here's another one I wrote while I was snow kid.
So we have a psalm of David fleeing Absalom his son. We have a psalm of David fleeing Saul. We have a psalm of David hiding in a cave. We have a psalm of David singing about pretending to be crazy in the Philistine king's court. We have him singing about battles fought, but we have no song about him slaying the giant.
What does that say? That he did sing of his struggles before God, but not his personal exploits. And he talked to me, he pled, you know, God, night and day, I'm on my pillow crying out to you: how long are you going to take before you come and answer my prayers? These are the Psalms of David. I can remember a time going through the Psalms years ago saying, oh, it's not a Psalm of David.
Almost turning my nose up to it. It's silly, right? I know, I confess it. But I just so taken by the man. Verse 7.
And Yahweh said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For Yahweh does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart. Oh boy, do we need to learn that one? How many of us judge another person?
Well, I mean, I do profile a little bit. I think it's not as long as you don't do it too much. You cannot help. to do it. I think if um I don't know if somebody comes into a store at night that I'm in and he's wearing a mask.
I'm going to be suspicious of them. A year ago you would have said, yeah, me too.
Now I go to places, I see people in masks, and I'm suspicious of them. But anyway, Here. The great prophet, this is what's powerful about this work. But Yahweh said to Samuel, do not look at his outside appearance or his physical statue, physical stature. This great prophet is subject to wrong instincts.
and misleading impulses. Samuel, if he can get it wrong, then I can get it wrong. Thus the need for humility and dependence on God. Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia.
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