“For Myself a King” (Part 1 of 2)

How does God determine who He'll use for His unfolding purposes and how He'll use them? Today on Truth for Life, we begin a new series in the book of 1 Samuel. We'll see how God chose a new king for Israel after the first choice, King Saul, had failed. Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses of 1 Samuel chapter 16. We know from what we have studied that the people's choice of a king, which had been motivated by their desire, you may recall, to be like the nations around them, was actually a rejection of God as their king.

When Samuel was responding to the initiative on the part of the people, he actually took it personally. He felt that somehow or another their reason for asking for a king was because they had decided that he was too old, he was too doddery, he was no longer good and sufficient as a leader. And God had said to Samuel, No, you need to understand something, Samuel. It is not you they're rejecting.

It is actually me. So we have this strange paradox that in their desire for a king, they are rejecting the one who is king. And in the king they have, they discover that this is a king who disobeys God. What possible chance is there for a people who have a king now who actually disobeys God who is the real king? And so, what we discover is that God says, Well, now, for myself, I have chosen a king.

So, you see, despite his beginnings, despite the fact that he was big and tall and handsome, had floundered, and he had failed, and he was rejected. In chapter 15, you just need to turn one page, and you will see that there in verse 26. Samuel, in responding to Saul's request for his companionship, says, I won't return with you, for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel. And quite graphically, in the interchange that happens with the tearing of his robe, Samuel uses that immediately as a metaphor, and he says in verse 28, The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day, and he has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

That little pointer now, sending us forward as readers and saying to ourselves, I wonder who this one will be who will replace him. Now, the chapter ends, as you will see, with Samuel grieving over Saul. That's what we read in the final verse of 15.

And since there is no break in the original text—the chapters have been put in by the editors so that we might have a sense of balance in what we do—it's no surprise that 16.1 is still about the grieving of Samuel. And the question that is posed by God is a fair question. He doesn't ask him, Why do you grieve over Saul? God would understand this.

But he asks him, How long will you grieve over Saul? Now, if we think about this just for a moment, we recognize that, as the writer to the Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time to mourn, and there is a time to dance. In other words, in the unfolding story of life, God has provided for us, within our psychology, within our personality, within our physical being, mechanisms for both joy and for sorrow, so that we respond to circumstances in light of how they affect us.

And what becomes perfectly clear here is that Samuel is not some distanced prophet from all that has unfolded. He is the one who brings the very Word of God to bear upon these people and upon their lives, but he is not removed from the events themselves. He knows that God has done great things for the people, and so it grieves him to see the people as they are. Saul's failure grieves him. It's an occasion of sadness for him. The role of the shepherd is not the role of condemnation when those in whose company they live stumble and fall. The role of the shepherd is a grieving role on account of the fact that if it means anything for us to be united in heart and mind and purpose, then it has to mean something when those whom we love and for whom we have affection stumble and fall. Surely Samuel had an affection for Saul.

That matters. If he didn't, why grieve? Samuel was consumed with the glory of God. Therefore, when God's glory was tarnished, he grieved. If he didn't really care about the glory of God—if he only cared about his own glory—then there would be no reason for grief. Samuel loved the people under his care, and therefore he grieved on account of their suffering. I stopped in my study, and I said to myself, What makes me cry? And then I said, What makes me smile? And then I said, You know, probably this is a real indication of where we are in terms of our spiritual progress.

When we learn to smile at the things that should make us sad, and when we fail to grieve over the things that do make us sad. Leadership demands that. Whether you lead in a school, in a nursery, in a business, in a factory, on a workbench, wherever it is, leadership—and not least of all in the church—leadership brings with it peculiar privileges. But the privileges do not exist apart from the perils—not just the peril of pride but the peril that comes from realizing that the burdens that one bears in leadership are in large measure directly tied to those whom we lead. That's why the writer to the Hebrews, when he's closing out his letter, reminds the congregations to whom he writes, Make sure that you submit to those whom God has entrusted over you as leaders. Do that, he says, because remember, they are keeping watch over your souls as those who must give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning. So Samuel is groaning instead of rejoicing. And when you look at the text, you realize that God's corrective to him is a necessary corrective. He says, Listen, how long are you gonna grieve over Saul? Don't you realize that I've rejected him from being king over Israel? In other words, I'm sovereign over this, he says.

This has not taken me by surprise. It's time now, Samuel, to forget those things which are behind and to press on. And so he gives him a very clear assignment. He says, Fill your horn with oil and go. What he's saying to him is, because remember, the prophet says, He gave me beauty for ashes. He gave me the oil of joy for mourning. He gave me the garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. The grieving's over now.

We've done with the grieving. Now I have a very straightforward assignment for you. You can understand it perfectly. Fill your horn, and let's get going. What a wonderful thing it is when you go on and you read further down in the text, and Samuel did what the Lord commanded.

How good is this? You see, Samuel stands out to us as we consider him in these chapters, not on account of the originality of his ideas—not because he's a peculiar initiative-taker, because there's no evidence of either, actually. No, the way we see him is as somebody who just does what he's told. And he said, Fill your horn with oil and go. And Samuel did what the Lord commanded. How spectacular is that?

It doesn't seem very big, does it? Most of the commands of God don't involve any great drama. No, Samuel is helpful to me here. Now, I wonder if Samuel had not said to himself—and again, this is just conjecture. I shouldn't do this, but I do it all the time—I wonder if under his breath he said, Oh, fill your horn with oil and go.

We did this once. But God says, Not so fast! Not so fast! I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided or I have seen for myself a king among his sons. So he's going to be sent to Bethlehem.

A Bethlehemite is someone from Bethlehem, the way a Glaswegian is somebody from Glasgow. And the Lord has seen among the sons of Jesse a king for himself. Now, you say, Well, why are you translating that? A seen, when in the text it says, For I have provided. Well, actually, because the verb in Hebrew is the verb to see. And that verb is repeated seven or eight times throughout the text, all the way through this chapter.

I won't take time to detail them for you. But it is not always translated as see or looks. Here in verse 1 it is translated as provide.

Down in verse 17 it is actually translated as provide again. This whole chapter is actually about seeing. About who's seeing what. And how it is that God sees in a way that man does not see.

And we'll see that as we continue. But you will notice that he is a reluctantly obedient servant. He responds with a question, verse 2.

How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. That's pretty good. Saul is increasingly unhinged by this time, and he's capable just of about anything. So Samuel says, I want to obey, but I don't want to get killed. Which is fair.

I don't think any of us would judge him on the basis of that. And so the Lord said, Well, listen, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. And then invite Jesse to the sacrifice. I will show you what you will do, and you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you. So there you have it.

It's a straightforward assignment. Fill up your horn with oil and go. Okay, I will, but I don't want to get killed. That's okay, I've got that covered.

Take a heifer with you. Now, we're not gonna delay on this. What is God doing here? He's actually telling Samuel to declare not all of what is going to happen, but some of what is going to happen.

Right? In other words, there is concealment in this. And it is proper, under certain circumstances, to conceal some of the truth. And concealing some of the truth is not necessarily telling lies.

It is impossible to read this text and remove God from it. Because God is the one who tells him, Take a heifer and say this, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. So we can't have God telling his servant to tell lies. So what is he doing?

Well, it is the distinction between partial truth and untruth. It is true that he is now going to make a sacrifice. It is only in the context of sacrifice that the anointing would take place. But he doesn't have to lead with the horn of oil. Right? He doesn't have to walk down the street going, I'm going to Bethlehem, going to anoint a king, going to Bethlehem, anoint a king.

We've got the band playing now. Saul's going to kill him for stuff like that. So what does he do? He's going with his heifer.

We're off to Bethlehem, doing some sacrificing. Right? That makes perfect sense. Doctors do it all the time. I don't mean facetious.

Mercifully, they do. Every prognosis does not need to be shared in its entirety in a certain moment. There is a distinction between partial truth and untruth. And that's the distinction that is present in this context. And that's why he's instructed in this way.

He's got to be sensible in his approach. And he has to call Jesse to make sure that he is present, because the Lord has seen among his sons a king for himself. Once again, another point on the journey of life for Samuel simply to do as he's told. Now, his appearance, you will see in verse 4, caused the people, the elders, the town council, who came out to meet him, to tremble. Now, we don't have all the background to this, but their question is straightforward, Do you come peaceably? I wonder if it is not that the whole news of what had happened to Agag has spread like wildfire. And when you go back to the dreadful scene at the end of chapter 15, you will remember that Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. So, not to put too fine a point on it, they were looking at each other and essentially saying, I hope he's got that Agag stuff out of his system. Right?

Because he did a dreadful thing there, under God's command. Have you come peaceably? Yes, I've come peaceably. Okay, well then, so far, so good.

The people are assembled. The straightforward assignment has to this point been completed. But now, in the choice of a suitable candidate, there needs to be a significant adjustment. You'll notice that in verse 6—or even, you could say, a realignment, the assignment, and then the realignment, the realignment of his thinking, which needs to be corrected immediately from verse 6—"when they came"—that is, when all the sons of Jesse appeared—"when they came, he looked on Eliab, and he said to himself, Surely this is the LORD's anointed." That's a quick judgment, isn't it?

That's a fast response. And especially when you think about the last time he was involved in one of those. The last time a big, tall, handsome fellow showed up and they made him the king, it didn't work out real well. Goodness, are you not even thinking here for a moment? Last time, the package looked fantastic.

But when they got to the contents, the contents were useless. The big, strong, powerful, handsome fellow collapsed like a broken deck chair. And now, here you are with your horn of oil and ready to go, and the first person that shows up—Samuel, are you kidding? He looks like the one for me.

Yes? Now, something about his outward appearance, about his stature, send him in that direction. And so here's the need for the realignment. Here's the need for the adjustment to his thinking. Verse 7, 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.

And so then Jesse called the next one in the list, and he was rejected. And the third son, he was rejected, and seven sons in all. And we have reached now verse 10, with Samuel saying, The LORD did not choose these.

Well, what do we just say of this? At one level, it's pretty obvious, isn't it, that appearances can so easily be deceptive? But God sees in a different way. God is not deceived by or impressed either by outward appearances, because, as verse 7 makes clear, he sees a person's heart. But it was at this point that I find myself saying, I don't know, but that there isn't more to this seventh verse than this.

I mean, it just seems so obvious. You know, we look on the outside, God looks on the inside. And God looked on the inside of Eliab, he looked on the inside of Shema, he looked on of Binedabbel, whatever it was, and when he looked on their insides, they didn't seem like they were good. Then he looked on somebody else's inside, and that person looked good, and on the basis of inside he chose them.

I don't think so. So now I'm stuck in my study. Old Testament theologian from Australia, by the name of John Woodhouse, he bailed me out on this. He actually says that verse 7 is saying more than that—that God's point of view is according to his own will and to his own purpose. In other words, it is according to his heart. And he gives a literal translation of the second half of verse 7. And in that more literal translation, he translates it, but the Lord looks according to his heart, not according to the individual's heart. In other words, God views things from the perspective of his eternal counsel and will, from the eternal perspective of his purpose, from all of eternity. So he is not looking to see if this person meets all of the qualifications necessary for being put in this position.

Because nobody meets all the qualifications that are necessary for the position. Now, I say to myself, Okay, now, this is helping me. It's helped me when I think about what we looked at in passing in chapter, was it, 13—that God was looking for a man after his own heart.

The preposition after is the same preposition as according to. So the same thing is being said. The Lord is looking for a man according to his heart—God's heart. So the picture is not a man who's a particularly good man who has a lot of God in his heart.

It is rather a picture of God who has a man in his heart—the man of God's own choosing. We look at this scene and say, Well, it must have been for these superficial reasons that they were ruled out, and it must be because the fellow who's finally selected was special. Well, he was special in some regards, but that wasn't the issue.

It wasn't that he was special. It's that God is sovereign. Now, as I sat there and thought about this, I said, Well, what am I going to do with this? Maybe I shouldn't even tell anybody about this.

You're not supposed to let anybody know this kind of thing. Just leave verse 7 the way it is. After all, ninety percent of the commentaries don't even interact with this.

They all simply say, God looks on the inside, you look on the outside, let's move on. So I said, Well, I wonder how strongly Woodhouse feels about this. This is how strong he feels about it. He says, this understanding of verse 7, he says, is very important. In fact, he says, in my opinion, it is the key to understanding the whole of 1 and 2 Samuel.

More than that, it is really the key to understanding life, the universe, and everything. Yeah! So I'm going, Wow!

Everything! Well, then, we'd better pay some attention to that notion. But since our time is gone, we'll have to do it this evening. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life as he begins our new series in the book of 1 Samuel. Well, if you, like me, love the rich theology found in many of the old hymns, you will want to request a book that we are recommending today. It's titled, Man of Sorrows, King of Glory, and it explores and expands on the lyrics of the well-known hymn, Hallelujah, What a Savior. It's a hymn I imagine many of you are familiar with. Each of the chapters in the book is taken from a line from the hymn. There's a chapter titled, In My Place Condemned He Stood, Ruined Sinners to Reclaim, or When He Comes, Our Glorious King. As you dive more deeply into each of these chapters, you'll unpack exactly what these lyrics truly mean. Again, the book is titled, Man of Sorrows, King of Glory. You can request your copy today when you give a donation to Truth for Life.

Just click the image of the book on our app or visit our website at truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening today. The Bible describes King David as a man after God's own heart, but what exactly does that description mean? Tomorrow we'll find out why God chose David to be Israel's king. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.