Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: There are things that have happened in our lives, things that are very painful, things that are very hurtful, things that maybe even are very regrettable. Sad things, injustices, pains, problems, disappointments. Do you know these things happen to us all? There isn't a person listening to my voice that hasn't experienced one or two or three or four or maybe all of them, and might even be experiencing them right now.

It's common to man. For believers, those that are following Jesus, and unbelievers alike, we all experience pain and problem in life, every single one of us. And yet, if we remain in the past, we'll miss the present move of God. If we remain holding on to those things, we're going to miss what God wants to do in our life today. There's a time where we just need to fill our horns with oil and we need to go.

Guest (Male): It doesn't take long for the Christian to come to the realization that God's plans for us don't always make sense. It's because God works in ways that we often don't and won't understand. And when that takes place, we need to adjust our perspective, values, or timetable to fit His. Well, today on Abounding Grace, Pastor Ed Taylor will show us how to do that. We're traveling through 1 Samuel at the present time. Here today, we'll be looking at Chapter 16. It's here that the Lord anoints David to be king over Israel. This was a move that certainly didn't make a great deal of sense in that day and age.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them to 1 Samuel Chapter 16. Jesus spoke of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the denial of the work of God is from God. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is attributing the work of God to the devil. The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin. And attributing the work of God to the devil is nothing less than refusing to accept the gift of God. The only unforgivable sin there is, is to reject the salvation that is given to you and me as a gift.

It is seen in many different ways, but here's the thing we need to be careful. We really don't know when a person has gone beyond the point of no return. We really don't know. We might look and come to a conclusion, but we really don't know because we don't know the hearts of men. So because of this, we desperately pray for those we know that are living lives not reflective of the love of God. We desperately pray for our loved ones that reject God openly or live in such a way where they say they believe in God but their lives betray their words.

Those living in rebellion, those living in sin, those living in resistance toward God. We desperately pray. We don't know the hearts of men. We don't know. We can't just point at someone and go, "You've sinned the unforgivable sin." No. As long as they have breath, we're going to preach the gospel and we're going to pray for God's best. Yet I have to say this: in the Bible, lives are given to us pretty much from beginning to end.

And in some cases, the lives portrayed, the true story of the lives portrayed in the scriptures, show us how it ends and even God will tell us the condition of their life. When a life is revealed from beginning to end, we can look back and see the circumstances of their lives. We can see the decisions that they made. Now, stepping away from the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit for a second, let's just talk about people wasting their lives. That's a little bit more easy to see, isn't it?

It's a little bit easier to see the potential in someone's life and the decisions that they make where they throw a good life away, where you would look at them and say there has been so much potential or that person did so much good but they didn't end up finishing well. That is what we see in King Saul. We don't quite know the condition of his soul, even from the text. I think you can make strong arguments on either side of the condition of his soul.

But one thing we can all agree on: King Saul wasted a good life. A life with the anointing of God, a life with the authority of God, a life with the empowerment of God, a life that was given chance after chance. We use the phrase "the God of the second chance," but in reality, in totality, God is the God of many, many chances. For some, uncounted, we're unable to count how many chances God would give for us to recover, to enter back into a vibrant relationship with Him.

And Saul, we've learned, given chance after chance, refused to yield his life, the control of his life, over to the God who loved him. And yet God did not give up on man. He had yet another choice for the people of God: a new king with a new heart despite Saul's failure. That's where we pick up in verse one of Chapter 16. Then the Lord said to Samuel, "How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I'm sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided myself a king among his sons."

And Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears it, he'll kill me." And the Lord said, "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.' Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for me the one I name to you." So Samuel did what the Lord said, went to Bethlehem, and the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, "Do you come peaceably?" And he said, "Peaceably I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice."

Then he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. We saw at the end of the last chapter that Samuel is torn up emotionally over the failure of King Saul. I believe Samuel loved Saul. I believe Samuel believed in Saul. I believe Samuel wanted what was best for Saul. And while God was dealing with King Saul's failure, so was Samuel. And isn't it true? It is very difficult to deal with the failure of people that are close to us. It's very difficult.

And when you see somebody fall, as we saw last time I mentioned that no one that falls into sin, if you want to use that phrase, no one that rebels against God, no one that falls away from the Lord, no one that backslides into destruction does so unwarned and unwept for. Someone, somewhere, weeping for that loved one, that friend that turned their back on the Lord or never turned their back toward the Lord. And yet in his failure, God interrupts the mourning.

He interrupts the sorrow and He has direction. He has direction for Samuel and He tells him in verse one, "Fill your horn with oil." The horn is a container. Fill your container with oil and go because I provided myself a king among his sons. Go to Jesse, he lives in Bethlehem. I am still at work. King Saul has failed, but I am still at work. And friends, if you can recognize that in your life, that despite man's failure, God continues to work.

He is working and continuing to work on the Earth today despite man's failure, any man, any woman. God is going to continue His work. And with that comes the work that God's going to do in Samuel. He's going to use him. Now, it's important for us to pause here and circle, if you like to write in your Bibles, in verse one, you may want to circle the words "and go." And go. It's important in our faith walk journey with Jesus to go.

Now, I'm not referring to the evangelism of go as you know the heart of our church is "win, disciple, send," and when we send someone, they go. That's not what I believe is being referred to. It's important as we're walking with the Lord and facing great difficulties and great issues that we learn to move on. We need to learn to move on. We need to learn to fill our horns with oil. Remember we've learned in our studies that oil is often symbolic of the Holy Spirit.

It also speaks in the scriptures of comfort. It's important that we fill our horns with oil and we go. We need to learn how to move on into the will of God for our lives. There are things that have happened in our lives, things that are very painful, things that are very hurtful, things that maybe even are very regrettable. Sad things, injustices, pains, problems, disappointments. Do you know these things happen to us all?

There isn't a person listening to my voice that hasn't experienced one or two or three or four or maybe all of them, and might even be experiencing them right now. It's as common to man. For believers, those that are following Jesus, and unbelievers alike, we all experience pain and problem in life, every single one of us. And yet if we remain in the past, we'll miss the present move of God. If we remain holding on to those things, we're going to miss what God wants to do in our life today.

There's a time where we just need to fill our horns with oil and we need to go. We need to move in the will of God. Now please understand me: I'm not referring to moving on as if you just get over it. That's a different phrase. Be careful. I'm not encouraging you to just get over it because unfortunately some things in life you're not going to get over. I don't believe that's the counsel of the Lord: "Get over it."

If you ever use those phrases with people, that's really not a nice thing to say. There's a much better way of delivering that kind of news. It's not get over it, it's moving on into the will of God. There comes a time. There's a time of mourning and weeping, and then for Samuel, there's a time, "Okay, it's time to go on. You've got to go. I have a work to do. The people are important to me, and I want to give them a new king. I'm going to give them a new king, Samuel, and you're the one that's going to anoint him."

Really what I see here in this phrase "it's time to go" and "it's time to be sent by the Lord," it's time to be a part of what God is providing for the nation, it really brings us back to the sovereign hand of God. Just recognizing that, yes, somehow God is working all things together for the good for those that love Him, those that are called according to His purpose. He sends him to Bethlehem. Samuel, it's okay. It's time to get up.

You've got to fill your horn, you've got to take some oil. I'm sending you because I've got a king and I want you to be a part of it. And Samuel's response in verse two is, "Wait a minute. How can I do that? Saul will kill me." So not only is he expressing emotion in mourning, but here's another emotion that comes right up on mourning: fear. Wait a minute, I don't want to die. He had a good reason to fear King Saul as King Saul was very temperamental and very rash in his decision.

He had a violent temper and he was in control. But it's encouraging to see God meet Samuel right where he was at and provide for him the solution. He tells him to take a sacrifice. He gives him a solution of how to both fulfill his calling and also cover the situation and make sure that Saul is not going to be attracted to what Samuel's doing and kill him. Now, this section, we're going to see a couple things in this section of the scriptures that many people will bring you to.

And really in First Samuel we've seen quite a few where people will bring you to and they'll refer to as a Bible difficulty or it's a big question. Here's one of them because many people in verses one through five come to the conclusion that God is telling Samuel to lie. And the reason being is that the goal to go there is to anoint the king, but the story or the action will be under the work of sacrifice.

And so some people go, "Wait a minute. He's telling Samuel to lie." But that's not what God is doing here. What God is doing is telling Samuel to do two things. Number one: go anoint the king. Number two: provide a sacrifice. He's not telling him to lie, He's telling him to do two things. He added something. You go, "Wait a minute. If the ulterior motive was to anoint a king, then why didn't you just have Samuel go ahead and tell everybody he's there to anoint the king instead of have the sacrifice?"

Well, the question is raised this: another way of looking at this is asking this question: is it always necessary or even possible to share everything that there is to share? And the answer to that is no. It's not always necessary, and it's not always possible. You go, "Well, maybe God is telling him to tell a half-lie." No, because a half-lie is a whole lie. There's no half-lie, half-truth. If God's telling him to tell a half-lie, it's really all lying, and there's no deception or darkness in God.

But when you think about the reality of life, it's not always possible to tell every single for example, you go through something that by the time you tell it, you forgot three parts of it. You just forgot. And you are trying to process and you're trying to give, "I'm telling you everything," but you aren't really telling everything because you forgot. You don't have a piece of information. Or with Samuel here, another way: I'm giving you some options to look at in order to understand that, first of all, He's just telling him to do two things.

Second of all, He is giving him information and saying he doesn't have to reveal that he's here to anoint a king. He can do it in such a way to sacrifice and draw people together. And obviously he's telling Jesse, and obviously he's going to tell David. Obviously he's going to unveil over time, but Samuel is concealing part of his trip, but he isn't holding back information deceptively or dishonestly. There's a big difference between dishonesty, falsehood, and telling one part of what you know.

And so we need to be careful here that really what's happening is he's going to anoint the king and then God gives him something else to do. But you don't have to rush in and tell everything because you know that as you're sacrificing, as you're obeying the Lord, the other things will unfold. And as the other things unfold, you will have the fullness of what's being revealed before you. It happens all the time in life. There are times when as a pastor, someone will share something with me and I'm not able, because of the confidentiality of the ministry, I'm not able to share it.

Nor will I. It doesn't make me dishonest. It makes me really it builds the truth of and if you were to ask directly, which no one ever asks them directly, but if you were to ask directly, then I would just have to tell you I can't tell you that. But most of the time when we're talking, I don't go around, "I know five things and I can't tell you three of them." We don't operate in that realm. And so there's a lot of possibilities here.

The conclusion simply is that God is not instructing Samuel to lie. He's given him something additional to enter into this family. Verse six. So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before him." But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

Samuel didn't learn an important lesson. This is a man of God. He's been walking with God, been through a lot with God, dedicated from even before he was born, been through ups and downs. He has personally mourned and grieved and watched the difficulty with King Saul who was chosen, who was chosen by the people and approved by the people and really encouraged the people. Why? Because of outward.

He was tall in stature and he looked like a king and Samuel's lived through all of this. And when he comes to Jesse's house, he sees the oldest son and he goes, "This is it. He's the one." And God intervenes and he goes, "No, no, this isn't the one. I've refused him. And something's happening with you, Samuel. The Lord does not see as man sees." God sees something different.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Operating by sight and not by faith, Samuel here: a problem we all have. God intervenes and mildly rebukes Samuel, gives him an explanation. And verse seven's very important to consider. I don't want to skip over it before we move on to the next section. It's true when you look at the end of verse seven, at the end it says, "But the Lord looks at the heart."

That is a true statement, one that should be encouraging to us. What other people have estimations of us, God truly knows our heart. God will truly reveal our hearts to us. God can take a hard heart and make it soft. God knows everything there is to know about us forever and ever into eternity. He knows the heart. Jot it down: Jeremiah Chapter 17 verse nine. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings."

It's true. And often the only emphasis given when considering this mistake that Samuel makes. If you find people quoting this verse, maybe you've even done it yourself, this verse you didn't even know the address in First Samuel here, but you've probably used this phrase many times. Maybe somebody came after you: "You don't know my heart, God looks at the outward, but man looks at the outward and God looks at the heart."

You've probably quoted it. You maybe didn't know where it was, but it's right here in relationship to David being chosen king but going through his brother first. And the emphasis that it usually comes up in is knowing the heart. You're using it, it's been used to describe, "Hey my motives were clean man and you may not see it but the Lord knows my heart." And you would be right, that's an accurate, wise use of this passage.

It's true in the sake of Samuel with Eliab, and it would be true if you used it in that way to really emphasize that God does know the heart and that your heart, your conscience is clear before the Lord. That is a great emphasis to make. Yes, God knows the heart, but the first part of it is true too. The first part is very true. When the first part says that man looks at the outward appearance, let that sink in.

That's all people can see in your life is your outward appearance. Don't let it devolve into something of how you dress and there's a certain way for Christians to dress. Of course there's a level of modesty the Bible says and being careful with modesty both men and women not to draw attention to your body but rather to dress modestly so the attention goes to the Lord. That's not actually what this verse is referring to, but there is a sense of modesty.

This isn't like the right way to dress or how long your dresses have to be and men with collars and suits and ties. That is not what He is speaking of here at all. That would be a misuse of this. But more simply, it is a truth that all people can see is your outward appearance: what you look like, what you say, how you act. And I'm always reminding the pastors and the leaders here, I'm always bringing to our attention, reminding myself, that it's important to remember that people only see the outside.

And there's a lot more to see now with the outside, isn't there, with social media? They only see what you're posting. They only see the pictures of what you're doing and what you're into. They only see what you're showing them. I mean a lot of people don't live with you, but the people that live with you, they still only see your outward appearance. They don't see your heart. And I believe it's important to be reminded that our outward example is very important, the outward example of our lives.

Sometimes this can be seen as a legalistic type of observation and I would suggest to you that not so. It's not legalistic at all. Your example and mine is very important. The outward matters and will either lead someone closer to Jesus or farther away. Your example and mine.

Guest (Male): Well, today on Abounding Grace we brought you a portion of our study in First and Second Samuel. Pastor Ed Taylor is our Bible teacher. Would you like to hear this again? If so, just visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or oneplace.com. You can also download the Calvary Church app as well. And today we'd like to tell you about a book from Ron Rhodes titled "The End Times in Chronological Order."

Think of it as a complete overview to understanding Bible prophecy. You've probably heard about the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, second coming, Mark of the Beast, but how do they all fit together? This chronological tour through the Bible's most important predictions will help you connect the dots. We'll gladly send you a copy for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call toll free at 877-30-GRACE.

That's 877-30-GRACE or order it online at calvaryco.store. Please remember this ministry is made possible through the support of our listeners and we are grateful for whatever the Lord leads you to do. It would be great to hear from you. Call toll free at 877-30-GRACE. Donations can also be made online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Glad you've taken time out for our study in First Samuel. This has been Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. We'll look for you next time as we open the word together in search of God's abounding grace.