A King After God's Own Heart

Take your Bibles, if you would, and open them to 1 Samuel.

! 1 Samuel chapter 16. And we're going to just, as my father always says, gored ahead in our study of 1 Samuel.

And so I want to go ahead and read the passage. It's not a very lengthy chapter. Chapter 16, just 23 verses. So follow along if you'd like in your Bibles or listen as I read.

Now 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 will kill me. But 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 and went to Bethlehem, and the elders of the town trembled at his coming.

Samuel was highly respected, of course. And they said, do you come peaceably? And he said, peaceably I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him.

The Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical 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. So Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one.

Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these, any of these.

And Samuel said to Jesse, are all the young men here? Then he said, well, there remains yet the youngest. And there he is keeping the sheep.

And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking.

And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for he is the one. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.

So Samuel arose and went to Ramah. But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.

And Saul's servants said to him, surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp, and it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.

So Saul said to his servants, provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me. And one of the servants answered and said, look, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person.

And the Lord is with him. Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, send me your son who is with the sheep. And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a young goat, and sent them by his son David to Saul.

So David came to Saul and stood before him, and he loved him greatly, and he became his armor bearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, please let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight.

And so it was, whenever the spirit of God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hands. Then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him.

All right. So we're pretty familiar with this story. It's a, of course, a key part of the history of David coming to the throne of Israel.

And so we're pretty familiar with this. Now, for the past few chapters, we have been given a number of clear indicators that, I mean, really clear, explicit indicators that Saul's days as king of Israel are pretty much over.

Well, they're numbered, not necessarily over, because God has rejected him, and he's not been a very good king. I've mentioned that a number of times, and we have actually studied those passages that give a pretty clear picture of that.

So he was not really a great king at all. And in fact, for the exception of a few fairly small victories, you know, a few slightly good things that Saul did, Saul has been a pretty dismal king.

A dismal failure as the first king of Israel. All right. And we've studied some of those passages. I mean, he disobeys God by not waiting for Samuel to come and offer the sacrifice before the battle.

And Saul does that himself. He's very presumptuous there. He makes a foolish vow. Remember, we studied that passage. Makes a foolish vow before the Lord that nearly costs the life of his son, Jonathan.

And Saul, kind of the straw that broke the camel's back with God, he disobeys God by not following his command, completely following his command concerning the Amalekites.

We studied that last week. And so God rejects him. He rejects Saul. And we looked at this last week, chapter 15, verse 28. So Samuel said to him, Saul, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

Now we know who that is, don't we? We'll begin to study his life really tonight and the next, well, I don't know how long. Depends on if we go on into 2 Samuel.

All right, so it is at this point in the first book of Samuel that we, when we get to chapter 16, that David enters the story. Young David. Ruddy.

David. Good looking David. And a lot of other things that the Bible tells us about David here at the very beginning. And we'll learn a whole lot more about David as we go along.

So we've known all along that we would get to David. In fact, maybe we were wondering if we would get there. We know David is part of the story and we're thinking, finally, you know, finally we get to David.

And I love David. When you think about all of the major characters in the Old Testament, who's your favorite? I bet many of you would say it is David.

Now, you don't have to. I mean, there are other pretty important characters in the Old Testament. And, but for me, I must tell you that David is my favorite character in the Old Testament.

A lot of really good characters, but he's my favorite one. And what is interesting is this, I think, as I kind of move to introduce the first point of my teaching or my message tonight.

David is the kind of king, will become the kind of king, that actually Hannah prayed about way back there at the beginning of this book.

You might not remember, but you remember her song. She sang about a king there in 1 Samuel chapter 2. Now, you remember Hannah, right?

And poor barren Hannah could not have any children. And poor Hannah, who was ridiculed by her husband's other wife, Penina, who also had, who did have children.

And there's poor Hannah praying for a son. She's praying for a son. And God answers her prayer. And we know this story. God answers her prayer, gives her a son.

And so Hannah gave her son to the Lord. And she gave Samuel to the Lord. All right? Hannah is Samuel's mother.

And after that, Hannah sings a song. And it's recorded for us in chapter 2. And her song closed with these words. He, that's Yahweh, Yahweh God, will give strength to his king and exalt the horn, or the power of his anointed.

Now, this is even before Israel had a king. In fact, though, for some time prior to that, quite a few years before that, Israel had been calling for a king, wanting a king.

It talked about, you know, having a king like all the other nations. This is before they had a king. And this comes out in Hannah's prayer. And actually, her prayer is more than just a, or excuse me, her song.

It's more than just a song. It's prophetic. It's prophetic. All right, so she is seeing, really, and prophesying through her song of great joy.

Not really a song that's about Samuel or anything about that, but it's something that looks forward. And so she's praying about a king and God giving him great strength and exalting him with great power.

Now, certainly, this king was not Saul, was it? Not at all. But was it David?

We might ask. Now, God did give David strength. God did give David greatness as a king, exalted him with power as a king.

And the people loved David, the most revered of all Israel's kings. Certainly, God did all of that. But the fulfillment of Hannah's song was not David.

It's not David. Though he was, in a very significant way, a living picture of that king. A, more than just a forerunner, genealogically, but a type of that king that would come and has come.

And he was, so, an Old Testament type of the king that Hannah, in a sense, saw in her words, in the words of her song. But Hannah's song was about the one who would come out of David, out of his kingly lineage, and, of course, that's Jesus, right?

Now, what has that to do with the passage in 1 Samuel 16? Well, who was Hannah's son? Samuel. Samuel.

And Samuel, I think we could say with all certainty, knew about his mother's vision, about this song and her prophecy of Yahweh's king given strength to rule, of Yahweh's king given power to conquer, and just knowing this, I think this helps us understand what we read here at the beginning of chapter 16.

Even before we get to the selection of this new king, what we read here about Samuel himself. So having said that, that kind of introduces us to the first point of my message tonight.

What I want to call the presumptuous servant of the Lord, Samuel. The presumptuous servant of the Lord. Chapter 15 pretty much closed with God's promise that the kingdom of Israel would be torn away from King Saul.

And so chapter 16 opens with these words. Now the Lord said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul? That's how it opens in chapter 16.

How long are you going to mourn for him? Seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel. And so before God talks to Samuel about David, God talks to Samuel about Samuel.

About Samuel. Samuel is grieving over Saul. mourning over him. And God is, of course, basically saying, get over it.

Get over it. All right, so you see, Samuel was Hannah's son. Samuel knew his mother's vision of Yahweh's anointed.

Yahweh's king. And Samuel thought, I really believe, Samuel thought that he was part of God, God's bringing this king into being, I mean, to the very throne of Israel.

Samuel thought he had just been part of that. He thought it was Saul. He thought it was Saul. And he presumed that Saul was the one.

And so he thought he had anointed the king of Hannah, his mother, Hannah's prayer. And when it turned out, you know, it didn't turn out that way, obviously, Samuel was disappointed.

I think he even had feelings of failure. Picked the wrong one. Probably going back, rehearsing in his mind that whole scene.

Was it God really that told me that Saul was the one or did I just think he was the one? You know, and so he's failed and Samuel thought that his failure would threaten Israel, threaten their security, their safety, their health as a nation.

Maybe he made a big mistake. And so, in a sense, Samuel was so distraught about this that it paralyzed him.

He's paralyzed by disappointment and grief and self-blame. And so, God says, what's the matter with you? Get up. Get going.

Got something for you to do. And so, verse 1 says, fill your horn. This is what God said. Fill your horn. That's not a horn that you toot, you know, trumpet or something like that.

It's a flask made out of an animal horn. So, fill it up with oil. Olive oil or whatever oil it was.

And go. Got a task for you. I'm sending you to Jesse. Jesse the Bethlehemite. Because I have provided myself a king among his sons.

So, Samuel has been given his marching orders here. get up and stop grieving over Saul. He's not the one. He's not the one of your mother's dream.

In fact, of course, obviously, we're going to discover it's not even David. But that's the direction that God is moving toward.

And so, get up and get going and anoint the king that I have chosen for myself. Now, obedience, we learned, could bring disaster for Samuel.

I mean, we know Saul, don't we? I mean, even if there hasn't been, you know, maybe a whole lot of indication of this up to now, we certainly learn this about Saul's character later.

I mean, this would be a dangerous thing. And so, verse 2, and Samuel does not say this without warrant. He says, how can I go and do this thing you've commanded me to do? That's what he's saying.

How could I go and do that? If Saul hears it, what's he going to do to me? Kill me. Kill me.

That was in Saul. We know he could do that and would do that. But God has a solution. So, verse 2, but the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, that is, say to anybody who asks and say when you get there, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Alright, so that'll hide what you have come there to do, really come there to do. Now, the problem with that is God telling Samuel to lie? Well, actually, no.

Because this is apparently a legitimate task that God has given Samuel to do. It's kind of another thing that he can do there. Something God would have him do there.

It's an additional task. One that would spare Samuel's life if Saul were to discover it and, you know, be suspicious.

And so, the mention of sacrificing the heifer, I mean, it's very specific. Take a heifer with you. I mean, there are all kinds of different sacrifices for different things, but a heifer sacrificed in this type of way was for a specific reason.

And it's kind of interesting. Apparently, in Bethlehem, that's where God is sending Samuel, apparently in Bethlehem at that very time, though the Bible doesn't mention it, we can just assume this because of the kind of sacrifice that God is commanding Samuel to make there, apparently there was an unsolved murder in that area.

You say, well, how do you get that? Well, you get that from Deuteronomy chapter 21. You can look at it if you want to. Let me read just a little bit of it.

In Deuteronomy chapter 21, if anyone is found slain, lying in the field, in the land, which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him.

So it's an unsolved murder. A cold case. I don't know. Whatever. Then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance from the slain man to the surrounding cities.

So we're doing a little bit of investigation here. And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled with a yoke.

The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to the valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and they shall break the heifer's neck there in the valley.

Then the priests, the son of Levi, shall come near for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to him and to bless in the name of the Lord by their word every controversy and every assault shall be settled and all the elders of that city nearest to the slain man shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley.

Then they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood nor have our eyes seen it. That is the blood of this dead man that they have found there in the field.

Provide atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel whom you have redeemed and do not lay innocent blood in the charge of your people Israel and atonement shall be provided on their behalf of the blood.

So you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. Now, kind of interesting. And so, apparently, I mean, God knows.

God knows everything. There, at this very time, was an unsolved murder or killing. And this was the prescribed way to take care of that.

And so, God then provided this legitimate reason for Samuel to go to Bethlehem. He didn't have to lie about it or sneak over there or, you know, go incognito, put on some kind of mask or some kind of disguise.

He's going for a legitimate reason. And that, of course, would not raise Saul's suspicion. And while Samuel is there doing that, he will also take care of anointing a new king.

So, not a lot of detail given about these two tasks. Just that, you know, he's come and they're going to do the sacrifice and also going to meet with Jesse here and his son.

And so, verse 3 then says in our text, if you look at that again, 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.

All right, so then the anointing ceremony is about to begin. You know, where did it take place? Was it outdoors? Was it in a tent? I don't know. It doesn't matter.

But Jesse's there and his sons are there and they're in Bethlehem. And so, the ceremony is about to take place and it is, you know, somewhat like a Cinderella story.

I mean, when you get down to it, get down to David, you know, he wasn't there. You know, poor old David. He's out taking care of the sheep. But who would want him anyway? And so, as Jesse parades all of his tall, dark, and handsome sons before Samuel, he's hoping that one of them would be king.

Right? But you see, God is about to teach Samuel a lesson. Not just Samuel, but every one of us. God is going to let Samuel, and this is kind of a diverging from when it came to anointing Saul.

Samuel didn't go and make any decisions or take any initiative in that. God told him specifically that it would be Saul and he would anoint him. But here, God doesn't tell him on the front end.

Now, he does give him kind of a general parameter. It's going to be one of the sons of Jesse, but I'm not going to tell you who it is. So, Samuel is kind of taking the initiative and that's why we have happened what happens.

But it's all a part of God's design to teach Samuel a lesson about God, about what is really important to him. And so, he allows Samuel to take the initiative and it is at this point that we see Samuel's presumptuous nature.

He's presuming some things here. And even godly people can be presumptuous. Right? And so, this is what's happening. And so, in Samuel's way of thinking, again, going back to, you know, the first part of the chapter and he's mournful because he thought Saul was the man of his mother's dreams, you know, in the sense of being king and he's been a part of that and oh, what have I done and that kind of thing.

And so, you know, so in his way of thinking, if the fulfillment of his mother's prophetic prayer or song was not Saul, then it must be someone just like Saul.

Big mistake. You see, Samuel failed to understand what the real problem was with Saul. It wasn't anything on the outside of him.

it was something on the inside and God is going to teach him that. But Samuel hasn't learned that lesson yet. And so, here comes Jesse's oldest son, Eliab.

and, you know, his name might as well be in Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, as he looks and here he comes. You know, and he looks just like you would imagine a king should look.

And so, you know, he's the one. I mean, that's a king if ever I saw one. That's what Samuel was thinking. In his mind, we probably would be thinking the same thing.

I mean, you know, we're kind of getting into the mind of God and surely God would pick a man like that. And actually, he said in verse 6, he said, surely the Lord's anointed is before us.

I mean, we don't need to see any of the others. This is the guy. I can tell by looking at him. That's the problem, isn't it? And then comes the key passage in this chapter.

We might even say a key passage in all the Bible because do you want to know what really matters to God? Do you want to know what God pays attention to here?

Well, it is the truth there in verse 7. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at the appearance or at his physical stature, meaning he's tall, yes.

Good looking? Absolutely. Handsome man. Strong. Kingly looking. All of that. By the way, that was pretty much the same description of Saul.

Right? We know how that has worked out. But God says, I have refused him. He's not the one. So the one Samuel chose, God refused.

He refused. And God said, for the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

We know that principle, don't we? Well, it comes right from here, from this chapter. Now, the principle is taught other places in Scripture, but it's explicitly worded right here as we have learned it.

God does not look at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Now, what's the application of that for us? You know?

What's the application of that? The application is not so much that we can evaluate people as to whether or not they're good or bad or right or wrong or, you know, that we can evaluate them just by looking somehow at their heart.

That's not the application here because no one can look at the heart. Can you? Have you ever been fooled? Absolutely. Now, the principle for us is not that somehow what we need to do is when we are evaluating a person or whatever for a job or for a ministry position or as a friend or as a wife or a husband or, you know, friend for our children or that, well, let's just remember we've got to look at the heart first, so let's look at the heart.

Well, how do you do that? Now, grant you, you know, there are some things to look for, some spiritual things, some questions that can be asked or there are things that you can learn about a person, but the principle here is not so much that we need to look at a person's heart and not judge him according to the outward appearance.

Really, the application for us is that God cares about what's in your heart and my heart. And that's the most powerful part of this principle, the most applicable to our lives, that we would examine our own hearts and know that God cares about that, not what we're doing on the outside.

Now, he cares about what we're doing on the outside, but what he cares about most and first is what's on the inside because, quite frankly, we're all capable of faking it on the outside. We can, you know, we're smart enough to look like the most spiritual people on God's green earth.

We can do that. We have an inkling to do that. But we in our relationship with God know that God knows what's inside and he cares about what's inside. And so, we, as the scriptures say, need to keep our hearts with all diligence for out of it come the issues of life.

The things that really matter, Proverbs 4.23. Those are the things that God cares about. All right, so you see, Samuel is presumptuous here. He presumes that God has picked a kingly looking man to be the next king of Israel.

But before Samuel can uncork the flask of oil and anoint Eliab king over Israel, God says, hold on. He's not the one.

And Jesse has other sons. And so then, then came Abinadab. Jesse's, I would assume, second born. Eliab first born, now the second born.

And he probably looked very much like his older brother Eliab, you know, in appearance and so forth. And God says, keep your flask corked. He's not the one either. And then comes Shema.

Nope. He's not it. He's not the one. And then came Nesaniel. You say, where's that in here? Well, it's not in here. That was the third son.

First Chronicles chapter 2 verses 13 and 14, by the way, name all the sons of Jesse. And so then came Rabidei, or Rabidei, I'm not sure how it's pronounced, and then Ozem, and then the Bible doesn't mention the seventh son.

All right, so we have Eliab, Abinadab, Shema, Nethaniel, Radei, then Ozem, and then doesn't mention another one.

You know, actually, there's supposed to be eight sons because the Bible says here seven, and then we have David, and so there's one missing, and we don't know anything about him.

He's not listed in the Chronicles passage, and I guess maybe we just assume maybe he died, you know, before he became anyone of significance. I don't know.

It doesn't really matter. But with each one, God said no. Each one of these seven. Verse 10, the Lord has not chosen these, any of the seven.

And so, this seemed, I think at least to Samuel it seemed, to be a contradiction of revelation. Because, you know, I think Samuel was a bit perplexed at this point.

And the Lord revealed to him that the chosen son would come from Jesse, the chosen king, be it son of Jesse. But the Lord had rejected every single son paraded before him, or so he thought.

But Jesse had an eighth son. An eighth son. And I love the way this is written. Look at verse 11. And Samuel said to Jesse, are all the young men here?

Here, this is it. Then he said, there remains yet the youngest. Actually, probably a better translation would be smallest. The littlest.

The wee one. My wee lad. Oh, there is him. You know, the youngest. And there he is. Maybe they're outdoors and they can see off in the distance, the field and the flock of sheep and David's out there.

There he is way out over there. Tending the sheep. He's keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here.

And there's a contrast. He's the littlest. He's not tall. Now, he is good looking. It does tell us that he is. Ruddy. Probably brown hair, red hair, maybe a dark complex, whatever.

But he's not the biggest. He's the littlest. It's interesting that all throughout Scripture is a common denominator that God always seems to pick the one that we would not pick.

Way down at the bottom of the list. He would not be on our short list. He would not, you know, he is not one you would select. And that's the way God has always done it.

Because, you know, the qualities that God is looking for, well, number one, God is the one who gives the qualities. But the ones God uses are the ones who have the quality on the inside.

Inside. That's what matters to God the most. So, the presumptuous servant of the Lord, that's Samuel. And then next, we are introduced, just really introduced to, and we're going to learn much more about this aspect of David, what I would call the precocious shepherd boy.

David. He was special. I mean, there was something about this shepherd boy. And the Bible here in the passage says some things about him. Something special about him.

Something that, you know, indicated that David possessed a special, kind of a spiritual maturity that was beyond his years.

Precocious. And he had certain talents that, you know, were very notable in his life for a lad of his age. And we don't really know how old he was.

Very young. Teenager. Young teenager. Maybe even preteen. Young. So, he was very advanced for his age and talented and wise and strong, the Bible tells us.

And we really just have an introduction to all of that. This characteristic of David here in chapter 16, but we go ahead and mention it. Chapter 13 and verse 14 reveals the foundation for this.

His heart for God. Man after God's own heart. Now, he's not named back there in chapter 13, but the next king is going to be a man after God's own heart.

That's, by the way, the title of my sermon here tonight. A king after God's own heart. And this was David. And so, the Bible says, but now your kingdom shall not continue.

This is what God said to Saul way back there. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. And verse 13 of chapter 16 further explains this.

And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Now, verse 16 in this chapter reveals one feature, just one feature of this precocious young man.

He was skilled, a skilled and gifted musician. His music could, as the old saying goes, soothe the savage breast.

This is David. And so, but then it gives us more information, verse 18. According to verse 18, I mean, we might have a tendency to think, at least from how Jesse introduced him, oh, you know, there's the little one out there tending the sheep.

and yet, verse 18 says, as Saul's attendants later tell Saul about David, what do they say? He's a mighty man of valor.

He was known for that. He may have been young. I don't think he was necessarily puny. I don't think little in that sense, but just, you know, in Jesse's mind, he's the little one.

He's a mighty man of valor. That means he was, you know, a great warrior. In fact, it says a man of war. He's well advanced, you know, for a man of his age.

Not only that, but he was prudent in speech. He was a great communicator, but also wise in how he spoke. You know, he didn't just open his mouth to switch out feet, you know, like some of us.

And he was handsome, a handsome person, the Bible says there in verse 18. But the best thing was the Lord is with him. Even the attendants of Saul knew that about him.

They had heard that about him. He was apparently well known among people. The Lord is with him. So, precocious shepherd boy, David.

And that leads us to one final thing in the chapter. And, what I would say would call a very precarious sovereign king, Saul.

He was a dangerous man. I don't think anybody knew what he was going to do from one moment to the next as king. And that's what we get here from this part of the chapter.

And really, what a stark contrast we find in chapter 14 where it says, but the spirit of the Lord what? Departed from Saul.

What a contrast. Now get that. Verse 13 says, the spirit of the Lord came upon David. Verse 14 says, the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.

But it says something else too because nature abhors a vacuum. And a distressing spirit and some of you are looking at, possibly looking at your version of the Bible and really it's the New King James that is the only one that uses that word.

King James says what? An evil spirit. Evil spirit. Is this demonic? I don't really think so.

But if it is, God is sovereign over all. Even the demonic world. God allowed him to be tormented perhaps by an evil spirit.

A little bit later it says, God God sent this distress upon him. So, you know, it's from the Lord.

That's what it says. From the Lord to trouble him. So Saul was tormented. He became violent.

He became unpredictable. to all those around him, to his attendants. And seemingly, it's interesting that Saul was sort of oblivious to this. And we get that from the description of this that the attendants were the ones who came to Saul and informed him about this problem.

They knew that Saul was not himself. And the remedy was not a snicker bar. You know, seen some of those commercials. I love those.

Especially the ones Brady Bunch, you know, and whoever that guy is, you know, the hatchet or something. All he needed was a snicker bar. Well, Saul wasn't going to be cured with a snicker bar even if they had him in those days.

So what was it? Well, verse 16, look at it. They know the remedy. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp and it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you and you shall be well.

Be soothed. They really believed that and it did work. And really, why did it work? Well, who was it going to play the harp?

David. Who's David? He's the one who's just been anointed king. And yet, it's not time for him to announce that.

Not time for him to come into his own there. But what better way to bring him into the palace that will one day be his palace? What better way to bring him into the very throne room which will one day be his throne?

And we're going to have, you know, a lot's going to transpire before David finally becomes the bonafide king of Israel. But this is God introducing him into the court, into the royal court.

And so, God sent this evil spirit to torment Saul. Really, I think, just to push the button of an already wicked and tormented heart.

And that's God's method that is just really kind of allowing Saul to be really who he was. But then, for God to allow just the playing of a harp to bring peace to this tormented man, not so much for Saul's sake, but for God's plan.

Bring David into the court.