A Person After God’s Own Heart: Session 1 – Getting the Right King on the Throne

Notes:

Getting The Right King On The Throne    See Session Slides Here

Judges was an era of ‘no king’. There was anarchy, everyone doing his own thing. The glory departed. Many sins recorded in Judges + 1 Samuel but God responds to sin with a Saviour. The book of Ruth ends with David

David is spoken of more in NT than any other OT character. He is referred to 1200+ times in Bible. He is the most eminent type of Christ. He was a type of Christ most of all in that he was a man after God’s own heart.

  • Saul was the king whom the people chose. ‘Give us a king’… ‘like all the nations’. God had promised them a king. But they wanted a king who would get them what they wanted. ‘Not Thy will, but mine’. The worse thing God can do is let us have our own way. Many times we read ‘He will take…’ in 1 Sam.8:10-22. ‘Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired’ (1 Sam.12:13).
  • David was the king God chose (1 Chron.28:4).
  • Saul wants what he wants, and he wants to use God and others to get him what he wants. David wants what God wants. He is a man after God’s own heart. He represents Christ and what He can form in us.
  • Saul represents the flesh; David, the Spirit. Remember, we have both!

 First mention of Saul – he was looking for donkeys, 3 days. The donkeys were found. God was revealing to Saul that it’s not up to him to make things happen. He could take his hands off. No need to manipulate.

  • Then, he was anointed. God shows him that he will equip him. All he needed to do was trust God.
  • Saul started well, but it soon became clear that he had an independent spirit and his own agenda. He wanted success and fame on his terms. The wrong king was on the throne.
  • He even erected a memorial stone to himself (1 Sam.15:10-12).
  • To know God’s will and disobey it is like witchcraft and idolatry. ‘For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
    He also has rejected you from being king’     (1 Sam.15:23). The word for ‘witchcraft’ is usually translated ‘divination’, i.e. fortune telling. ‘I know future outcome of my actions will be better than obeying God.’
  • First mention of David he was keeping sheep. ‘Now therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people, over Israel”’ (2 Sam.7:8). Shepherd-King. See also Psa. 78:70-72.
  • He was not selected for his outward appearance. Even Samuel expected a man who was outwardly ‘But 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”’ (1 Sam.16:7).
  • He was youngest, least and despised by his family Ps.27:10. Saul was outwardly impressive: handsome, head & shoulders above others. The flesh is outward, showy and appeals to the flesh, (1 Cor.1:26-31).
  • But David knew who he was. David = ‘Beloved’. He knew that God was with him.
  • He was the 8th son of Jesse – new beginning. The flesh (Saul) comes first, then the Spirit (David). When we are born again we are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
  • John: 3:6. We are a new creation. Adam’s life is no longer our source of life. A new king is on the throne. ‘You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you’ (Rom.8:9).
  • Yet we can still walk according to the flesh. This is because our body has not yet been redeemed. We are still capable of fleshly behaviour, (Gal.5:16-18). As there was civil war throughout David’s reign, so too with us. Don’t fight the flesh; walk in the Spirit. Keep the right king on the throne.

 ‘And afterward they asked for a king; so God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And when He had removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will’ (Acts 13:21-22).