Truth And Consequences

Truth And Consequences:

1st Samuel 16: 6-12

Intro: Now we begin here with Samuel who was the earliest of the Hebrew prophets after Moses, and the last of the Judges. And we have Saul, the first King of Israel, and Eliab, Jesse’s oldest son, David’s older brother. Now Samuel was a devout man of God. He wanted the best for Israel. He would be willing to wait on God . . . But Israel refused to wait on God and determined to have a King, just because everyone else had their King and they wanted to “Keep up with the Jones’s.”

So Samuel says: “Ok . . . I will see that you have a King; now it won’t be the best for you, but I can see you’re NOT going to wait on God. Now his name is Saul. So, here comes King Saul who, after being in office two years, got up 3,000 men to fight against the Philistines. And as time went King Saul was caught in a lie among other things . . . And God’s Spirit left Saul, and as a result, he fell away from serving God. Yet, he continued to be the King of Israel until his death.

Now . . . I want us to see the “TRUTH” of the matter . . . There are different classes of people . . . Some are rich, some poor, some smart, some not so smart . . . But then we have shrewd people . . . that can con you into anything. And we have folks that appear to be good Christian people. I had a cousin that I thought was a Christian man. Throughout my knowing him, I NEVER heard him say a curse word, never heard him say anything bad about anybody . . . He was just a good, moral, man. But, as it turned out, he accepted the Lord within a few months of his death. He was in his 7o’s.

Now, Eliab had a look about him, and actions, that Samuel took note of. Samuel thought for sure he had found a king. He just knew this was the man. Then, Jesse called his other sons to come up to the line-up . . . and poor Samuel, he was so confused . . . Then as the last one present, passed before Samuel, Samuel asked Jesse, “Is these all your children?”....Jesse: “No, there’s one more. He’s my youngest son. He is a Shepherd boy . . . He’s out in the pasture now tending sheep.”

Well, Samuel said: Send somebody after him. I’m so wound up I can’t set down until he comes to me. Well, Jesse sent somebody to get him, and boy what a handsome young man he was! His name was David. And now you know the rest of the story!

Now I want us to turn our attention to verse seven . . . It speaks of the difference between how we look at a person and how God looks at a person. Eliab surely was impressive. But how was his heart toward God? All the Bible says about him is that he was the elder son of Jesse. Was he a Christian man? ...He may have been but looks are deceiving. And the TRUTH is, watch your back. The very one you think you can trust might be the one who leads you astray.

But then, we are quick to judge . . . Yes, God gave us the ok to be fruit inspectors, and believe me, before I let anybody preach in this pulpit, they will be checked out. But, let’s not get carried away. Again, the TRUTH is, there are people who would love to get in this pulpit and lead you down the wrong path. They are professional people that can look to be the one right under God . . . And you will think, boy he or she whatever the case, will be the one for this job, this ministry . . .

When I worked for the funeral home, I found out you could hire “Professional Mourners.” You pay the person or group so much an hour to sit close to the family and cry. They have the people fooled. The Bible says: “Lay not your hand on anyone quickly. 1Tm:5:22: Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partakers of other men’s sins: keep thyself pure.”

The one you think might be the one who can handle it, is the very one who can’t, and therefore ruin a good work of the Lord. As far as Samuel was concerned, Eliab was the man! Samuel, the great prophet of God, I would say, was considered a smart man. He thought things out . . . The Israelites wanted a King before God’s time, I believe Samuel knew that, and he told them, Saul is not the man. And he was right. When you want something badly, do you wait on the Lord? Of course there is a difference between what you want and what you need. And sometimes God gives us what we want just to show us it was NOT what we really needed.