THE ONE THAT GOD USES
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And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons. And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee. And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Beth-lehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice. And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him. But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.
Introduction:
God is always looking for vessel, man or woman whom He can use to magnify His glory through.
Saul has been rejected as king by the Lord.
Now the grieving Samuel is told by the Lord to take his horn—a horn of cattle, hollowed out and meant to be a container for liquid—fill it with oil and go find a new king and anoint him.
Samuel goes to Bethlehem, and there he meets a man named Jesse.
And he meets Jesse's sons. Seven of them parade before Samuel. All of them are good-looking young men, but none of them are God's choice.
God is looking at the heart, not just the outward appearance. So Samuel asks Jesse, "Do you have another son?"
And he says, "Yes, he's out tending sheep."
It's that young man who is to be anointed king of Israel.
Once David is anointed, the Spirit of God comes upon him with power.
Anointing
We, as believers, also have an anointing.
We're anointed to be equipped for service, Acts 2.
The Spirit of God was poured out—not a literal oil on the Day of Pentecost—but a pouring out of the Holy Spirit.
The anointing was for God's people to do the work of the Lord with His special presence.
God's work can never be done simply by human wisdom or human life. Anointing also is ours simply by virtue of the fact that we are Christians. First John 2:20 and verse 27 remind us that we are the anointed of the Lord if we have Christ in our life.
But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Anointing is important.
It's a word as believers we grow up with.
The assessment of preaching was either "It was anointed" or "It wasn't." The preaching and the singing were anointed if they produced change—if the preacher's notes got off his Bible and into the human heart; and if the singing got off the notes and into the consciousness and reality, then it was anointed singing.
The anointing doesn't always have to be loud.
It doesn't always have to have a fantastic display of emotion.
But there must be an overlaying of God's presence on what is happening.
There must be power and effectiveness.
We not only need anointed preachers and singers, but we need anointed husbands and anointed wives, anointed children, anointed grandparents, anointed brothers and sisters, anointed Sunday School teachers, anointed lay workers, and anointed church workers.
All of us have roles, functions, and titles we wear.
We can function in that title far below what is available.
But God's Spirit fills us up and causes us to be at our best for His honor and His glory.
It is that anointing we seek.
I. First, we can lose the anointing.
I'm not saying anything about salvation. I'm talking about anointing—empowerment to do God's work God's way.
Saul had lost the anointing. He was still king.
He still had the title.
He still had the office.
He would have it for decades to come.
But the ability to function to the capability that God had called him was taken from him.
He had lost the anointing.
The Spirit was departing, and he lost the anointing through disobedience.
Anointing can be lost any number of ways.
It can be lost through disobedience.
It can be lost through disuse.
It can be lost through lack of hunger for God's work in our lives.
It can be lost through carelessness.
Anointing is not something guaranteed to us.
It must be kept by continual dependence and humility before God.
Without God's gracing of His Holy Spirit on our lives, it's all dead works.
We need God to make us live.
II. God is determined to discover persons He can anoint, and He will anoint.
If one individual fails, God is going to move on.
He's going to find someone who will not fail Him.
It's kind of tough when you care about someone who has had the anointing leave.
You can spend your life crying over spilt milk, but what the Lord says to Samuel is, "It's time to get up, Samuel, and quit looking at the past—at the glory days.
Get on with it. I've got work to do in this generation, and I'm not going to let you sit idly by, living in the past—thinking about how things used to be with Saul.
Who is God looking for?
Who does He want to anoint?
Three chapters ago we found the key phrase in 1 Samuel 13:14 "The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart."
But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.
God is looking for internal qualities in people—not simply external qualities.
They looked great, but God was looking for something deeper than the external appearance.
If you look carefully at the text, you see the qualities he had in him. The qualities God knew were there.
1. Obedience
2. Faithful
3. Responsible
4. Valor
5. Resilent
He doesn't let the negative input of people in his life crowd out his own personality and diminish him.
David on the battlefield
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