I Samuel 13:11-14

So, Saul's foolish solution was to offer a burnt offering himself. That is what Samuel was coming to do. But the only problem here is that Saul was not a priest. Saul could not offer a burnt offering in this case. He had presumptuously performed a sacred act that was not his to do. That is very important to God. When God gives you an assignment, He wants you to stick with that. He had assigned Saul to be commander over the people, to be king. He had not given him the right to be a priest, but Saul presumptuously took that upon himself.

He did not stay in his lane. He did not do what he had said he would do through Samuel. So, God said, "I've had enough. Saul, you've been constantly disobeying. You always want to do your own thing, and so I've had enough. I'm going to choose another." So God says He had sought a man after His own heart.

The traditional understanding of this phrase is that David had a quality of heart that he shared with God. And I am not saying that is wrong. I am just saying it may not be exactly what the text actually says. David was committed to God's way. He was faithful to His law in most cases. We know from his psalms that he left that he loved God dearly and we know (as Ronny mentioned earlier) that he always seemed to repent thoroughly when it was brought to his attention what he had done wrong. These are all fine things for a man to have. But was that actually what God meant when He said, "I have sought a man after My own heart"?

Now, a slew of explanations have been brought forward over the centuries, but they always run into the fact that David, like all of us, like every single one of us, was horribly flawed. And that makes you scratch your head a little bit. What was it about his heart that God thought was so great? "Because the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," like Jeremiah 17:9 says.

So what does "after His own heart" mean. Now we have to get a little bit into Hebrew grammar here. It will not be too hard. But the phrase "after His own heart" could modify the word man, a man after His own heart. You could read that right out of the Hebrew and probably be correct. But if you were coming at the text cold, did not know anything, and you were translating, you could also just as easily modify this phrase with the opening phrase. That is, "the Lord has sought for Himself." So what we are dealing with here is what we call in English a misplaced modifier. Where do you put the modifying phrase, prepositional phrase "after his own heart"? Is it that after His own heart, He sought for Himself a man? Or is it that God sought for Himself a man after His own heart? See how it changes the meaning?

In other words, the verse could just as easily read, "The Lord, in accordance with His own heart, has sought a man and commanded him to be commander over His people." Another possible rendition is, "The Lord has sought a man of His own choosing." This is the one I mentioned in my last sermon. The Lord has sought a man of his own choosing. What this translation does is it emphasizes God's unilateral decision. He did not consult anybody else. He did not take anybody's advice. He chose David because he was the man God wanted. We could call this God's election, or selection, of David.

Now, why is this particular alternative to be preferred? Well, it is the context; we often say context is key. You have to know your Bible a bit to understand this, but it makes sense once you think about it. What led to this point in the story? We are still here in I Samuel 13. What led to this? The section actually really begins in chapter 8. And you know what I Samuel chapter 8 is? It is Israel coming to Samuel and saying we want a king like all the other nations. We want a king to go out and lead our troops into battle. And so Samuel says, "No, that shouldn't be," and God says, Let them have a king. But tell them what's going to happen." And so the rest of chapter 8 is a litany of things that … . . .

I Samuel 13:8-14

Moses, the charismatic leader, the type of Jesus Christ, delayed his coming! That is alarming! I will take you to another place in the Bible, just in your mind. What motivated Saul to make the sacrifice that he did (I Samuel 13:8-14)? Because Samuel delayed his coming, and when Samuel was late getting there, Saul took it into his own hands to presumptuously do something that he had not been commanded to do—that was to make the sacrifice. The problem was the delay that he perceived.

Do you understand why Christ said, "Don't say in your heart, 'The Lord delays His coming'"? He knows from the experience that occurred in the Old Testament that if we begin to think that Christ is delaying, then we are going to turn aside through idolatry because we are going to use that as a justification for adjusting ourselves to the spirit of the times we live in. This has alarming ramifications.