Reading: Ps. 89:19-20; Acts
13:22; Heb. 1:9; 1 Sam. 13:14.
The Bible abounds with men. It
abounds with many other things; with doctrine, with principles;
but more than anything else it abounds with men. That is God's
method, His chosen method, His primary method of making Himself
known. These men who were in relationship with God, with whom God
was associated, bring distinctive features into view. Not in any
one man is the whole man acceptable and every feature to be
praised, but in every man there are one or more features that
stand out and distinguish him from all others, and abide as the
conspicuous features of that man's life. Those outstanding
distinctive features represent God's thought, the features which
God Himself has taken pains to develop, for which God laid His
hand upon such men, that throughout history they should be the
expression of certain particular traits.
Thus we speak of Abraham's
faith, of the meekness of Moses. Every man is representative of
some feature wrought into him, developed in him, and when you
think of the man the feature is always uppermost in your mind.
Our attention is drawn, not to the man as a whole, but to that
which marks him in particular. So by one apostle we are called to
recollect the faith of Abraham, while another will bid us
remember the patience of Job. These features are God's thoughts,
and when all the features of all the men are gathered up and
combined, they represent Christ. It is as though God had
scattered one Man over the generations, and in a multitude of men
under His hand had shown some aspect, some feature, some facet of
that one Man, and that one Man is able to say, "Ye search
the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal
life and these are they which bear witness of me..." (John
5:39). There is a Man spread over the Bible, and all who have
come under God's hand, have been apprehended for the purpose of
showing something of His thought, which in its fulness is
expressed in His Son, the Lord Jesus. Recognizing that, we are
better able to appreciate the words we have just read, which in
the first instance related to David, but are clearly seen to
reach beyond to a greater than David. Read again Ps. 89: and you
cannot fail to see that two things merge into one another:
"I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted
one chosen out of the people". You have to look for a
greater than David for the complete expression of that. In the
words "I have laid help upon one that is mighty..." we
have one of the great foundations of our redemption. A greater
than David is here. David in those principal features of his life
under God's hand was an expression of God's thought concerning
Christ. You cannot carry the statement, "I have found... a
man after my heart..." through the whole of David's life,
and say that when David was guilty of this and that particular
thing which marred his life this was after God's heart. We have
to see exactly what it was, in and about David, which made it
possible for God to say that he was a man after His own heart. It
was just that which indicated Christ, pointed to Christ. It is
only that which is Christ which is after God's heart.
The
Divine Purpose from Eternity
"The Lord hath sought him
a man after his own heart..." (1 Sam. 13:14). Remembering
our previous meditations, we shall find a large setting for a
statement like that. It speaks of the creation of man, of the
Lord seeking to have a man-race, a corporate man in whom His own
thoughts and features are reproduced in a moral way. The Lord has
ever sought Him that man. It was the seeking of such a man that
led to the creation. It was the seeking of such a man that led to
the Incarnation. It is that seeking of a man which has led to the
Church, the "one new man". God is all the time in quest
of a man to fill His universe , not one man as a unity, but a
collective man gathered up into His Son. Paul speaks of this man
as "...the church, which is his body, the fulness of him..."
(Eph. 1:22,23). That is the fulness, the measure of the stature
of a man in Christ. It is the Church which is there spoken of,
not any one individual. God has ever been in quest of a man to
fill His universe.
The
Likeness is Moral and Spiritual
God thinks thoughts, desires
desires, and wills a will, and those thoughts, and desires, and
that will are the very essence of His moral being, and when He
has thus reproduced Himself in this sense, He has a being
constituted according to His own moral nature; the man becomes an
embodiment and personification of the very moral nature of God;
not of the Deity of God, but of His moral nature. You know what
it is in life to say that anything or anyone is after your own
heart. You mean they are just exactly what you think they are and
what you want them to be for your own complete satisfaction. The
man after God's heart is like that to Him.
Devoted
to the Will of God
There is a third thing which
defines that to some degree, which puts its finger upon the root
of the matter. What is the man after God's heart? What is it that
God has sought in man? The verse in Acts tells us: "...who
shall do all my will" (Acts 13:22). If you look at the
margin you will see that 'will' is plural: "all my
wills" - everything that God desires, everything that God
wills, the will of God in all its forms, in all its ways, in all
its quests and objectives. The man who will do all His wills is
the man after God's heart, whom God has sought. The words are
spoken, in the first place, of David. There are several ways in
which David as a man after God's heart is brought out into clear
relief.
Firstly, David is set in
striking contrast with Saul. When God had deposed and set aside
Saul, He raised up David. Those two stand opposite to one another
and can never occupy the throne together. If David is to come,
then Saul must go. If Saul is there, David cannot come. That is
seen very clearly in the history, but let us note that in this we
are confronted with basic principles, not merely with what is
historic and to do with persons of bygone days. Before God there
are two moral states, two spiritual conditions, two hearts, and
these two hearts can never be in the throne together, can never
occupy the princely position at the same time. If one is to be
prince, or in the place of ascendency, of honour, of God's
appointment, the other heart has to be completely put away. It is
remarkable that even after David was anointed king there was a
considerable lapse of time before he came to the throne, during
which Saul continued to occupy that position. David had to keep
back until that régime had run its course, until it was
completely exhausted, finished, and then put aside.
It would be a long, though
profitable, study, to go over Saul's life as shown by his outward
behaviour. Saul was governed by his own judgments in the things
of God. That is one thing. When God commanded Saul to slay Amalek
- man, woman, beast, and child; to destroy Amalek root and
branch, it was a big test of Saul's faith in God's judgment,
God's wisdom, God's knowing of what He was doing, God's honour.
If God commands us to do something which on the face of it would
seem to deny something in God's own nature of kindness, and
goodness, and mercy, and we begin to allow our own judgment to
take hold upon God's command and to give another complexion to
the matter, to take obedience out of our hearts, we have set our
judgment against God's command. In effect we have said: 'The Lord
surely does not know what He is doing! Surely the Lord is not
alive to the way His reputation will suffer if this is done, the
way people will speak of His very morality!' It is a dangerous
thing to bring our own moral judgment to bear upon an explicit
command of the Lord. Saul's responsibility was not to question
why, but to obey. We recall Samuel's word to Saul: "Behold,
to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams" (1 Sam. 15:22). The man after God's heart does all His
wills, and does not say: 'Lord, this will bring You into
reproach! This will bring You into dishonour! This will raise
serious difficulties for You!' On the contrary, he replies at
once: 'Lord, You have said this; I leave the responsibility for
the consequences with You, and obey.' The Lord Jesus always acted
so. He was misunderstood for it, but He did it.
Saul was influenced in his
conduct by his own feelings, his own likes and dislikes, and
preferences. He blamed the people, it is true, but it was he
himself who was at fault after all. It was his judgment working
through his sentiments. In effect he said: 'It is a great pity to
destroy that! Here is something that looks so good, that
according to all standards of sound judgment is good, and the
Lord says destroy! What a pity! Why not give it to God in
sacrifice?' Now we know that it is true of the natural man that
there are these two aspects, a good side and a bad. Are we not,
on our part, often found saying, in effect: 'Let us hand the good
to God!' We are quite prepared for the very sinful side to go,
but let us give the good that is in us to the Lord! All our
righteousnesses are in His sight as filthy rags. God's new
creation is not a patchwork of the old, it is an entirely new
thing, and the old has to go. Saul defaulted upon that very
thing. He reasoned that the best should be given to God, when God
had said: "Utterly destroy."
The man after God's own heart
does not make blunders like that. His interrogation of himself
is: What has the Lord said? No place is given to any other
enquiry - What do I feel about it? How does it seem to me? He
does not say: 'It is a great pity from my standpoint'. No! The
Lord has said it, and that is enough. God has sought Him a man
who will do all His wills.
So we could pursue the contrast
between Saul and David along many lines. We are led to one issue
every time. It all points in one direction. Will this man
surrender his own judgments, his own feelings, his own standards,
his entire being to the will of God, or will he have reservations
because of the way in which he views things and questions
God?
An Utter
Rejection of the Flesh
There is another way in which
David stands out as the man after God's own heart, and it is this
with which we are especially concerned, and with which we will
conclude this part of our meditation. It is that which is to be
noted in the first public action of David in the valley of Elah.
We refer, of course, to his contest with Goliath. This first
public action of David was a representative and inclusive one,
just as the conquest of Jericho was with Israel. Jericho, as we
know, was representative and inclusive of the conquest of the
whole land. There were seven nations to be deposed. They marched
round Jericho seven times. Jericho, in spiritual and moral
principle, was the embodiment of the whole land. God intended
that what was true of Jericho should be true of every other
conquest, that the basis should be one of sheer faith; victory
through faith, possession through faith.
David's contest with Goliath
was like that. It gathered up in a full way everything that
David's life was to express. It was the comprehensive disclosure
or unveiling of the heart of David. He was a man after God's own
heart. God's ground of approval in His choice of men is shown to
us in His words to Samuel with reference to another of Jesse's
sons: "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his
stature... the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). In
the case of David, the heart that God had seen is disclosed in
the contest with Goliath, and it was that heart which made David
the man after God's own heart all the rest of his life. What is
Goliath? Who is he? He is a gigantic figure behind whom all the
Philistines hide. He is a comprehensive one, an inclusive one; in
effect, the whole Philistine force; for when they saw their
champion was dead they fled. The nation is bound up with, and
represented by, the man.
What are the Philistines
typically? They represent that which is very near to what is of
God, always in close proximity, always seeking to impinge upon
the things of God; to get a grip, to look into, to pry, to
discover the secret things of God. You will recall their attitude
toward the Ark when it came into their hands. They were ever
seeking to pry into the secrets of God, but always in a natural
way. They are called "uncircumcised". That is what
David said about Goliath: "this uncircumcised
Philistine". We know from Paul's interpretation that
typically that means the uncrucified natural life, the natural
life which is always seeking to get a grip on the things of God
apart from the work of the Cross; which does not recognize the
Cross; which sets the Cross aside, and thinks that it can proceed
without the Cross into the things of God; which ignores the fact
that there is no way into the things of the Spirit of God except
through the Cross as an experienced thing, as a power breaking
down the natural life and opening a way for the Spirit. There is
no possibility whatever of our knowing the secrets of God except
by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit "was not" (we
use the word in the particular meaning of John 7:39) until
Calvary was accomplished. That must be personal in application,
not merely historic. The uncircumcised Philistines simply speak
of a natural life which comes alongside the things of God, and is
always interfering with them, touching them, looking into them,
wanting to get hold of them; a menace to that which is spiritual.
Goliath embodies all that. All the Philistines are gathered up
into him. David meets him, and the issue, in spiritual
interpretation, is this, that David's heart is going to have
nothing of that. He sets himself that all things shall be of God,
and nothing of man. There shall be no place for nature here in
the things of God, but this natural strength must be destroyed.
The Philistines become David's life-long enemies, and he theirs.
Do you see the man after God's
heart? Who is he? What is he? He is a man who, though the odds
against him be tremendous, sets himself with all his being
against that which interferes with the things of God in an
'uncircumcised' way. That which contradicts the Cross of the Lord
Jesus, that which seeks to force its way into the realm of God
other than by the gate-way of the Cross is represented by the
Philistine. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? David's heart
was roused with a mighty indignation against all that was
represented by this man.
That constitutes a very big
issue indeed. It has not to do merely with a sinful world. There
is that in the world which is opposed to God, positively set
against God, a sinful state that is recognized and acknowledged
by most people. That is all against God, but that is not what we
have here. This is something else that is to be found even
amongst the Lord's people, and which regards nothing as too
sacred to be exploited. It will get into an assembly of saints in
Corinth and call forth a tremendous letter of the Apostle about
natural wisdom, the wisdom of this world expressing itself as the
mentality even of believers, and thus making the Gospel of none
effect. This spirit that is not subject to the Cross creeps in
and associates itself with the things of God, and takes a
purchase upon them. It is not so much that which is blatantly,
obviously, and conspicuously sinful, as the natural life which is
accounted so fine according to human standards. The Lord's people
have always had to meet that in one form or another. Ezra had to
meet it. Men came and proffered their help to build the House of
God: and how the Church has succumbed to that sort of thing! If
anybody offers their help for the work of the Lord, the attitude
at once taken is: Oh, well, it is help, which is what we want;
let us have all the help we can get! There is no discrimination.
Nehemiah had to meet it. There is some help that we are better
without. The Church is far better without Philistine association.
That is the sort of thing that has assailed the Church all the
way through. John, the last surviving Apostle, in his old age
writes: "...but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the
pre-eminence... receiveth us not..." (3 John 9). You see the
significance of that. John was the man of the testimony of Jesus:
"I John... was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the
word of God and the testimony of Jesus". The great word of
John's writings is 'life': (John 1:4); "...this life is in
his Son" (1 John 5:11). Diotrephes could not bear with that.
If Christ is coming in, Diotrephes, who loveth to have the
pre-eminence, must go out; if he that loveth to have the
pre-eminence is coming in, then Christ is kept out.
The man after God's own heart
is the man who will have no compromise with the natural mind; not
only with what is called sin in its more positive forms, but with
all that natural life which tries to get hold of the work of God
and the interests of God, to handle and to govern them. This has
been the thing that has crippled and paralysed the Church through
the centuries; men insinuating themselves into the place of God
in His Church.
You see what David stands for.
He will take the head off that giant. There has to be no
compromise with this thing; it must go down in the name of the
Lord.
The
Price of Loyalty
Now notice this, that for his
devotion David had to suffer. This man, who alone saw the
significance of that with which he had to do, this man who alone
had the thoughts of God in his heart, the conceptions of God, the
feelings of God, the insight of God; this man who alone with
Samuel amongst all the people of Israel in that dark day of
spiritual weakness and declension was on the side of God, seeing
things in a true way, has to suffer for it. As he came upon the
scene, and, with his perception and insight into what was at
stake betraying itself in his indignation, his wrath, his zeal
for the Lord, began to challenge this thing, his own brethren
turned upon him. How? In the cruellest way for any such man, the
way most calculated to take the heart out of any true servant of
God. They imputed wrong motives. They said in effect: You are
trying to make a way for yourself; trying to get recognition for
yourself; trying to be conspicuous! You are prompted by personal
interests, personal ambitions! That is a cruel blow. Every man
who has come out against that which has usurped God's place in
any way, and stood alone for God against the forces that prevail,
has come under that lash. To Nehemiah it was said: 'You are
trying to make a name for yourself, to get prophets to set you on
high and proclaim through the country that there is a great man
called Nehemiah in Jerusalem!' Similar things were said of Paul.
Misrepresentation is a part of the price. David's heart was as
free from any such thing as any heart could be. He was set upon
the Lord, the Lord's glory, the Lord's satisfaction, but even so,
men will say: 'It is all for himself, his own name, his own
reputation, his own position.' That is more calculated to take
the heart out of a man than a good deal of open opposition. If
only they would come out and fight fairly and squarely in the
open! But David did not succumb; the giant did! May the Lord give
us a heart like David's, for that is a heart like His own.
We see in David a reflection of
the Lord Jesus, who was eaten up by zeal for the Lord's House,
who paid the price for His zeal, and who was, in a sense above
all others, the Man after God's own heart.
It has not been our intention
to make this a study of the life of David, but just to show how
the Horizon of Christ reaches backward as well as forward in all
God's thoughts.