Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 638
Delivered on Sunday Morning, July 9, 1865, by C. H. Spurgeon, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington
“And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 1 Samuel 16:12.
SAMUEL was sent to Bethlehem to discover the object of God’s election. This would have been a very difficult task if the God who sent him had not accompanied him and spoken with the sure voice of Inspiration within him so soon as the chosen object stood before him. Brethren, it is neither your task nor mine to guess who are God’s elect apart from marks and evidences. What was done in the councils of eternity before the world was made is hidden in the mind of God and we must not curiously intrude where the door is closed by the hand of Wisdom.
Yet in the preaching of the Word there is a discovery made of God’s secret election. We preach the Gospel to every creature under Heaven. We deliver God’s threats and promises to every sinner and we cry, “Look unto Jesus and be you saved, all the ends of the earth.” That Gospel is, of itself, through God the Holy Spirit, the discerner of the chosen ones of God when they feel its quickening power and are raised from among the spiritually dead. The Gospel is a fan which, while it drives away the chaff, leaves the wheat upon the floor. The Gospel is like a refiner’s fire and like the fuller’s soap removing all that is extraneous and worthless, revealing the precious and the pure.
We ministers have no other way by which to discern the saints of God and to separate the precious from the vile but by faithfully preaching the Truth of God as it is in Jesus and observing its effects. As for ourselves, we may discover our own calling and election and make them sure. Paul said of the Thessalonians that he knew their election of God. We may discover the election of other men to a very high degree of probability by their conduct and conversation, and be certified of our own election, even to infallibility, by the witness of the Spirit within that we are born of God.
If our heart is renewed by the Spirit. If we are made new creatures in Christ Jesus. If we are reconciled unto God and redeemed from dead works we may know that our names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life from before the foundation of the world. This morning I am about to speak upon the way in which we may discover the elect, making the case of David, in some degree, our guiding star.
I. I would have you mark at the outset, THE SURPRISE of all, when they found that David, the least in his father’s house, was the object of the Lord’s choice as king over Israel! Observe that his brothers had no idea that David would be selected. Such a thought had never entered their minds. If the question had been asked of them, “Who among you will ever attain to the kingdom?” they would have selected any of the other seven, but they would certainly have passed by their brother, David.
He seems to have been thoroughly despised by his brothers. Eliab addresses him in a tone of scorn when he comes to the valley of Elah—“Because of your pride and the naughtiness of your heart you are come to see the battle.” This mode of speech was, no doubt, such as he usually employed towards the young man. I suppose that David had been one by himself. The sports of the seven were often such that he could not engage in them. He was no companion for them. If they at any time perpetrated any unjust or unrighteous deed—if, as probably a band of seven young men in the hey-day of youth were likely to do—they were bold in courses of sinful mirth—David would follow the example of Joseph and act as a reprover in their midst and consequently he fell under their contempt.
He was with his flock on the mountain side when they were making merry with their drinking. His book and his harp were his solace. Contemplation was his great delight and his God his best company—while his brothers found no pleasure in Divine things. He, like our Lord, could say, “For Your sake I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother’s children” (Psa. 69:7, 8). Like Joseph, he was “the dreamer” of the family in the esteem of the rest. They thought him moon-struck when he considered the heavens and called him mad when he meditated both day and night on God’s Law.
Now, beloved Friends to whom I address myself, you may be one of those whom God has looked upon with an eye of love from before the foundation of the world and yet, in the family to which you belong you may be overlooked and forgotten. Your own brethren have formed a very low opinion of your abilities and they have a perfect contempt for the singularity of your character. You are as a speckled bird among your own kinsfolk—you cannot enjoy what they enjoy— your loves and your longings run in a different channel from theirs. Suffer not their contempt to break your heart!