Who is reigning in my heart?

I'd like to just read a few scriptures, first of all, in 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel, chapter 15, and verse number 35. 1 Samuel 15, verse 35.

And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Well, while I mourn with oil and gall, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided a king from among his sons.

I think maybe that would be good there. Now, come with me to the New Testament. And we're going to Philippians, chapter 2. These well-known verses have been quoted this morning.

And that's verse 6. For a being in the form of God thought it not wrongly to be equal with one who had made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant that was made in the likeness of sinful men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, or unto the Father to the extent of death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.

Now, verse number 3, or chapter 3 rather, verse number 4. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath for off he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, and Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee concerning zeal of persecuting the church, touching the righteousness is the law blameless. But what things were gains to me, I counted loss for Christ, a doubtless, and I counted all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and have counted but done, refused, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, and so on.

Now, we know that God will bless the reading of his precious word. We read there in 1 Samuel, about Samuel who mourned after Saul. It was a very sad thing, you know, Saul was a man that the people chose to reign.

And the thought that I have in my mind basically is, who's reigning in your heart and who's reigning in my heart? And it seemed that here was a man, first of all, he was such a tremendous man, head and shoulders above everyone else. And he was the kind of man that you would look to, a man that the flesh would really choose. And that was the people's choice.

And up until the time that God, what we read there, we find that he was disobedient to God. Even though he was head and shoulders above, and such a wonderful man. And it seemed that even, you know, there was a time when Saul was going to anoint him and he hid.

And I think likely that was false humility. You know, he wasn't really a humble man. And the man that we want to reign in our lives, you know, that's not self.

And we think of how he was told to go and kill Agide. And instead of killing him, he spared him. And he spared the best of the flock.

And we were always taught that partial obedience is disobedience. He carried out half of the will, but not at all. And of course, later on, we find the Agides again, don't we? In the book of Esther.

And then we find that they were enemies. He was an enemy. Haman, Agide was an enemy of Mordecai.

He wouldn't have been there if Saul had done what God asked him to do. Then there was another thing that he did. And you remember how when they were in the battle, Saul went away down with the armor bearer.

And God gave him a lot of courage and God blessed him. And he slew many of the people. And Saul had already told the people, don't eat any honey.

Don't eat anything. If they had gone and ate something, they would have been far stronger and they would have been able maybe to do a better job. But do you remember how Jonathan, he tipped a spear, wasn't it? I believe it was a spear.

And he took of the honey. And then when the time came and Saul said, well, he's going to have to die. Imagine the soul's son.

And he said he's going to have to die because he took a little honey. And Saul was the one that maybe should have died because he had no idea how to rule God's people really. Well, then Samuel, you'd think Samuel would have been glad when God said, I'm going to bring another king in.

There's another man that's going to reign. And he said, I want you to go and anoint him. And of course, you always remember a couple of things about Saul.

First of all, he was anointed with a vial of oil. David was anointed with a horn of oil. Vials speak of judgment, but a horn speaks of strength.

Another thing, people sometimes say, do you think Saul was really saved? What do you think? Well, they always told us and drummed it into us, the law of first mention. And the first mention of Saul is without clean animals looking for donkeys. The first mention of David is among the sheep.

And I think that's what characterized their lives. Here's a man, an uncle. Anyhow, so we have, first of all, a little bit of Saul's character.

That's my first point. I don't have a lot of points. But the next thing we have, Samuel cleaning the Saul and he mourned for Saul.

And sometimes, you know, if I'm on the throne of my heart, I could mourn after the old things. The things that I enjoyed for many years ago. But I don't go in for them now.

There's another man on the throne. And this man, I didn't read about him, but you know who it is. It's David, of course.

And God said, turn to Samuel. And because he mourned after Saul, God didn't tell Samuel who it was. He said, you go, it's the son of Jesse.

Didn't tell him what his name was. And of course, Samuel still hadn't learned his lesson. He saw the elder, three older boys.

And he said, oh, this might be him. He's the oldest of them. No, he said.

And then they had run out of sons. Seven of them came. They were there.

He said, is there nobody else? Now, number eight speaks of a new beginning. God was making a new beginning. And he said, you go and get David.

David's a lovely character. I know he sinned, and we all sin. But I think of him in those days.

You wonder what he was doing. Well, he was taking care of sheep. He made sure the enemy didn't get to them.

But apart from that, I think when he was lying there on his back, maybe resting, and he's a son. No, he said, how do you know? That reminds me of a bright moon going across the sky. Reminds me of the, oh, you would say, of the Lord.

Coming up so lowly, but then coming up and coming to a zenith, and then going down into death. Oh, how sad. No, no, no.

Coming up in resurrection again. And I don't know just how much David, I think, was very intelligent. And he would appreciate that.

And then at night, he'd look at the stars. The sun and the stars. That's his hand at the table.

What has God to do? Mindfulness and so on. What a marvelous. God says, that's a man.

And he brings him up. He didn't become king right away. And, of course, you know, the Lord Jesus was anointed, and he didn't become king right away.

He's not reigning yet, as far as the world is concerned. But he's going to reign in the future. David had a lot of things to go through.

And so had the Lord. But there was a day when David went down into the valley. And that's a story we all love as children.

I still love it. And we'll have him going down into the valley. And this big giant comes, and Goliath, and he defies God.

And David said, who do you think you are? And Goliath said, who do you think you are? Coming out like a dog. And they said, he cut the stones out. Five stones, wasn't it? He used one out of the five.

That's all he needed. You say, where did the others go? I'm not sure. But they say, well, Goliath had four brothers.

That's true. But I think he chose the one that was suitable. Maybe for the wind and so on.

But whatever he did, anyhow, he chose the right one. It reminds me of the Lord in the wilderness. And when the Lord was in the wilderness, you know, he took one out of five, didn't he? He took one out of the book of Deuteronomy.

And that was the one that brought down Satan there. So you see the importance of the word of God. So important to us.

Anyhow, David went down and David came up again out of the valley, triumphant. Cut the head of the giant. It's kind of gory, isn't it? But that was the proof of his death.

He died when the stone went into his head. When I went to school in Ireland, I went to school a little bit. And, you know, they used to teach us religious instruction every first period in grade school.

And then once a year, a clergyman would come in and ask us questions about what we had learned. And we had learned about David and Goliath was one of the things. So he said, why did the stone sink into Goliath's head? And one of the girls said, sir, there was no brain juror to stop it.

I don't know, but it went into his head. But then he cut off his head and he took it. And then what happened then? Well, it was a lot of people saw that David's victory.

But there was one man and it really touched his heart. And that was Jonathan. And you know what Jonathan did? He stripped himself of his robe, his garment, his robe, his sword.

And he laid him down, his spear as well, the sword and the spear, his girdle. And he laid him down at David's feet. Why do you think he did that? Well, the juror sanctified imagination.

I think he said, I'm almost sure. I'll find out when I get to heaven. He said, I should have done it that night.

I should have been facing the giant. But there's one who took my place. And I said, I don't hardly need to apply that.

There was one who took my place. There's one who took your place. And you say, well, where does that bring us in your little message here? Well, there was Saul's character and Samuel's clinging, I'll call it, when he mourned.

You have God's choice. That's the one I want to have on the throne of my heart. God's choice.

Not King David, but one greater than David. We have David's courage. And then we read of Christ's condescension.

The Lord Jesus went down into the valley. There's seven downward steps here. And, you know, when we read about the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20, what does it say? No steps up to the altar, lest man's nakedness may be seen.

But here we have steps down to the altar. And seven steps we can count. I don't need to enumerate them for you.

It's very obvious. And we love to study the Lord Jesus. We've been reminded of the Gospels.

And I think we have the Gospels here in this verse. You look, who being in the form of God, John, verse 6, chapter 2 of Philippians, who being in the form of God. Well, that would be the book of John, wouldn't it? He and the Father are one.

He thought it not probably to be equal with God. Made himself of no reputation. Took upon him the form of a servant.

That would be the Gospel of Mark, wouldn't it? And the likeness of sinful men, of course, would be Luke and so on. And the form of God, we could see, Emmanuel, God with us, as well the Gospel of Matthew. So it's good to read the Gospels and learn more of the wonderful person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, what was the result here? Paul, he was saying, the Lord Jesus went down into the valley for me. And he became obedient to the Father, not to death as a master, but to the Father to the extent of death. God has exalted him.

And what was the result? Well, just as Jonathan laid down the things that were so important to him, a beautiful garland and so on, sword he had for combat, close combat, the atmosphere he had for distant combat, all those things, and the girdle, he laid them down. What did Paul lay down? Well, it says, what was it we were reading? And he said, what things were gains to me? Verse 7, those I counted lost for Christ. And yea, doubtless, many years later, he said, I haven't changed my mind.

I still count them all but lost. And what was it he counted but lost? Well, maybe there were many things, but I think it was these seven things here that he laid aside. They were the things that he boasted in.

They were the things that he could brag about. Why, he said, you know, I was the stock of Israel. That was national.

He was not born from a bond woman or a proselyte. And the tribe of Benjamin, how could you boast about Benjamin? Well, he was the only tribe, the only man that was born in the land. All the others were born outside the land.

And then you have a Hebrew, the Hebrew, I'm superior. That's egotistical. He was superior.

And then a Pharisee, ceremonially, he was above others. And a zeal, an occupational, persecuting the church, and moral, of all blameless. He bragged in all those things.

But he said, don't brag on them anymore. What do you brag about? If you put yourself on the throne, you could brag, a lot of people brag about many things. Sad to say, some people brag about being Irish.

I happened to be in a place where there was a woman that taught kindergarten school. And that was St. Patrick's Day. And she said, I'd like you to come to school, I'd like them to see an Irishman.

She had a little thrill. Anyhow, she said, does anybody in the class know what Irish is? One boy said, I think it's a soap. And the other, a string.

And the other said, it could be a person. And the third one said, I think it's a disease. I don't know if he meant a rash or what.

Well, maybe it is a disease, but I hope they can find a cure for it soon. I'll need it before I'm gone. There's nothing we can brag about.

The Lord was the only person to be worried about being born in the U.S. That's so sad, isn't it? We're all in the same plane. That's wonderful. And it's good when they see even Scotsmen here.

Of course, they call me Scotch-Irish, maybe, I'm not sure, but anyhow. All from Australia and so on. I don't know if I'm still there, yeah.

Here we all are. All the same big family. Isn't that wonderful? And the love that's displayed.

And people see it. And I'll tell you, when you're with some Christians, I shouldn't say all Christians, you just have such a wonderful time. And you're happy.

I've been in a restaurant with a lot of Christians. Sometimes the ones down in Kansas City, and you know we go down there, you always have a great time. And you laugh a lot.

And the waiters all come running round. How come you're so happy? He said, you're the only people who aren't drinking booze. And you're the happiest people in the whole establishment.

And I said, we've got a joy that those people don't have. We've got something greater than that. So who's on the throne of my heart? Who's on the throne of your heart? Those things that we think we can boast about.

Whatever little ability maybe God has given us, and I mentioned it, it's not the ability we have. The ability we don't have, we should be concentrating upon. It's a wonderful thing to have the Lord on the throne of our hearts.

May God bless His word.