“God’s 20-20, X-Ray, Telescopic, Microscopic Vision”
1 Samuel 16:1-13
David P. Nolte
There are many eye ailments: astigmatism, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, far or near sightedness, detached retina, lazy-eye, blurred vision, double vision, dyslexia, floaters, color blindness, extreme light sensitivity, and blindness.
God suffers from none of the above! He has 20/20 - x-ray - telescopic - microscopic - vision! He can see!! And He does.
“The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth.” Psalm 34:15-16 (NASB).
“The LORD is in His Holy temple; the LORD is on His Heavenly throne. He observes the sons of men; His eyes examine them.” Psalm 11:4 (NIV).
“For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and He examines all His paths.” Proverbs 5:21 (NIV).
“The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” Proverbs 15:3 (NIV).
He looks, but what does He see? Consider the Scripture: “Now the LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have selected a king for Myself among his sons.’ But Samuel said, ‘How can I go? When Saul hears of it, he will kill me.’ And the LORD said, ‘Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ ‘You shall invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for Me the one whom I designate to you.’ So Samuel did what the LORD said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the city came trembling to meet him and said, ‘Do you come in peace?’ He said, ‘In peace; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.’ He also consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they entered, he looked at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the LORD’S anointed is before Him.’ But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.’ Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Next Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, ‘The LORD has not chosen this one either.’ Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The LORD has not chosen these.’ And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are these all the children?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep.’ Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. 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 brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. And Samuel arose and went to Ramah.” 1Samuel 16:1-13 (NASB).
So, what does God see with 20-20, x-ray, telescopic, microscopic vision?
I. HE SEES THE INNER PERSON:
A. “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
1. Jesus said, concerning the natural human heart, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.” Matthew 15:19 (NASB).
2. The Psalm informs us, “He knows the secrets of the heart.” Psalm 44:21 (NASB).
3. Peter testified as to non-Jews being saved, “God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us;” Acts 15:8 (NASB).
B. He cannot be hoodwinked, snowed, fooled or gulled – He knows the heart of the inner person – not just the veneer or facade that many put on.
1. He Sees the lust and covetousness in every heart.
2. He Sees the pride and self-righteousness in every heart.
3. He Sees the greed and selfishness in every heart.
4. He Sees the grudge and anger in every heart.
5. He Sees the fear and insecurity in every heart.
6. He Sees the dreams and aspirations in every heart. All you think and hope is an open book to Him.
7. He Sees the sadness and grief in every heart.
8. He Sees the joy and gladness in every heart.
C. God sees the inner person. That’s why He chose David over his elder brothers who were far more impressive externally than David. They looked good, but they lacked that special something different in the inner man. David was chosen for
1. His humility.
2. His dependability – it was he, not the elder brothers, who was put in charge of his father’s flock.
3. His courage – he had fought predators to protect the sheep.
4. His potential – inside the shepherd beat the heart of a king.
D. As God knew the hearts of all of Jesse’s sons, He knows my, and your, heart and mind. Others see us as we appear to the human eye, but God sees the real me and the real you.
1. There is no shield we can carry, no barrier we can erect, no door we can close that will hide our heart from His view.
2. There is no costume or disguise we can put on our heart that will deceive His all seeing, all knowing eye.
E. G. A. Swanson told the story of a poorly dressed woman who was referred to Dr. George Herman for an X-ray. She asked him to make the examination of her heart free of cost. She claimed that she was very poor and couldn’t pay.
The doctor consented to do the work. But when he turned his machine a little below the heart he saw a concealed pocket in which was a purse with five twenty-dollar gold pieces.
After the examination, the woman asked about the findings. “Your heart is very bad,” he said; “you lied when you said you were poor.”
In like manner all secret things will come to light before Almighty God.
So, God sees the inner person – the real person. And,
II. HE SEES THE OUTWARD PERFORMANCE:
A. “The LORD said to Samuel, ‘How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?’”
1. King Saul had performed evil acts with no regard for obedience to God and God observed his arrogant disobedience.
2. He offered sacrifices as a priest but he was of the tribe of Benjamin, not Levi.
3. He consulted a fortune-telling medium which God had forbidden.
4. He made numerous attempts to kill David.
B. God is interested, not in the number or magnitude of our deeds, but in the nature and motivation of our deeds. A right deed done for wrong purposes loses the approval of God. And, of course, there is no right way to do a wrong thing.
1. He wants us to perform deeds that issue out of love. Paul wrote, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB).
2. He wants us to perform deeds that glorify God. Jesus put it this way, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 (NASB).
3. He wants us to perform good deeds regularly. Paul wrote, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” Galatians 6:9-10 (NASB).
4. He wants us to perform good deeds humbly. Jesus warned, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” Matthew 6:1-2 (NASB).
5. He wants us to perform good deeds sacrificially. The Hebrew letter says, “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” Hebrews 13:14-16 (NASB).
C. The true worth of the deeds we perform is determined by what God detects in our hearts. For instance, giving to the poor, prayer, and fasting are all good things if done for the right reasons. Let us beware of performing good things for the wrong reasons:
1. For show.
2. To obligate someone.
3. To earn salvation. Let me say it again, for the “toomanyteenth” time, “works are not the cause of salvation but are the consequence of salvation. We work not to be saved but because we are saved.”
D. The largest deed falls short, but the littlest deed performed for the Lord never goes unnoted. The author of Hebrews wrote, “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.” Hebrews 6:10 (NASB).
E. I’m thinking about a situation were a small boy did good deeds to avoid punishment.
A little boy visiting his grandparents was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target.
As he came back to Grandma’s back yard, he spied her pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead.
The boy panicked. Desperately he hid the dead duck in the wood pile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.
After lunch that day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes.
Later, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to help me make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “Johnny wants to do it.” Again she whispered, “Remember the duck.” Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.
After several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s, finally he couldn’t stand it. He confessed to Grandma that he’d killed the duck.
“I know, Johnny,” she said, giving him a hug. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you, I forgave you. But I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.”
God also sees all our deeds, good and bad, and how and why we perform them so do good tirelessly because of love. Further:
III. HE SEES FUTURE POSSIBILITIES:
A. “And Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are these all the children?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, and behold, he is tending the sheep.’ Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.’ So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance. And the LORD said, ‘Arise, anoint him; for this is he.’”
1. Not ready at that moment perhaps, but in preparation.
2. The boy was not the man; the shepherd was not the soldier; the soldier was not the sovereign – but God saw that future possibility.
3. God sees us as we were, as we are and as what we can become.
B. Some folk can’t see beyond their own point of view.
1. They told Albert Einstein as a boy that he would never amount to much.
2. Those “in the know” declared that the railroad locomotive would ever go faster than the stage coach.
3. Experts pronounced the folly of thinking anyone could ever own a persons computer.
C. They were blind to future possibilities. Nothing could ever happen that they did not believe could happen. Ron McClung wrote, “God sees the dream in our hearts. People all around us have dreams of being better than they are, of doing better and climbing higher. Yet, sometimes we don’t recognize the dreams because we don’t see them clearly as God does.”
D. But with God all things are possible.
1. Nothing is too difficult for Him.
2. Paul said that He “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,....” Ephesians 3:20-21 (NASB).
E. Once a man visited the place of business of his friend who was a jeweler. The man stood in awe as the jeweler displayed a collection of magnificent pearls, diamonds and other beautiful and precious stones. To the visitor’s surprise the jeweler brought out a stone that was so dull and lusterless it seemed an aberration, an anomaly among the others. It seemed like an onion in a petunia patch. The man said, “What is that stone? It’s nothing at all compared to the others.
Just then the jeweler picked the stone up and did something to it. The stone took on a new depth of luster, a new radiance, a new sheen. It looked as if it contained a rainbow so bright were its colors. The man was a amazed at the transformation, but the jeweler knew the beauty was there all along.
“What have you done to the stone?” he asked. The jeweler explained, smiling, “this is an opal; it needs only to be placed under a black light to bring out all its beauty.”
So it is with our God. He sees what we don’t see. He knows what we don’t know. I want to remind you that there’s a greater power than a black light at work to change our lives.
Jesus shines His light on us to reveal what the human eye alone cannot see.
As He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Mark 1:16-17 (NASB).
He saw future possibilities. And that is exactly what they became.
Even later, under the power of the Holy Spirit, they were gifted and used far more than they or we would have predicted.
Peter the denier became Peter the first Gospel preacher. Saul the persecutor became Paul the Apostle. John Mark the deserter became Mark the evangelist and gospel writer. Thomas the doubter became Thomas the martyr. All of the 12 but john died as martyrs.
You, too, have a potential to be more and better than you are. Hopefully, you want to pursue God’s purpose with a hunger and a thirst; to be the Salt and Light that Jesus is describing. God sees it and in His power you can fulfill it.” Something Beautiful
