1 Sam 16:7, 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." 
We have just read a chapter that is resplendent with elements that would bear discussion and consideration. There is the fact that Samuel was mourning over the manner in which King Saul had turned his back upon obedience to the Lord. There is something in that simple statement which would garner time to discern how Samuel was apparently actually still in despair over even having to choose a king for the nation as they had rejected the Lord. As well, there is the evidence that Samuel, because he had been obedient to the Lord’s will, was earnestly seeking for Saul to be a good king unto the people through a kingly obedience unto the Lord.
Samuel had spent time with Saul. He had coached him. He had encouraged him. He had mentored him. He had set him on the path of kingship with all possible human tutelage, and yet Saul had failed and failed miserably. 
As a result, God had now chosen another king for the nation, setting in place a fear in Samuel which had to be overcome. He faced the seemingly sure death at the hands of Saul for daring to stage a coup of Saul’s dominion and authority. This was a brave action on the part of Samuel, but obedience to the Lord despite the consequences was the way that Samuel lived.
Because of that wholehearted devotion to God, it is apparent that the people were afraid of him. Note the reception he received when he entered Bethlehem as detailed in 1 Sam 16:4.
1 Sam 16:4, 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?" 
The people were afraid of him, maybe because of the manner in which he had so voiced that displeasure at having to anoint a man as king of Israel. Maybe it was because of the way in which Samuel was so devoted and obedient to the Lord, so that wherever he went, the presence of the Lord was felt. That would have created fear and trembling in this people who had spurned Jehovah as their Heavenly King. 
As well, there was the memory of the storm that Samuel had called down from heaven at the time of the harvest to indicate the Lord’s great displeasure with the people in their demand for an earthly king. This could have caused the people to shudder whenever Samuel entered a community, expecting the retribution of Jehovah to be pronounced upon them. 
The people feared the presence of Samuel when he came into their towns. He forced them to consider their manifested rejection of God as their Sovereign. As Jehovah’s priest and prophet, and thereby the representative of Yahweh, Samuel provoked in them great trepidation and was the cause of immense concern and dread. 
These are elements in just the first four verses of this chapter which we highlight solely for the sake of pointing out that the continued reading of the Word of God is filled with marked and obvious depths of study and reflection. We are never amiss when we take time to ask the Holy Spirit to open His Word into our hearts and minds and spirits with all the fullness of making it the Living and Vibrant provision for our spiritual growth.
We will, in the course of this reading the Word of God together, spend some time on the passage that is before us. That is verse 7 of this 16th Chapter. 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." 
The reason we will do so is that this is something which is utter anathema to our current social order. Humanity has ever been caught up with the way one appears to the physical eyes. There is that within mankind which is dictated by the whims and the fancies of our social order. It is a primary component of the way in which we are brain washed in our thinking and our consideration of others. 
Depending on the current societal pressures as put forth and promoted by social media and films and shows and fashionistas from all the “in” places of our current day, the dress and the physique and the style of man is in a constant state of flux. There is never a style that will last the ages of humanity because we are so very fickle and our eyes are tickled by the insatiable trend of man’s defiled imagination. There will be those who always want the most current trend and those who defiantly avoid that with any sort of  current countertrend. There will be people who are shaped by the desire to go back in time to another era which they deem more pleasing to the eye and to the mind. There will be those who are enamored with futuristic attire and conceptual modes of design.
Mankind constantly chooses and judges by the limited and utterly fluctuating vision that is in the social arena. Just as an example from history of not that long ago in the terms of since the Garden to now, there was the famous Nixon-Kennedy debate which is largely credited with the Presidency of JFK. This was the first televised national debate in which a vast number of the populace were able to see the candidates in their living rooms. Analysis’s who listened and read the debate, without the visual presentation, generally concur that Nixon scored more points. However, those who watched the debate unfold on TV gave the younger and more refined Kennedy the nod, and this played out at the polling places. 
Now this is an example that is still highly debated in political and historical arenas, however it does meet our understanding of the fact that humans are very influenced by what we see. We base judgments of people and their character on how they present themselves, no matter how vile and evil they may actually be. There is a general stigmatization against those who do not fit the current idea of beauty and grace and elegance and etiquette.  
	We judge by what our eyes behold more often than we can fully understand. Our trust in someone can be set simply in the fact of their appearance as was even evidenced with Samuel when he first began to consider the sons of Jesse. There was something that Samuel considered necessary in a king that was the focal point of the choice at hand. Samuel saw Eliab and he saw one who presented himself in accordance with what Samuel thought a king should be. 
After all, Samuel was experienced in this type of activity. He was the original kingmaker of Israel, having placed the crown on Saul. Therefore he was the human authority within the whole of the country as to what a king should look like, how a king should conduct himself, how a king should sound and move and give deference to others. This was Samuel’s bailiwick and there was none to refute his choice among all the Children of Israel. 
But Eliab was not the choice of Jehovah. The Lord was not interested in how a king should look, how a king should carry himself, how a king should command the presence of all within a room. God was not at all interested in the external appearance or a regal demeanor. 
The Lord was looking at the heart of the person. God was choosing based on the fact that the man selected was to be the man that Jehovah desired him to be. There was that love for Yahweh deep in the innermost essence of the individual that meant this was a man after the heart of God. It was a man for whom the Lord meant everything and that relationship with the Lord was absolutely and undeniably ingrained now and forever. It was the same heart that Samuel had for the Lord and this was the means of God’s choice of David.
We can turn back in scripture to when the Lord was first dealing with the need for true and unbiased judgment among His people. Please refer to Deut 1:16+17. In this passage, Moses was instructing as to how the people were to be judged. Up to that point, he had been doing everything because he did not account man’s judgment for very much at all. He wanted this people, this nation over whom the Lord had made him the shepherd, to be cared for with all diligence and equity. Therefore, Moses had been doing everything and it was wearing him to a frazzle as we might say today. 
The instructions to the judges from the Lord through Moses were laid out in this passage. Deut 1:16+17, "Then I charged your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the cases between your fellow countrymen, and judge righteously between a man and his fellow countryman, or the alien who is with him. 'You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.'
The men who were given the responsibility to make those necessary judgments as issues arose were to …judge righteously between a man and his fellow countryman, or the alien who is with him. 'You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God's. 
They were to recognize that they were dealing with the Lord’s people and to treat them fairly and righteously. It was not to matter who they were in the social registry of the day, how wealthy they may be, how beautiful to behold, how powerful, or how well connected. Each case was to be heard on its own merit with no other regard influencing the decision. 
The judges, therefore, were to look beyond the appearances to the heart of the matter and if it was too difficult, then take it to Moses. Complete equity and equality before the Law and before man, righteousness in action and justice as unto the Lord. That was the heart of God as set before the nation. He would not brook the judgments based on what the eye beheld. It was to be blind to every other aspect except the truth so that the people of the Lord would stand out in the treatment of one another against all the insane infatuations of the nations surrounding them.
In another arena of consideration concerning the limited eyes of mankind, The Lord is not swayed by the numbers of those on either side of a looming battle. When men look at the odds stacked against them, they falter and stagger with complete loss of trust and faith and confidence in the Lord. 
However, when the Lord views the battlefields of humanity, He does so with the full Omniscience of what will be the outcome, no matter what! He sees the power of His Omnipotence sweeping away the enemy with not the slightest regard for any overwhelming power. He sets His plan into motion and nothing and no one can stand against Him!
Just consider how Gideon learned this truth of God about not being distressed or hindered or even concerned about the amassed enemies camped in preparation for the coming battle. God looked at the heart of the men that He chose to fight the enemy even though outnumbered by innumerable forces as recounted in Judg 7:12. 
Judg 7:12, Now the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east were lying in the valley as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore. 
Against this vast and massively equipped army of the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the sons of the east, Gideon arrayed the meager forces that the Lord had chosen through the winnowing process that is recorded earlier in this 7th Chapter of Judges, verses 4-7. It was all to show the heart of those who would trust God to go before them, each man knowing that the victory belonged to the Lord. He was the One Who would prove Himself mighty! Why else would so few in number willing go into battle with only torches and jars and trumpets against such an innumerable enemy?
Judg 7:4-7, Then the Lord said to Gideon, "The people are still too many; bring them down to the water and I will test them for you there. Therefore it shall be that he of whom I say to you, 'This one shall go with you,' he shall go with you; but everyone of whom I say to you, 'This one shall not go with you,' he shall not go." So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lord said to Gideon, "You shall separate everyone who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, as well as everyone who kneels to drink." Now the number of those who lapped, putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men; but all the rest of the people kneeled to drink water. And the Lord said to Gideon, "I will deliver you with the 300 men who lapped and will give the Midianites into your hands; so let all the other people go, each man to his home." 
Please consider how we would look at this situation. We would be counting and recounting and triple counting both those chosen and those who were encamped against us. We would be seeking some means of getting out of that situation knowing that it was not even a probable outcome of success other than to meet the Lord immediately in heaven after we were slain in the bloodbath. I dare say, that with these eyes and with the history of mankind in battle and with all our data points and scientific realities, we would be utterly crazy to go into this battle. This would be so especially only armed with such insufficient means of fighting against those numbers who were beyond the scope of our reckoning. 
It took a special warrior, a warrior in whom God saw the heart that would not be swayed away from utter and absolute confidence in Jehovah! It would be the Hand of God striking the blow against those forces warming themselves in the campfires which completely lit up the valley. 
300 men against 1000, that we could comprehend and consider. 300 against a force that was accounted as as numerous as locusts; and their camels were without number, as numerous as the sand on the seashore to us that would be utterly insane!
That is beyond the scope of our mental faculties, but then truly everything is beyond the scope of our thoughts and our ways and our consideration when we are caught up in the way in which we see with our eyes and reason with our human minds. That is why we must learn to see things more and more in line with the way the Lord sees them. That will be the course of our continued deliberation in this passage as we go forward together into the glory of how God sees the depth of the person. So be it!
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."

		
This morning’s benediction is Ps 2:11. Worship the Lord with reverence, And rejoice with trembling. Amen.