The Bible describes David as a man after God's own heart.

Exactly does that description mean? Was David a particularly godly man? Today on Truth for Life we'll

find out why God chose him to be Israel's next king. Alistair Begg is concluding a message he's

titled for myself a king. We resumed our studies in first Samuel at the beginning of chapter 16

and we made our way part way along until we came to verse 7 and particularly to the very

familiar statement that is contained in that verse and we began by recognizing the fact that unlike

human beings, unlike us, God is not impressed nor is God deceived by outward appearances.

In fact we can say quite categorically that external appearance neither qualifies a person

or disqualifies a person. In the perspective of God it simply doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that

it is irrelevant because God has fashioned our bodies and given us an appearance but in terms of

His calling and His purposes it really is of little impact at all. We then went on to say of that

verse that the way in which it is translated variously takes us beyond that straightforward

understanding of things and I was honest enough to tell you that I was influenced in this in my

study as a result of the particular work of a professor from Australia. So what would have

has done is provided a more literal translation of the closing part of verse 7 and this is how he

translates it directly from the Hebrew. For the Lord sees not as man sees for man sees according to

the eyes but the Lord sees according to the heart. I will notice that that is different from the way

in which it is here in your English text. Lord sees not as a man sees looking in the outward but the

Lord looks on the heart and the paraphrase or the translation that is provided is different

as saying that God sees according to the heart. In other words we see things with the eyes which of

course inevitably we do and God sees things according to the heart that is according to His heart

which means that God views everything according to His own intentions according to His own

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