24: Create in Me a Clean Heart

Reading Assignment for Sunday, June 29, 2014

Class Member Study Guide:  Lesson 24

2 Samuel 11     2 Samuel 12

Insightful article about the Call of David to be King:  The King Called David by Arthur R. Bassett.

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 

 "David was brave and had great intellect, administrative ability, and faithfulness early in life, he failed in one important thing—to endure to the end" (Old Testament Institute Study Guide).

“Things were getting too easy for David; he had leisure to stay at home while Joab and his men were out fighting Ammonites and Syrians. In his leisure he looked from his rooftop at his neighbor’s wife. Leisure and lust led to adultery and then to murder, which sins had eternal repercussions, as well as tragic earthly results. It is one of the shocking and serious warnings of the Old Testament that a man may be ever so good and great and eminent and still have weaknesses which can lead to deeds that entirely overshadow and defeat the better self!” (Rasmussen, Introduction to the Old Testament, 1:185.)

Elder Boyd K. Packer:

“The discouraging idea that a mistake (or even a series of them) makes it everlastingly too late, does not come from the Lord.

He has said that if we will repent, not only will He forgive us our transgressions, but He will forget them and remember our sins no more. … Repentance is like soap; it can wash sin away. Ground-in dirt may take the strong detergent of discipline to get the stains out, but out they will come” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1989, 72; or Ensign, May 1989, 59).

From Psalms 51:

 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

 13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

 15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

 16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

 18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

 19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

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23: The Lord Be Betwen Thee and Me For Ever

Reading assignment for Sunday June 22, 2014

Class Member Study Guide:  Lesson 23

22: "The Lord Looketh on the Heart"

Reading assignment for Sunday, June 15, 2014

Class Member Study Guide:  Lesson 22

1 Samuel 9      1 Samuel 10     1 Samuel 11

1 Samuel 13    1 Samuel 15     1 Samuel 16     1 Samuel 17

Excellent Ensign article about Saul's loss of rapport with God: The Tragic Dimensions of Saul by Richard G. Ellsworth

Insightful article about the Call of David to be King:  The King Called David by Arthur R. Bassett.

Saul and David's World

 Saul's Meets the Philistines and the Amalekites

Wadis Surrounding Michmash: Saul Confronts the Philistines

The Saul/David Lesson: Trust the Lord and Seek His Guidance

5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Saul is Favored by the Lord and Rises from Humble Circumstance

2 And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people. (1 Samuel 9:2)

  21 And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me? (1 Samuel 9:21)

Saul in the first of many great sins offers a priesthood sacrifice he does not have the right to perform in an effort to keep his people from disbursing as he is trying to maintain an army. Samuel understands Saul's sin.  Saul does not. 

13 And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the Lord have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. (1 Samuel 13:13)

14 But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.)

Elder James E. Talmage wrote,

 “Saul prepared the burnt offering himself, forgetting that though he occupied the throne, wore the crown, and bore the scepter, [he had] no right to officiate … in the Priesthood of God; and for this and other instances of his unrighteous presumption he was rejected of God and another was made king in his place” (The Articles of Faith, 12th ed. [1924], 185).

Saul followed his own judgment in allowing the people to disobey God when he allowed the people to return with Amalekite spoils of war.

11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night. (1 Samuel 15:11)

22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)

 
David Too Rose from Humble Beginning Yet Forgets at Times to Trust the Lord

7 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7)

Elder Marvin J. Ashton said:

“We … tend to evaluate others on the basis of physical, outward appearance: their ‘good looks,’ their social status, their family pedigrees, their degrees, or their economic situations.

“The Lord, however, has a different standard by which he measures a person. … He does not take a tape measure around the person’s head to determine his mental capacity, nor his chest to determine his manliness, but He measures the heart as an indicator of the person’s capacity and potential to bless others” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1988, 17; or Ensign, Nov. 1988, 15).

David's Humble Beginnings
 

18 Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord is with him. (1 Samuel 16:18)

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