Turn with me now to 1 Samuel chapter 7. We're continuing our series on some of the men and women of the Bible. This evening we are going to consider, as Charlie mentioned in his prayer, the prophet and the judge, Samuel. Samuel was the last judge of Israel. before Saul became the first king. You'll recall that Samuel's birth was literally an answer to prayer. That his mother Hannah, who had been barren, desperately wanted a child and vowed that if the Lord gave her to one, that this child would be consecrated to the Lord from the time of his birth. And indeed, the Lord was gracious. He gave Samuel and Samuel grew up in the house of Eli, the priest. Of course, in 1 Samuel 3, we have that wonderful account of how Samuel was called to be a prophet. Samuel, Samuel, the voice came. And finally, Samuel answers to him, Speak, Lord, for thy servant hears. Well, all Israel knew that God had raised Samuel up as a prophet in Israel. And all of that happens in the first three chapters of 1 Samuel. But then, beginning in 1 Samuel 4 to 1 Samuel 6, we hear nothing about Samuel. It's like he disappears from the scene entirely. And instead, in those three chapters, we read about Israel's folly. The Philistines come to war against Israel. Israel doesn't seek the face of the Lord, but instead carries the Ark of the Covenant into battle as a kind of lucky charm. But they're defeated by the Philistines. The Philistines capture the Ark of God. But then we read in 1 Samuel 5 that the Philistines didn't care to have the Ark for too long. It just brought bad things upon them. Their statue, Dagon, he kept falling down before the Ark of God. So the Philistines quickly ship it back to the Israelites. The whole scene in 1 Samuel 6 is really something. They send back the Ark on a cart pulled by milk cows. They send it back with five golden tumors and five golden rats, you might remember the story, trying to placate God in some way. And so the Israelites then get the ark and some of the men of Beth Shemesh look into the ark and the Lord kills them. You see, the whole picture that's painted in these chapters of 1 Samuel is one of foolishness and wickedness. and idolatry and utter disregard for the law of God, utter disregard for the holiness of God, God was not highly esteemed either among the Philistines or among the Israelites. And that's what takes us into 1 Samuel chapter 7 and the reappearance of Samuel as a judge in Israel. So, let's now read 1 Samuel chapter 7. We're going to begin in verse 2 and read to the end of the chapter. This is God's Word. So it was that the ark remained in Kiriath Jearim a long time. It was there 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve Him only, and He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water, and poured it out before the Lord. And they fasted that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel, and when the children of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. So the children of Israel said to Samuel, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him. Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as below Beth-kar. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shenn and called its name Ebenezer, saying, Thus far the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath. And Israel recovered its territory from the hands of the Philistines. Also there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. He went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places. But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there. And there he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord." And that ends this reading in God's Word. Let's now look again to him in prayer. O Lord, our God in heaven, we thank you for your servant, Samuel. that he indeed was a man of faith. We pray, O Lord, for grace to learn from his life tonight that those things that are exemplary and worthy to be followed, Lord, that they indeed would be followed in our lives. We know that you wrote those things of the Old Testament. One of the reasons was that they might serve as an example to us. Lord, we pray that we would have ears to hear, that we would have hearts that are ready to follow You, minds that are ready to learn tonight. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. One of the most fundamental truths about our God is that He is glorious. Psalm 113 and verse 4 says that the Lord is high above all nations and His glory above the heavens. God's glory is the effulgence of His splendor and of His majesty. And the Lord is jealous for His glory. He says in Isaiah 42 in verse 8, I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another. And so one of the marks of the true child of God is that he is jealous for the glory of God. God appears to him to be glorious, and he longs that God would get the glory that is due His name. Psalm 29, verse 2, should be our heart cry, Give unto the Lord the glory that is due His name. Psalm 115, verse 1, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, But to your name, give glory because of your mercy and because of your truth. The contemporary writer, David Wells, says in his book, No Place for Truth, that in the modern church, this perspective concerning the glory of God is a perspective that generally does not prevail. Generally, and again we only speak in generalizations at this point, but generally there is a man-centeredness. Even within the evangelical church, the weightiness of God is not felt. And we see this in a number of different ways. Generally, people are looking for a religion or religious experience that primarily caters to their felt needs. Or there's a tendency today among Christians to exalt people and to exalt people's gifts, you know, exalting gifted preachers or gifted musicians rather than God himself. Or very often people get easily put out when they don't get the credit that they think that they deserve. Or often in our day, there's a tendency to think of the worship of God more in terms of what we get out of it rather than the glory that God receives from it. You see, there's a general man-centeredness in our churches and in many of our lives also. We often are more concerned about ourselves rather than the glory of God. But that simply must not be. One of the marks of the child of God is that he is intensely zealous for the glory of God. And that's one of the real marks of Samuel's life. Again, as I thought about the life of Samuel this past week, and I thought, what is the one thing that characterizes this man? This is the thing that kept coming back to me. It was that here was a man who was jealous for the glory of God. You see, in Israel at this time, God's glory was lightly esteemed. Back in 1 Samuel chapter 4 is really something that was characteristic of this period. Phineas' wife had a child. She named her child Ichabod. And that Ichabod meant that the glory has departed from Israel. And in these days when the glory had departed from Israel, Samuel was a man who is intensely zealous for this glory of God that it might return among the people of God. So I want us to see today what we can learn from Samuel's life that we also might be those jealous for his glory. We see this jealousy for the glory of God in three different ways in our passage today. First of all, he is jealous for God's glory in his call to repentance Secondly, he is jealous for God's glory in his prayer of dependence. Third, he is jealous for God's glory in his act of remembrance. If you can keep those three straight. In his call to repentance, in his prayer of dependence, and third, in his act of remembrance. In each of those three things, Samuel shows a jealousy for the glory of God. Well, let's open those in turn. The first thing that we see is that Samuel is jealous for God's glory in his call to repentance. Verse 2, so it was that while the ark remained in Kirjath-Jerim a long time, it was there twenty years. And we read that all of the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. They realized that something was wrong. It was the beginning of, as it were, a conviction of sin. There was a sorrow over the seeming absence of God. But then we read in verse 3 of Samuel's preaching, and it's probably preaching that occurred over most of, if not all, of these 20 years. Samuel spoke to the house of Israel. He would travel about from place to place. Israel wasn't gathered together. They were spread out. But Samuel would speak to them and he would say, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve Him only. And He will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. And so what Samuel was telling them was, Your grief and sorrow isn't enough, but rather what is called for here is repentance. Samuel's message was the same as John the Baptist's message and Jesus's message when they began their public ministries. Repent, Jesus said, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so Samuel says, If you want to know the Lord's blessing and prosperity from His hand, mere grief and sadness isn't enough, but what is called for is an act of repentance. And repentance means to change one's mind and thus to change one's heart and will regarding sin and God. To repent means to turn away from sin and to turn towards God, to give up idolatry, and to look to God in faith. Repentance isn't a mere ritual. It's not simply a form of words that you say. Repentance isn't simply a feeling that you have inside of you. It's not only an outward show of emotion. But repentance always involves this turning from sin unto God. And Samuel said, that is what you must do. You must have this radical reorientation in your life to cast out every idol that robs God of His glory and instead to serve Him. Do you see that those are the elements of Samuel's message? Put away the foreign gods. Prepare your heart for the Lord. and serve Him only. You see, it's really an application, isn't it, of the first commandment. God, in the first commandment from Sinai, says, you shall have no other gods before Me. And what that means, if we are to be God's people, that we must cast away every rival, every rival that would compete for the supremacy that He alone must have in our lives. Now, you look at Samuel's message and you think, well, it must not have been that difficult for the people. I've never been tempted to worship a Baal or an Ashtoreth. I don't find much value in statues. But it wasn't easy for these people. There was tremendous social pressure put upon them to worship all of these other gods. But what is more than that, in these Canaanite religions, you have to understand that they combined a couple of things They combine religion with sex. And so, there's actually something to the carnal mind very attractive about Canaanite religion, kind of this brothel and chapel, kind of all brought into one, and the way that you offered your body to God was literally to offer your body to God, and that was kind of the way that they worshipped. And so you can see that for many of them this would have been a very attractive option in terms of religion, and the call away from that to serve the God of Israel alone, that wasn't so enticing. And so this is a difficult repentance that he was calling them to. He was saying, turn your back on all of these other things, turn towards God. And Samuel was serious about leading the people into this genuine God-centered, God-glorifying repentance. We find in verses 5 and 6 that after the people themselves get serious about putting away the veils and the asterisks, Samuel then says to them, gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. And so they gathered together at Mizpah. They drew water, they poured it out before the Lord. This was probably some kind of ritual that was signaling their hearts being poured out in repentance before God. And then they fasted that day. And together they confessed, we have sinned against the Lord. It was a moment of national repentance. Together, they confess their sin before the Lord. But it was a confession that only occurred as they cast away their idols and turned to God. Samuel required nothing less. And so must our jealousy for God's glory be that we see repentance as nothing less than a casting away of every idol. Back in the 1930s, there was really the introduction of biblical Christianity into southern Ethiopia. Missionaries from the Sudan Interior Mission came into southern Ethiopia. They preached the gospel. Several dozen people believed. Then, during World War II and the Italian occupation, those missionaries were sent out of the country And during those years of Italian occupation, those early Ethiopian believers began to spread out to the surrounding villages and even into some of the other tribes and began to preach the gospel of God's grace. And yet the message that they preached to their fellow Ethiopians, and God used it, by the way, to convert thousands and thousands of people so that when the missionaries returned in 1945, They had left with 48 converts that came back to thousands of Christian believers in southern Ethiopia. But the message that was preached by all of these Ethiopian evangelists was this message. Turn away from our ancestral religions and turn to God in Jesus Christ. That was the message they preached. You see, they understood that you couldn't have both. And these ancestral religions that provided so much comfort to the people, with which there was so much familiarity, that had social bonds and ties that we cannot begin to understand. They said, if you are going to be a follower of Jesus Christ, you have to cast those things away. You can't have both. There can be no rival to God Himself. And I simply ask you, what is it for you? What are those things in your life that stand as rivals to the supremacy of God. What are those things that are occupying the throne that is His alone by right? For some of us, it can be our jobs, or it can be the search for power, the desire to wield influence over others. For many of us, it's the search after possessions, greed, pleasure-seeking. We can fall in love with our hobbies in life to the point that they displace God in terms of our time, our energy, our desires. For some, it can be an enslavement to the flesh. We heard on Friday Night, men, just how one of the marks of the Christian man is a willingness to show restraint restraint even concerning the lusts of the flesh. And again, he's saying, are those things holding the place that God himself must have? And we need to stop deceiving ourselves into thinking that we can have Jesus plus those idols. But rather, to serve God means that every idol might be cast from his throne, that we would worship him only. There are a couple of hymns that express this. Lord, I come to thee for rest. Take possession of my breast. There thy blood-bought right maintain, and without a rival reign. Or William Cooper's wonderful hymn. The dearest idol I have known, whate'er that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne. You see, it's the throne that God himself is to occupy in our lives, help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee. Well, that's the first way that we see Samuel's jealousy for God's glory. It was jealous for God's glory and the call to repentance. But now, secondly, we see that Samuel is jealous for God's glory in his prayer of dependence. His prayer of dependence. The Philistines hear about this meeting at Mizpah and they feel threatened by it. And so the Philistines prepare to attack. And there's a little lesson in all of this for Christians that when we often get serious about truly serving the Lord our God, that's when Satan himself attacks and afflictions often come into our lives. Well, here it is for Israel. They're serious about the Lord God, but then suddenly the Philistines appear on the horizon. And as we look at verse 7 and 8, there is a wonderful contrast to what we find back in chapter 4, in that earlier battle against the Philistines. Back in chapter 4, when the Philistines came against them before, the Israelites had no thought of God. They didn't pray to God. They didn't seek the face of God. They brought up the ark as a kind of lucky charm, and that's all that it was. But how different it is this time. And we see it in verse 8. So the children of Israel said to Samuel, Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. What was the primary element in their battle plan against the Philistines? It was prayer. Prayer to the living God. And notice what they say to Samuel, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God. This means that Samuel had already been praying. Indeed, Samuel had taught them the value of prayer. For Samuel, because he was jealous for God's glory, he knew that we must pray. And now the people were beginning to understand this. And so they cry out to Samuel, don't stop praying for us. And so Samuel, cried out to the Lord God, took a suckling lamb, offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him, and he answered him in a most marvelous way. While that burnt offering was being offered, the Philistines drew near to battle. Can you picture it in your mind? But then suddenly, out of the heavens came a thunderstorm, a loud thunder upon the Philistines. And it so confused the Philistine army that they were overcome and a most miraculous victory occurred. Israel was victorious. And so they went out of Mizpah, they pursued the Philistines, they drove them back as far as below Beth-kar. And later we read in this chapter that for the rest of Samuel's time in which he reigned as judge, they had no more trouble from the Philistines. The Lord had given them a victory. He had given them a victory through the means of prayer. It was through the means of prayer. And do you know that few things in our lives better express this jealousy for God's glory than the act of praying? Because prayer is an expression of personal helplessness, but it's also an acknowledgment of divine omnipotence. When we pray, when we get on our knees before God, what we are expressing at that moment is, I cannot do it, but God, You can. And when we say that to the Lord, Lord, I am helpless. You are all powerful. You are gracious. I'm pleading with You to act. Those very words bring glory to God, because you're acknowledging God for who He is. And so, friends, even the very act of praying itself is a wonderful way in which we express the glory of God. You know, it's very natural for us to ask for things that we can't do for ourselves. So, for those of you that have children, your children ask you for a thousand things every day. because they can't do those things for themselves. If they need something, they ask you for it. And similarly, for some of us, we might desire that our country would have a certain law. Well, we realize that we can't enact that law, so what do we do? We ask our congressmen, please, congressmen, consider this law, act on this law. We ask for things that we cannot do ourselves. And friends, when we realize that there are things that we cannot do ourselves, but that God alone can do, that is what drives us to the place of prayer. It's what drives us to the place of prayer. Who can convert my children? Who can strengthen His church? Who can raise up pastors and missionaries for foreign lands? Who can bring blessing into my life during this period of deep, deep affliction? And our answer needs to be, it is God alone who can do this. And so if it is God alone who can do this, let us come to Him and ask. It honors Him when we ask Him for it. And when we say to him, Lord, you can do this, please do this. Won't we begin to ask our God? See, Samuel's battle plan was a battle plan of prayer. And that needs to be our chief battle plan as well as we fight the battles of this life. Private prayer. We need to be willing to get on our face before God alone in the private place when nobody else is listening. Do you pray to God alone? Is that a priority in your life every day? We need to pray together as families. Those of you who have children or who have grandchildren, have they ever heard you pray for them? Do they hear you regularly praying for them? Are they aware that you believe that it is God who must work in their hearts? If I were to ask one of them, would they say that my mom, my dad is a man or woman of prayer? I've heard them pray for me. They always desire to bring our family before the throne of grace. There needs to be not only private and family prayer, but corporate prayer. And how important it is that we pray together. at prayer meetings. Friends, if you are able, if your schedule is cleared on a Wednesday night, don't you want to come? To make it a priority to come with God's people and pray to Him? It needs to be a priority in our life as a church. Or in our public worship services. Do you know that when we gather for public worship, we don't simply gather for preaching, You know, we have a few preliminaries and then we get to the preaching. Preaching is vitally important. So is everything else. Singing to God is vitally important. Praying to God together as a people is vitally important. The people of God gathered at Mizpah to pray to God. Are we gathering together with our hearts engaged in prayer? when I or one of the elders lead us in prayer publicly, is your heart engaged in that prayer, making that prayer your own. That together we are a company of God's people assaulting the gates of heaven and giving God glory by saying, you God, you God, begin to act. You know, if the work of this world and the work of God's kingdom were primarily our work, then we better not pray, but instead should spend all of our time figuring out methods how to do this work. But if the work of the kingdom is God's work, then we need to make it our chief business to ask of him in prayer. And so that's the second thing we see about Samuel, is that he was jealous for God's glory in his prayer of dependence, but now third and last, He is jealous for God's glory and His act of remembrance. We see this in verse 12. The battle is now over. The Philistines have been routed. And what does Samuel do? Does Samuel stand up among the people of Israel? Does he take the credit for himself? Does he say, you all were a lost and estranged people before I came into your midst. I led you to repentance. I prayed for you. It was me, and he began to heap honor and adulation upon himself. Is that what the people of Israel did? Did they all come to Samuel and lift him up on their shoulders and say, hooray, Samuel, you're the one who did it? And we read nothing of that, but instead we read again a humble act of giving credit to where credit is due, verse 12. What a picture this is. Samuel took a stone, and he set it up between Mizpah and Shem. And he called his name Ebenezer saying, thus far, the Lord has helped us. It was all the Lord. With his work, he did it. All of the credit goes to God. And again, that needs to be the attitude of our hearts. That we long that all of the glory would go to his name. That's not an easy spirit to have. We are inherently, by nature, self-centered people. Can we get put out when others get the credit that we think we should have gotten? We grow depressed and we sulk when we feel like others aren't thinking as highly about us as they should. Friends, we need to be a people who are radically God-centered. Who cares what people think of me? Oh, but I do care what they think of God. God is to get all of the glory. And is that your attitude? And friends, when that is your attitude, that will have a radical, life-transforming effect. It's really that attitude that makes, in one sense, all of the difference in the Christian life. And let me explain for a moment. I mean, what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about what God was doing in Christ, saving sinners, bringing us into eternal glory, and doing it for the glory of His name, right? It is God's action for us. And so, our response to the Gospel needs to be one of faith, but also one of gratitude. Our chief response is to be thankful to God for what He has done. To acknowledge, God, this was your work, not mine. I am grateful for the work that you have done. And friends, it is out of that soil of gospel gratitude And out of that soil alone, that genuine, radical, kingdom-centered, God-centered living ensues. It is only when we are not concerned to get glory for ourselves, but rather with a heart that is so full of thankfulness to God for what He has done, that we will ever truly live for Him. And when we truly live for him, we find a life that is full of peace and joy, a life that is liberated. And so what I'm trying to make the case for is that this attitude of Samuel, of constantly saying, Lord, it is you who is to get the credit and not me. I'm not concerned about my name being lifted up, but your name being lifted up. And my friends, I say it's when that is our chief attitude, that we will then be thankful for his mercy. and be able to live unto His glory. And that was the case in Samuel's life. We see nothing of self in Samuel, but it was all God and how the Lord used Samuel in mighty ways, in glorious ways. And I say He can use us in those ways too. If we, like Samuel, be a people who are jealous for the glory of God, jealous for Him in our repentance, Jealous for His glory in our prayers. Jealous for His glory in seeing that He gets the glory, in seeing that daily He is the one who gets the credit for that which He does. Let's pray together. Lord, our God and Heavenly Father, we do pray that we, like Samuel, would live these lives of jealousy for the glory of our God. Please do this. I pray, O living God, that that we, like Samuel, might be used for you in your kingdom. Help us to cast down every idol that stands in your throne, that we offer worship and allegiance to, that we ought not. Every idol, O Lord, that we live for, O Lord, might those things be cast down. Might you alone be glorified in our lives, we pray. Make us a people of prayer. Make us a people who are intent on remembering Your mercies to us in Christ. We thank You, O God. Bless us now, even as we go into this week, O Lord, that this week would be a week in which we live radically God-centered lives, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.