in all that you said to me and I have appointed a king over you now here is the king walking before you but I am old and gray and behold my sons are with you and I have walked before you from my youth even to this day here I am bear witness against me before the Lord and his anointed whose ox have I taken or whose donkey have I taken or whom have I defrauded whom have I oppressed or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? I will restore it to you. They said, you have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand. He said to them, the Lord is witness against you and his anointed is witness this day that you have found nothing in my hand. And they said, he is witness. Then Samuel said to the people, it is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and who brought your fathers up from the land of Egypt. So now take your stand that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did for you and your fathers. When Jacob went into Egypt and your fathers cried out to the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place. But they forgot the Lord their God, so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. They cried out to the Lord and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord, and we have served the Baals and the Ashtoreth. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you. Then the Lord sent Jeroboam, and Badan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you from the hands of your enemies all around, so that you lived in security. When you saw that Nahash, the king of the sons of Ammon, came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us, although the Lord your God was your king. Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for, and behold, the Lord has set a king over you, If you will fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God. If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was against your fathers. Even now take your stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not the wheat harvest today? So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Then all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord your God so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king. Samuel said to the people, do not fear, you have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile. For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king, will be swept away. Thus far, the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let us pray and ask God's help. Our God and our Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning having read your holy and inspired word. A perfect word. A word that you have given unto us by your Spirit. And we pray that this same Spirit, that he would come and counsel and illumine us. We pray that he would lead us into all truth. that we would understand this text, and that you would show us how to apply it unto our lives and hearts. To that end, we also pray that you would be with me, your sinful and unworthy servant, that you would grant unto me the unction of your spirit, that I might faithfully and clearly proclaim the meaning of this text, that you would receive all the glory, and that we, your children, would lovingly be fed that which we each stand in need of. It's in the name of Christ we pray. Amen. Beloved of Christ, as I mentioned this morning, we continue our series through 1 Samuel, and today is another sort of transitory section. We go from a period in Israel's history where they're governed by judges, and now governed solely by kings. It is a transition of sorts. Throughout the last couple of chapters, Saul has been told, you are to be the king of Israel. And the nation has been told, Saul is to be the king that you have asked for. Last chapter we saw, Saul started to act like a king. Not only was he a king in name, but he also began to act as a king. Though not independently of Samuel. You'll remember that Saul still called upon the people to come, not just in his name, but also in Samuel's name. That there was still this interaction with the judges and the kings. That there was still this sharing of ruling roles. It's like in a relay race when a runner passes a baton to the next runner. For a brief moment, both runners have the baton. And that's sort of the period that the nation of Israel has been in at this point. Both kings and judges, a king, a judge, have been ruling over the nation. But now, now things are to change. Now Samuel the judge is to let go of the baton and the whole judge system as a whole is to let go of the baton and it passes on to Saul and thereafter a line of Kings. It is a formal and complete transition. Now we know, looking back on history, we know that some of the kings will be good kings. We know that some of the kings will be wicked kings. We know that many of these kings will abuse their power. But the judges never abused the power that they had like the kings will. That's because the judges simply didn't have the same sort of power that the kings will. And so at this point, here in 1 Samuel 12, Samuel starts to take these first five verses to speak to the nation of Israel to show that he, and consequently God, are blameless. That's the first main Roman numeral here, the blamelessness of the Lord. The blamelessness of the Lord. Because there will be a time in Israel's history where they may be tempted to say, how could it be that God gave unto us a king? He so abuses us. He so corrupts the use of his power. How can God allow for this to happen? That we would have a king over us that would treat us in this way. And these first five verses, and truly all the chapter, show us that Israel cannot rightly blame God for the actions of the kings. The Lord is blameless. The Lord is faithful. In the first place, we see this in the midst of blameless action. That's the first sub-point, blameless action. See, Samuel seeks to here address the nation. He says, look, I've walked before the nation from my youth even to this very day. I'm old. I am gray. I've been with you for many, many years, and now my sons are also here before you. Now, his sons, as we know, were dishonest. They corrupted the way of justice. But the point is, is that Samuel is old enough to have sons that are serving in this capacity. In other words, he's saying, look, I've been here a long, long time. And now I ask you, whose ox have I taken? Whose donkey have I taken? Who have I defrauded? In essence, Samuel is asking, is there any dishonest action on my part? You see, the nation is convinced that kings, kings as the other nations have them, is the way to go. that this is better for the nation, even though God says, no, this is not good. This is not a good thing that you were asking for, to have a king as all the other nations. Still, they desire a king like the other nations. They think to themselves, surely this is better. But Samuel asks, have I taken anyone's ox? Have I taken anyone's donkey? Have I defrauded anyone? Have I done anything to abuse the power that God has given to me? 1 Samuel 8, it is there that we read that there is this warning that there will be kings that come and they will take not oxen, they won't take donkeys, they won't merely defraud, but they will take sons, they will take daughters, they will take whole flocks and vineyards and crops. Some more, some less. We know this very well. The scriptures speak to us about this occurrence between Ahab and Naboth. For those of you that don't remember, Naboth owns this vineyard. And it's a good piece of land. And Ahab, the king of Israel, desires that vineyard. And he says, look, what will you give to me? Or what do you require? Can I buy it off of you? I'll give you a better piece of land if you'd prefer that, and so on and so forth. But Nabal says, no, this is the heritage of my line. This is mine. This is what has been given to me, and this is what I will pass on. And so he says, no, I'm not going to sell it. It's for my family line. But what ends up happening? Well, one thing after another, Jezebel, Ahab's wife, gets involved. And Naboth is put to death so that Ahab might take this vineyard and turn it into his vegetable garden. This is how the kings would abuse power. Ahab is perhaps one of the worst examples. But nonetheless, this is how kings will abuse their power. But this judge, Samuel, he's taken nothing. He's blameless. He's faultless. And you look at the judges in the book of Judges, and while they weren't perfect, you don't see them murdering people so that they might take other people's vineyards and turn them into vegetable gardens. Samuel is not only vindicating his character, but he's also vindicating God's character. You want a king like all the other nations, but when God was your king and when God used judges to rule over the nations, this problem of a corruption of power wasn't a problem. The Lord is blameless in his actions. He's also blameless in his non-actions. Samuel mentions, is there ever a time where I took a bribe so that I might blind my eyes, cover my eyes with it? For us, we often think that justice is blind. You know, Lady Justice, she has a blindfold on and she's holding the scales and the idea is, look, justice is in every way blind. It doesn't play favorites. But Samuel is saying, was there ever a time where I took money so that I might look the other way so that injustice might be done? Is there ever a time where I took money so that I would not act? The kings will look the other way at certain points. They will ignore wickedness. They will ignore corruption. And sometimes they will encourage it. Leaders, like all the other nations, will take bribes. But the Lord, the Lord never blinds his eyes so that it leads to non-action to promote injustice. Now, some of you may say this morning, well, hold on a second, Pastor. What about all the injustice in the world today? How can you say that God is blameless in his non-action? This question, truthfully, is beyond the scope of our sermon this morning. It's beyond a discussion to discuss this in detail. But suffice to say, the Lord is indeed blameless, even in his non-action, because we still have the day of Last Judgment. Just because justice is not dispensed immediately doesn't say that there is injustice on God's part. You know, our law system is like that. We do not dispense justice immediately. And in fact, it's a good thing we don't dispense justice immediately because if we did, we would often be wrong. There is often a delay between the wicked and unlawful act and the punishment for that unlawful act. It takes time. There is an elapsing or a going on of time before that actually occurs. And the same is true of the Lord. There is indeed some delay, but that delay is something that God does in patience, to call more people to himself, giving them more time to repent and turn unto him in faith and repentance. So just because justice is not dispensed immediately doesn't mean that God is unrighteous. Don't be mistaken. Justice shall indeed come. And so Samuel has made it clear that the Lord is in every way blameless. The point is, is that the actions of the Lord are absolutely perfect. And this is something that is to be emphasized because as I've said, they're about to enter into a new phase of the national history. They're about to have kings. And as we've said, some kings will be good and serve under the true king, like David, who will serve and reign as king, but not absolutely as king. He will understand that he is to serve under the Lord God. But you will have other kings, wicked kings, who will seek to replace the true king, like Saul. And Samuel is saying, you can't lay anything a king does at the Lord's feet. In essence, Samuel's point is that the Lord is never at fault and altogether blameless. Any hardship that Israel will face, it's not because God is wrong or unjust in his acts or non-acts. So then who is at fault? Who is the faithless one? Whenever Israel or we face hardship or tribulations or trials, who is the one to blame? Samuel's speech in verses 6 and following are very clear. The Lord is blameless. However, there is great faithlessness on the part of man. The faithlessness of man. That's the second Roman numeral. You see, sometimes our faithlessness is absolutely blunt. It's obvious faithlessness. That's the first sub-point. Obvious faithlessness. You see Samuel going through the history of the nation of Israel. The Lord appoints Moses and Aaron. They're brought out of Egypt. The Lord does some absolutely amazing, astounding works. Each of the plagues in Egypt, one by one, demonstrates that the Lord alone is God. There is only one God, and He is Yahweh. There is no other. There is no Nile God. It is the Lord who turned the Nile into blood. There is no sun God. It is the Lord who darkened the skies. There is no God of life or death. It is the Lord who held the lives in his hands when the cattle were slain or when the firstborn was slain. So the Lord demonstrates that he alone is God and he demonstrates great love and power in leading his people through the Red Sea, getting to the other side as dry as can be. The Lord demonstrates great and almighty and wonderful signs and in spite of all this, What happens? What does Samuel highlight for us? Samuel says that the nation of Israel forgot the works and wonders of the Lord. And not only did they forget, the text also says to us that they begin to worship the Baals and the Ashtoreth, with the result that the Lord therefore sold them, or we could say just gave them up, to the hand of Sisera, king of Hazor, to the Philistines, to the Moabites. The one who is at fault, the one who is faithless, is Israel. Clearly Israel, not the Lord. And oh beloved, we are capable of similar obvious faithlessness. It may not be the case that we'll go from here and then go to a temple of Ashtoreth or a Baal temple, but we can still act in obviously faithless ways. that exude impious faithlessness. We can secretly indulge in occultic practices. You know, throughout the history of our nation, there's been a problem of things like Freemasonry, where there are members of a church who worship in a church on Sunday, but then, on another day, at another time, they go and they go to a Masonic Lodge. There have been all sorts of secret societies. It's a real thing. Perhaps that's the case for some of us. That we secretly cling to these things and nobody else knows it but us. It does happen. I've heard of many pastors who have somehow found out that, you know, a certain member and an upstanding member of their congregation is a member of a Freemason or some other New Age type group. It does happen. We could engage in the practice of fortune-telling, or palm reading, or consult Ouija boards, or crystal balls, and engage in New Age mystical rites, etc. Some of these things are very attractive to some people. This is obvious faithlessness, and it's something that has plagued the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church even to this very day. We can, in a very American form, we can idolize possessions or money or homes or cars. We can idolize work. We can idolize sex. We can engage in fornication or adultery or pornography or drugs. The list goes on and on and on in the ways that we can engage in obvious forms of faithlessness, as Israel did. For most of us, however, it seems as though the issue is not obvious faithlessness, but often a more subtle faithlessness. That's the second sub-point. A more subtle faithlessness. This is true of Israel as well. In verses 12 and following, Samuel begins to shift gears. He goes from speaking about the past to speaking about what has gone on in Samuel's own day. Now, in Samuel's day, Is Israel going out and worshipping the Baals and the Ashtoreth? Are they going out and worshipping Dagon? No, that's not what he talks about. That's not what he brings up. It's not so obvious. What happens is that Israel sees Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, coming. As I mentioned last week, Nahash was going around and conquering and beating up the Israelites on the eastern side of the Jordan for a long time before he made it to Jehovash Gilead. And as they see Nahash doing all these awful things, they come to Samuel and say, a king shall reign over us. A king like all the other nations have. So the problem you see in chapter 11 was just the peak of the problem with Nahash. It had been going on for some time, and this seems to be one of the keys that pushed Israel to say, we need a king. We need a king to go forth and fight our battles to deal with Nahash and all the other Nahashes out there in the world. Now you may wonder, well, what's so unreasonable about that? What's so bad about that? The problem is that they asked for a king, as I've mentioned, like all the other nations, where the king essentially takes the place of God. Takes the place of God in their hearts. It is the king that they trust and not the Lord. And so you see their demand for a king is an audible confession of their trust, not in God, but their trust in a form of government. A trust in the king, in the king above all. But Samuel says this is wrong. You should not be trusting in a form of government. You should not be trusting in a king. After all, did not the Lord use Samuel's leadership to defend Israel from the Philistines? Did not the Lord use various judges throughout Israel's history to defend the nation from Sisera, from the Moabites, from the Philistines? 1 Samuel chapter 11, or excuse me, 1 Samuel chapter 7 is a good example of this. The nation is surrounded by Philistines, and they're not prepared to fight. They're there to worship the Lord, to have a sort of covenant renewal ceremony because the Ark of the Covenant has just returned. They're not ready to fight, even though the Philistines are there to surround them and completely annihilate them. But what happens? Only pray. They only pray, and the Lord delivers them. And Samuel is essentially saying, could you not just trust the Lord to do similarly in the future? The Ammonites are mere men like the Philistines. The Ammonites, in fact, are probably a weaker nation than the nation of the Philistines. But no, you'd rather have a king like all the other nations. Now, no doubt the Israelites tried to dress it up and make it look good. This is good for the nation. This is healthy for the nation. This is healthy for stability. It's a subtle faithlessness. So here, beloved of Christ, is something that we must be aware of. It is very easy for us to dress faithlessness, to dress it up to make it look good. We see it in the Old Testament. You know, we read in the book of Isaiah that Isaiah goes to the king Ahaz, I believe it is. He speaks to him and he says, look, Ask for a sign, make it as high as heaven, make it as deep as the sea. And what does he say? Oh, I will not put the Lord to the test. No. But in truth, Ahaz just doesn't want to depend upon the Lord. In truth, Ahaz just wants to get all the glory for himself. He wants to figure it out on his own power, his own ability. And so he dresses his faithlessness up in a form of piety. This was happening in Christ's day, wasn't it? There are times in the Gospels that Christ addresses those around him. He says, look, you have these traditions that you put in place so that you might make null the Word of God, the command of God. The Word says, honor your father and your mother, and by that is partly meant to financially support your father and mother. But it was happening that the people were saying to fathers and mothers, well, whatever gift you would get for me, it's actually Corbin. And so whatever gift you give for me, you're essentially robbing from God. Because I was going to give that to the temple. And so he's saying, look, you're trying to find a way to keep your money. You're dressing it up in a positive, pious way. But in truth, you're just trying to keep your money. You're trying to find a way so that you can forget the poor, forget the needy, forget your parents. So that you can keep it for yourself. And truly, we see this also happening in how people were treating the Sabbath. You know, when the Lord was doing healing miracles on the Sabbath, how was it that that was greeted or met with? Did the Pharisees approve of that? They said, no. They wanted nothing to do with Christ healing on the Sabbath, because in their mind, you cannot do these things on the Sabbath. You can't help people on the Sabbath. You know, it would be like saying, you know, somebody's stranded on the side of the road, and they say, look, I need your help. Can you help me change a tire? You say, sorry, it's the Sabbath, so I can't go out and help you. You're on your own. You know, in truth, we try to dress it up to make it look good, but we're dressing our faithlessness up to hide our laziness. And we can do this with many, many things. Do it many, many times. There are certain things that we know we probably ought to do, ways that we ought to love those around us, certainly our family and friends. And yet we think to ourselves, how can I get out of it in such a way so as to make it look good? The point is clear. The faithlessness, it's not from the Lord. Faithlessness comes from us. We're the ones at fault. We're the ones that fall short. But even so, even so the Lord would have us behold his faithfulness." His faithfulness. See, Israel has shown that it truly merits nothing. It only exudes faithlessness. And that's why it was sold into the hands of Cicero or the Philistines or the Moabites or others. But even though that was the case in the past, the Lord had indeed delivered them. You see, God is our help. in ages past. The Lord delivered Israel from Sisera, from the Moabites, from the Philistines, by the hands of men like Jeroboam, Badan, Jephthah, and Samuel. These are the names that Samuel highlights. He could certainly highlight even more. Though Israel was faithless, the Lord was faithful. He still sent them deliverance in times past. Beloved, God is immutable. God is unchangeable. His character remains the same and so God's character here in this text is his character now to this very day in the year 2020. God delivers his people though they are faithless. And how can you and I be sure of that? Because he sent another deliverer. Samuel wasn't the last deliverer that was sent. And this was a Deliverer greater than Jeroboam, greater than Bedan, greater than Jephthah, greater than Samuel. This Deliverer is Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus Christ, while we were still His enemies, He still died for us. While we were still His enemies, He counted us as friends and laid down His life for us. Be aware of your own faithlessness, yes. Be aware of it. But don't be aware of your faithlessness so that it would turn you to hopelessness. Be aware of your faithlessness so that you might remember God's faithfulness in giving Christ, in giving a Savior, in giving a Deliverer to deliver you, to redeem you from your sin. to deliver you from the claws of Satan, to deliver you from the sting of death, to give unto you the gift of eternal life, saved by grace through faith, to deliver you from loneliness, bringing you to a life of eternal relationship, loving relationship with the Holy Trinity. Look to Christ. Look to Christ and see how he has been our help in ages past. But God is also our help in years to come. That's the second and final sub-point. Our help in years to come. You see, the Lord demonstrates that Israel did wrong in asking for a king. Samuel makes the point, look, you should be aware that what you've done, what you've asked for, it isn't right. And to show that to you, to demonstrate that to you, there will be a thunderstorm. Now, you might think, so what? Well, it's the midst of a wheat harvest. It's to say that it's probably around this time of year, actually, June-ish. And at this time of year, it's the beginning of the dry season. You do not expect rain. You do not expect much rain. If anything, you might expect just a teensy, teensy bit of rain. But no, since there's going to be a thunderstorm, it's going to rain cats and dogs, as it were, rain buckets and buckets. And what ends up happening? It rains. There's a thunderstorm. You see, to show you what this really means, it would be like saying, look, we have done an awful, awful act of faithlessness towards God. It would be like if we as a nation were in covenant with God and God said, tomorrow there will be a foot of snow out of your door. A foot of snow in the middle of June. That would catch our attention. That would show to us, look, we really have done something wrong. He is getting our attention with something that is very obvious, very blunt. And now Israel sees their wickedness. We have added to our sins by asking for a king. Don't cease to pray for us so that we would not die. And Samuel's words are nothing if not filled with grace and mercy. You've committed this evil, yes. Yet do not fear. Do not turn aside. The Lord will not abandon you. And Samuel says that he will not cease to intercede for the people. You see, the Lord does not leave, he does not abandon, he does not forsake his people. He continues to provide for them, protect them, deliver them. His people shall remain his people for his namesake. Beloved of Christ, sacred scripture says the same thing to you this morning. You and I are undoubtedly aware of our great faithlessness. But do not fear. You have committed great evil, but do not turn aside. He does not forsake his people. And be sure that we have an intercessor, someone who continues to intercede for us, an intercessor that's greater than the prophet Samuel. Can you imagine that? meeting the prophet Samuel and saying, pray for me Samuel, you would think that that is great because the prayer of a righteous man avails much and Samuel was a very righteous man. We have an intercessor greater than Samuel. We have the greatest intercessor of all, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our hope for years to come because he shall continue to intercede throughout your life. Though you are indeed faithless at certain points, faithlessness can exude from your life in obvious ways and more subtle ways. But even so, do not turn aside, but rather go to the Lord Jesus Christ and ask that He intercede for you. And indeed, if in faith you cling to Christ and Christ alone, and you do not turn aside from Him, be sure He intercedes for you now, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the day after that, and even on the last day, the day of judgment. I do not know what exactly the last day, the Day of Judgment, will look like, but I expect that Satan and his demons will be ready to accuse us. But even so, Christ will be there. Be there to intercede. Be there to plead his case on our behalf. So behold the blamelessness of our Lord, and behold our own faithlessness. But in spite of that, See how faithful our great God is, who has been our help in ages past, who is our help now, and will be our hope for years to come, even unto the very distant future. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. Our God and our Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning and we thank you so much for the Scriptures. We thank you so much that in the Scriptures we have an accurate and clear view of ourselves, but also of you. We have an accurate and clear view of how we are often faithless. The blinders are torn from our eyes and we behold the wicked things we have done. But even so you say unto us, do not fear. Though you have committed all these evil acts, do not turn aside. But fear the Lord, trust the Lord, have faith in the Lord. Rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, for he is faithful. Oh may that be our day-to-day thought. May it be this thought that sustains us. that you, O God, are indeed faithful, that you are perfect, and that we may rest in you and find all that we stand in need of. Our God and Father, we thank you also for the gift that is the sacraments. This morning, we thank you for the gift of the Lord's Supper. And we pray that though, indeed, again, we are confronted with our faithlessness, you demonstrate your faithfulness in offering this bread and wine to nourish our faith, to strengthen us, to assure us. We pray that we would approach the table, not because we think we are perfect and righteous, but because we need nourishment from you. And so let us humbly and joyfully partake. It is in the name of Christ we pray all these things, along with the pardon of every sin. Amen. So dear congregation, it is indeed a great joy that we may.