congregation at this time I would encourage you to open up once again in your Bibles and this time let's turn to 1st Samuel chapter 7 1st Samuel 7 and we'll begin our reading of 1st Samuel 7 at verse 2 and we'll read to the end of the chapter 1st Samuel chapter 7 2 through 17 Hear now the very word of our God. So it was that the ark remained in Kirgiz Jerim a long time. It was there 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spoke to all of the house of Israel, saying, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Asherahs, 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 bells and the asherahs and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, gather all of Israel at Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water, and poured 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 the Lord, before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as below Beth-char. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shin, 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. Then 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, Gagol, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places. But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there. There he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord. Thus far, the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Congregation, let's take this moment now and bow to our God in prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we do indeed thank you for this opportunity we have to hear your word, to have it opened up to our lives, and indeed, in a sense, by your spirit, to have our souls exposed so that we can be healed by our Savior Jesus, so that we can see indeed what you continue to do for your church even this day. And so we pray for the grace and mercy that we need to have our eyes opened and our ears opened to see and hear our Savior Jesus Christ. in whose name we pray. Amen. And amen. Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts is finally back in the land of Israel, the land of promise. It returned with, well, actually, as we saw last week, damaging results. As we recall from last week of those Israelites who opened up the ark to make sure that all of its contents were still intact, the wrath of God burned upon the people of Israel, the people of that town particularly, and many died that day. As we step into today's passage, we find a theme, a reality, a shortly after judgment, or shortly after the wrath of God, there occurs among the people of God a grand revival. And that wrath could be seen with plagues like the Black Plague, it could be seen with war, various things. Here we see in our passage mass slaughter because they broke the law of God. Many of us in here recall the events of 9-11 in this country, and we recall shortly after that event a great revival taking place in this land. Now in the textbooks, that is history. As our nation moves further and further away from the blessings of God and closer and closer, it would seem to the curses of God, we need to be praying to see this mercy of God once again. We need to see the grace of God once again in our land. Lord willing that he would spare us in his wrath. You see this morning, our focus is on that revival. Our focus is on that reform just after the cladochismic event of those 50,070 dying. This reform or this revival took place during the ministry of Samuel. And so consider this, here we find Samuel fulfilling his office, his office of the last judge, the first prophet, the first office of that prophet that Moses talked about was coming, and the last judge. You see, we'll see Samuel the judge, we'll see Samuel the priest, we'll see Samuel the leader, we'll see Samuel fulfilling many different roles in the church as we walk through this passage. But consider first of all, in verses two through six, Samuel, the judge, Samuel, the judge. You see, while Samuel is a judge of the people, his calling was to be a prophet. And as he was to, in that office, to minister to the people of God. And this is what we find in verses five and on, but in verse five, but in verses two through four, we see Samuel the prophet, we see him doing his job. So it was, look at verse two with me, so it was that the ark remained in Kiriath-Jerim a long time, it was there 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. What verse two actually shows us is the situation in the life of the Israelites during the time of the judges. This is, again, keep in mind, during the time the judges were judging. In fact, you can find in the book of Judges, you can find what's called the cycle of the judges, and it's still happening, actually, in these early chapters of 1 Samuel. Consider it this way. The people did what was right in their own eyes, the last words of the book of Judges. In 1 Samuel, the people did what was right in their own eyes, taking the ark into battle, looking into the ark of God with good intentions, just making sure everything was still there. They did what was right in their own eyes and they were slaughtered. God punishes them, most of the time with a foreign enemy like the Philistines. Well, that's happened. They cry out to the Lord in lament and repentance. There's verse two of our passage. They're crying out to the Lord. And then what does God do? God raises up for them a judge, a leader, a minister who will walk in their midst, who will govern them, who will help them, who will lead them in the ways of the Lord. And thus we see Samuel entering the picture. Not Samuel the boy, but Samuel the man is now entering the picture. And this is the context for the next several verses in this chapter. Look at verse three. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods of the Asherah 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. You see, as we have seen with Samuel, he is not ministering to just one region of Israel. Many of the judges in the book of Judges, they ministered only locally to their particular cities or tribes. Samuel, it would seem here, is ministering to the entire house of Israel, all 12 tribes and the Levites. He is a national judge, not just a tribal judge. His message here is one of repentance. That's going to be the same message of the last prophet of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Old Covenant. They have turned their hearts. Their priorities are now heading back to their covenant Lord. They must turn away, as he says here, from these foreign gods, these false gods. He mentions at first in verse three here, the Asherahs. The foreign gods would include, as we'll see in another verse, the Bells and the Asherahs. But I trust you notice, only at this time, Atzerod is singled out. And the reason is, for both being plural, it appears every town had one of these deities. And just so you can understand what this looked like, it was the biggest tree in town. The Atzerods were a pole or a tree, the biggest tree in town. And they would gather around that tree and celebrate. Celebrate. And this is the reason why the prophets would say, cut down the Asherahs. You cut down that big tree. And that's what he's describing here. The other thing is, one of the reasons why it's plural is because if you have Asherah during this time of Israel history, you also have a bell with her. And just for clarity, the bell deity was the lord of the storm, thunder, harvest, the abyss. He's a scrawny fellow with a lightning bolt. That's it. While the Asherah was the goddess of the harvest or infertility, like a tree. They went together for when winter arrived, Bell would go to the abyss, like the Sea of Galilee. He would go to the abyss, not to be seen again until Asherah would seduce him and come back to the living, bringing spring with him. That's this cult. This is utter paganism and a denial of the one true God. Later in the history of Israel, around the time of the ministry of Jeremiah, Bel would be replaced with the Lord. And so it would no longer be Asherah and her Bel, it would actually be Asherah and her Yahweh. And we see the utter paganism that Jeremiah had to deal with, and the prophets that followed in the line of Samuel had to deal with, with this paganism, with this idolatry. So at this time, for this split moment in history, they have a revival. But as you see when you get to Isaiah and Jeremiah, they seem to have forgotten it. And they've moved back to doing whatever was right in their own eyes. But Samuel calls the people to repent nonetheless. Every minister, every prophet that God has raised up has that calling to call the people to repentance. to turn to the Lord, trusting in Him that He will protect them, that He will provide for them. Samuel gives to them this prophetic promise that when they do this, then God will deliver them from the hands of the Philistines. That's the message. And notice what the people do. Look in verse four. So the children of Israel put away the bells and the asherahs and serve the Lord only. Serve the Lord only. They listened to their prophet. They did exactly what he said they should do. And now we see what the next two verses, how Samuel ministered to them in verses five through six. Look at verse five. And Samuel said, gather all of Israel at Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you. You see congregation, we need to notice two things at this moment, just with verse five. First, we must notice that Samuel, as a prophet, was a minister of the word. He was a minister of the word. That was his office in the church. He ministered the word of God to the people, and he prayed for them. He was commissioned to give to the people the word of God. And as a priestly figure, Samuel would then intercede for the people. He would do something very similar to what we'll see with other prophets. He was to minister to the people in prayer. To make a biblical connection at this moment, when you get home, open up in your Bibles to Acts chapter six, where you see six Greek-speaking Jews, Hellenistic Jews. They are ordained to the office in the church, and the office is not ever mentioned. We come to understand it's probably the office of deacon, but the word deacon and the official idea is not mentioned. It's not mentioned, but they're ordained to that office so that the ministers of the word at that time, the apostles could be about ministering the word and praying for the people while these men were set aside to take care of the widows in their congregations in Jerusalem. So that the apostles could minister to all the people, these men were set aside to help minister to a few people in their congregation. We see that even today. This is what we see in Acts 6. In fact, we find that this ministry of the word and prayer was with Samuel, was with the apostles. And we see other officers in the church taking on other responsibilities in the church so that the ministers can do their job of bringing the word, of preparing the word, of bringing it to the people. Notice what it says in our verse. He ministered to the people by giving to them, what? The word of God and Praying for them. Praying for them. Look at verse six. 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. Here we find the people gathered for worship. Three things are seen with this worship service, with this worship gathering. First, you find water being poured out, which was done actually during what's called the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles. They would go to Jerusalem, well, eventually they would end up going to Jerusalem. Right now, they would go wherever the tabernacle is. They would gather and they would erect tents. And in one of the moments, they would take all the water that they have and pour it out onto the ground. And that symbolizes for them not only the Red Sea crossing, the Jordan crossing, but also the fact that during the wilderness, God provided for them water when they had no water. God cleansed, polluted water. God took water out of a rock and gave it to them. And this water, this pouring out of water was reminding them that God was the one that provides not only for their thirst, but also their deliverance. Secondly, they fasted that day. Look at that in verse six. They fasted that day. They poured out their water so that they would not be tempted to drink, and then they removed all food from their presence so they could focus entirely on praying to God that day. We gotta understand, fasting is a spiritual act of humility. It is not an act of dieting. It is not a diet. It is for the sake of prayer, for the sake of prayer. And finally, we see that while turning away from food and fasting, they prayerfully turn to God in repentance and faith. The same call that's given to the church this day is what we see here in this passage, in this worship service. This is what we can understand is a genuine revival taking place. Now we turn to how Samuel continued to minister to the people. As we move from this worship service, we see that he continued to minister to them, but this time we see him acting more as a priest. As we see this in verses 7 through 12, we first find that Samuel, indeed as a priest, as a priestly figure, was a prayer warrior for God's people. He diligently prayed for them. And that's what we find in verses seven through nine. Look at verse seven. 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. You see, with this verse, we find the context for the rest of the passage. The Philistines are still going after the Israelites. They've not given up. They've not given up, and the people of God are terrified of this enemy. Look at what verse 8 says. Look at what they do 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. See, they finally get it, don't they? Notice the change. They finally are going to the one man who can give them biblical direction. They're no longer going to their neighbors who don't have the credentials that Samuel has. They're no longer going to their co-workers who have no idea what the Bible says to do. They're going to the one man who's been ministering to them this entire time from his boyhood up, and he is able to give them biblical guidance and direction. They finally are going to the Lord for help. And so look at what they do. They plead to Samuel to not stop praying for them. They may have experienced God's redeeming hand, but they still need it. It's still needed. It's not a one-time event. They still need it in their lives. So notice what Samuel does in verse 9. And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole bird offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him. You see, this is the work of a priest, a work of a mediator, an intercessor. He intercedes for the people of God with a blood sacrifice and with prayer. And notice God answers Samuel's prayer. He listens. You have heard from this pulpit that the posture of the Christian is not one with his fists up, ready to fight. We just read about that in Matthew chapter five. The posture of the Christian is on his knees in prayer, hands folded, head bowed, praying for his enemies, praying for his loved ones, praying for the lost people in this city. That's the posture of the Christian. That's the posture. We are to be like Samuel here, prayer warriors, callous knees, hands that look more like this from praying so much. That's the direction we need to be in, prayer warriors. This is what Samuel was, and this is why the Lord came to his people and their aid that day. You see Samuel and the Lord, the Lord's help. Look at verses 10 through 12. Now 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 Bethkar. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shin and called its name Ebenezer. Thus far the Lord has helped us. You see, at this moment we find that the Israelites were victorious because they have finally started to turn to the Lord who brings them victory. The Lord did the fighting that day, at least the initial bit of it. It was the Lord who rained down lightning and thunder was his battle drum. It was the Lord that did that. It was the Lord who routed the enemies, who turned them aside. It was the Lord who allowed the Israelites to push the Philistines back out of their land. Thus, this was the Lord's doing. In other words, what we find here is salvation, redemption is always the Lord's doing. Victory is always God's. It is not ours. We don't sit back and claim the victory in our lives. That is the Lord's. It is always his. Even in the midst of spiritual warfare today, where Paul gives us the instructions in the book of Ephesians to find ourselves in spiritual warfare. The posture again is on our knees in prayer. Imagine as Samuel is sacrificing and praying, the Lord is sending his lightning and you hear his thunder. and the enemy is turned around. And Samuel doesn't stop praying. It's like Moses on the mountain. As his hands are raised, the victory is the people's. But the moment it starts going down, they begin to lose. Samuel is praying and the people find God bringing the victory for them. That's what we see in this passage. He redeems his people. You see, we must trust in the Lord to ultimately fight our spiritual battles for us. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to rebuke Satan or rebuke demons. Christ does that for us. We turn to him in our spiritual conflict. For our battle is not against flesh and blood. That's why we turn to Jesus. We don't take matters into our own hands. When we do that, it gets very dark, very quick. And that's what we see here with Israel. They're now realizing that the matters of their victory, of their battles, are fundamentally the spiritual conflict. It's fundamentally in the Lord's hands and they must pray to God for the deliverance and the protection that he provides. I notice following this battle, Samuel once again leads the people. He leads the people like Joshua with erecting a monument to the Lord's deliverance in his day. So to they raise a stone and call it Ebenezer because the Lord had helped his people thus far. No longer are the people burdened with this enemy, at least at least for this time, at least for right now. Now they have this confusion, the Philistines do. They're not going to try to encroach for a while. The Lord has helped them, Ebenezer. But we must now continue to consider how Samuel indeed led the people, how he was a leader. And this is the rest of our passage this morning, where we see Samuel as the leader for the people, the God-given leader. We find that he was in fact a peacemaker and he was in fact the last of the judges. Look at verses 13 through 14, Samuel, the peacemaker. So, 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. Then the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to goth. and Israel recovered its territory from the hands of the Philistines and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. See, two things have happened the moment the Lord helped his people. First, we see the cycle of the judges, don't we? We see it again. Their enemy had been subdued for a time. They will come back during the reign of Saul and ultimately be defeated in the reign of David. with his godly men, his soldiers. But for now they have been subdued. The people are at peace for a time. There is peace. It is because of this peace the people will begin to desire to be like the other nations. The cycle is going to continue here and we're going to see in chapter eight they desire to be like the nations and have a king reign over them. That's something we will see this cycle continue next next week. It ends here with Samuel though because as soon the error of the judges will end and a new error will begin and it won't end until you get to Jesus Christ. That error will be one of a king. Like Moses here, we see Moses establishing the priesthood under God's oversight. We see Samuel establishing the School of the Prophets. School of the Prophets that will end when you see John the Baptist. And he begins to establish the Davidic dynasty. He annoys David. Another prophet like Samuel, Nathan, will establish the Davidic dynasty. That will continue even to this day, 2019. year of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's what A.D. means. He still reigns today. He is on the throne of his father this very day. Samuel started that. That's an important figure in the Bible. But secondly, we see peace, don't we? We see the peace. God, through his servant Samuel, has brought peace from war, peace from conflict. It's here. But also peace with the people in the land. Notice the Amorites are mentioned. Now the Amorites are not one of those groups that they were supposed to kick out. These are actually long distance cousins here, but still there's peace with them. They enjoyed this peace for a time. And then we get to see here that Samuel indeed is the last of the judges, verses 15 through 17. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. He went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gagol, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places. But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there. There he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord. See, Samuel ministered as what we call a circuit rider, where he had at least, as we see here, four locations for serving these various areas that the people would congregate to worship God. He, as a judge, ministered to all of Israel in these four locations. No other judge did this in the Bible. No other judge did this. Samuel was the last of these judges, though, and he was the greatest of all of the judges mentioned in the Bible. He served the Lord, and we see that he directed the people to worship the Lord by establishing, at least we see here, an altar for sacrifice in Ramah. And as we come to a close, we must realize one thing while Samuel was a great figure, a great man in history. He was a great prophet, a great leader. He was a great priest, a great judge, a great peacemaker. He was a great man. He was really no different than you and I, though. He was really no different than us sitting here. See, the peace he brought was not actually brought about by him. Yes, he prayed for it. But it was God who brought the peace. He still needed to pray for God's deliverance. He didn't just snap his finger and it happened. He still made sacrifice for his sins. He still didn't make atonement for his very own sins. Every day, he had to do that. He needed to be redeemed too. He was a part of those Israelites that needed redemption. He needed another who would be his greater, be the one that he would actually look to, be the one that he would actually look up to. He needed a great prophet. He needed a great leader. He needed a great priest. He needed a great judge. He needed a great peacekeeper. That's what Samuel needed. You see, Samuel needed the same Savior we need today. For there was one thing that Samuel was not. Out of all of that list of what Samuel was, he was the Lord's help, he was a peacekeeper, he was a prayer warrior, he was a prophet, he did act as a priest, he was a judge, but he was not the Savior. He was not the Redeemer. Israel has had only one Redeemer in all of her history. The church, from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve were kicked out, to this present day, has had only one Redeemer. And His name has always been Jesus Christ. That's who Samuel needed. That's who Israel needed. And they will get a taste of Him with Samuel. They'll get a taste of Him with David. That taste is not satisfied until you have him, until you're with him, until he's with you in his spirit and in his word. Samuel didn't have that. The biggest difference between you and Samuel, you have him. You have him completely. You have him entirely. You know where to go to hear his word. You don't have to leave your house. It's there in your lap. You don't have to go to some special place to find a prayer chair or whatever. You don't have to find a lamb and sacrifice and put his blood on an altar. You don't need to find a minister in order to pray or have your sins forgiven. You have a direct line of contact with your Redeemer, with your Savior. Samuel needed that. He looked forward to that day when the seed of the woman would come. And we have seen that day. And we trust in him. We turn to him. We have something far better than what Samuel had. We have the spirit of our Redeemer with us. interceding for us, directing and guiding us, and protecting us. That's how we are able to be those prayer warriors, to be the leaders in our community, to be with Christ, anointed with Christ, prophet, priest, and king in our cities. That is why we are able to be is because of Jesus. Congregation, let's stand at this time for prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we come to you now. We recognize you now as our Ebenezer, for you indeed have helped us, not just this far, but in our Savior Jesus Christ. You have helped us yesterday, today, and you continue to help us tomorrow, for that is the promise we have with our Savior Jesus, that he will always be with us, that he will never forsake us, that he is our Redeemer. We thank you for this place in Samuel where we can see everything that we could be in our, in our, in our Lord. And we pray God that we indeed would follow that call to pray for others, to intercede, to be leaders in our homes and in our families and our, our cities, our communities, even at the workplace. And that in that leadership that we would lead others to Jesus Christ. That it wouldn't just be leading people in financial stability or leading people in better marriages. All those things are well and good, but more importantly are their souls. That we would lead others to our Savior, to our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the most important thing in our lives. And so we pray, God, that we don't need to be like Samuel, we need to be like Jesus. Directing people to him each and every day. We thank you. We thank you that Jesus is indeed our help, and he has helped us, teaching us now how to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.