We now come to the point in our service where we will have a scripture reading. And so I ask that you turn to 1 Samuel chapter 12. 1 Samuel chapter 12. And the verse that we're going to primarily focus on this morning is verse 22. of 1 Samuel chapter 12. But we'll read the entire chapter together this morning. So this is the word of the Lord from 1 Samuel chapter 12, starting at verse 1. And Samuel said to all Israel, Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me, and have made a king over you, And now, behold, the King walks before you, and I am old and gray, and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day. Here I am. Testify against me before the Lord and before 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? Testify against me and I will restore it to you. They said, you have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand. And he said to them, the Lord is witness against you and his anointed is witness this day that you have not found anything in my hand. And they said, he is witness. And Samuel said to the people, The Lord is witness. Who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt? Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he perform for you and for your fathers. When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. But they forgot the Lord their God, and He sold them into the hands of Sisera, commander 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. And they cried out to the Lord and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtoreth. But now deliver us out of the hand of your enemies, of our enemies, that we may serve you. And the Lord sent Jeroboam, and Barak, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. And when you saw that Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, came against you. You said to me, No, but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king. And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked. Behold, the Lord has set a king over you. If you will fear the Lord, and serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king. Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king. And Samuel said to the people, Do not be afraid. You have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord 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, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things He has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king. Again, I'll read verse 22. The text will, or the verse will focus on today. Will you just pray with me this morning before I deliver a message and just ask that the Lord would bless it to us? Father in heaven, we read in 1 Samuel 12 of the rebellion of Israel in asking for a king, a king who is like the other nations. They forsook you, Lord. They did not want you as their king. They turned aside from you, Lord. What great sin they added to their number. And yet, your word to them was that you would not forsake them because of your great namesake. It's pleasing for you to have a people that are yours. Today, Lord, I pray that we would know the same for us. That though that we are sinful and we sin and thoughtward indeed every day, forsaking you, that you are ever faithful and ever true to us, your people. Work that in us by your spirit. Help us to praise you and glorify you for it. Bless this word to your people. Amen. Redeemer Church, Israel is moving into a period of kingship. Long has Israel desired to have an earthly king rule over them. As we will see, this desire for a king is not inherently wrong in and of itself. For God, in Genesis 17 verse 6, promised Abraham that from out of his seed a king would come. In Genesis 35, 11, God repeats this promise of a king coming from the line of Jacob of Abraham. God promised that a king would come. It was his plan. The promise of a king, though, was the ideal king. The ideal king described in Deuteronomy chapter 17, verses 18 through 20. And I'll just read this for you. It says, and when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law in these statutes and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel. This is a king after God's own heart who would set the standard and be the one in whom Israel would look to as the culmination of restoration and deliverance. One who would deliver his people from the present evil age. We know that God promised a king to his people. A king was not foreign to his plan. This, people of God, is important to note because many who read this text today will say that the problem of Israel is simply in their desire for a king. God is Israel's king, they might say, and the desire for the king is their sin. But this is not so. After a more careful look at our text, we see that the desire for a king was a righteous desire. It was a godly desire. The problem lies not with desiring a king to reign over them. The problem lies in what kind of king the people desired. Would they desire a king after God's own heart or a king like unto the world? And we know that the latter is what they asked for. In 1 Samuel 8, verse 20, Israel said, give us a king like all the other nations. Israel rejects God. And because of this, we read in 1 Samuel 8, 10 through 18, Samuel portraying and warning Israel about the kings they will get. These kings will take from them. These kings will take what they have and will weigh them down with heavy taxes. These kings will rule Israel unrighteously. Yet Israel did not listen to Samuel. Why did Samuel warn against this type of king? because Samuel was called to display for Israel in his life and teaching what Israel ought to seek and look for in a king. Samuel was to be a picture to Israel what a godly leader looked like. In fact, he was a picture of the one true king, Jesus Christ. He was a man after the Lord so that Israel might seek the ideal king and know Him when He comes. As you might be able to tell, this echoes back to Genesis 3, verse 15. The story of kingship in Israel echoes back to the struggle between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Two seeds, two kings, one wicked and one who is righteous. This is the antithesis, the hostility and enmity between the two seeds. What is amazing is that a promise of struggle is made with a great promise hidden within it. A promise of salvation. Salvation through the seed of the woman in the struggle between the woman and the serpent. Ultimately, God will not forsake His people. Thus Samuel, the last judge, has anointed Saul the king over Israel. He has given the people over to what they want. For this is how the Lord time and again teaches his people. This is the struggle we will see. Not only the struggle between the wicked and godly kings, but the struggle in the hearts and affections of God's people. For they were the ones who called for a king, like the other nations. They turned against God and sinned greatly in His eyes. The people sinned greatly in asking for the wrong kind of king. And they would get what they wanted and Saul would become king. Yet the Lord is unchangeably and purposefully sovereign in all that He does. He will not forsake His people. He will keep His promises, His promise in establishing the King, the ideal King. For as the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 1 states, God works all things according to the counsel of His immutable and most righteous will for His own glory. Let us then consider just three things, three things today under the main theme, God will not forsake. So our theme is God will not forsake. And first, let us consider His people. His people. Second, we'll consider for His great name's sake. And thirdly, because it pleased Him. So God will not forsake His people for His great name's sake and because it pleased Him. First, his people. The prophet Samuel rebukes Israel for the great sin they have committed, the great sin of desiring a king like the other nations. As we read earlier, God promised Israel a king. God promised a king to Abraham and their sin was in the fact that they desired a king like unto the other nations. In the earlier verses of chapter 12, Samuel juxtaposes himself as the righteous judge of Israel over against the kings like the other nations. Samuel did not commit any harm against the children of Israel. He did not oppress them. He did not defraud them. Samuel did not do any harm to the people of Israel. Rather, he judged righteously, teaching them to serve and obey the Lord And yet still, the people wanted a different leader. Samuel in verse 13 states that the Lord God of Israel will give them the king that they so desire. He will give them a king. He will give them the desire of their heart. A king that can establish an earthly kingdom and win earthly battles from time to time. It was a grievous sin. The people of Israel were telling God that they did not want a king like unto Him. They were telling Him that they did not want to be like Him. And so they forsook God, grievously offending Him, and turned aside from Him, seeking after the world. The world and the things within it that ultimately do not deliver. Things that do not profit anything. But the Lord, He makes it clear that though His people have greatly sinned against Him, He will not forsake them. Although they have turned from Him to seek the vain things of this earth, He will not forsake them, but He will deliver them. This promise from the mouth of God that He will not forsake Israel shows the Lord's unconditional covenant of grace toward His people. Though the Lord's people constantly turn from Him and run from Him, He will not turn from them. This is, remember, the same God who cut the calf in half while Abraham was sleeping. The same Lord who made the covenant himself. He is the one who will be faithful to Israel by not forsaking them. He will keep the covenant on their behalf. What a long-suffering God that Israel has. What a long-suffering and loving God that we have. The God who has given His people every reason and every second of every day to serve Him and to follow Him, to praise Him. Yet God is constantly forsaken by His people. Although He has delivered His people out of slavery, delivered His people from their enemies, His people constantly turn from Him. And so what a loving God that we have. We have forsaken Him. We have and we will continue in various ways to forsake Him. each and every day. Yet despite their sin and despite our sin, the Lord tells his people, he tells you and me, that he will not forsake us. This promise is unconditional, as I have said, and it applies to all of life. There is nothing you and I can do that will make this promise void in our life. It applies to every second of the believer's life. It applies to every circumstance of the believer's life. There is not a second in the believer's life, nor are there any circumstances in the believer's life in which the Lord forsakes them. And so believer here today, are you backsliding? Are you backsliding caught or in secret sin? The Lord will not forsake you. Are you responsible for maybe marital strife? The Lord will not forsake you. And the list of sins can go on and on, but the Lord will not forsake His people. He may give you and I earthly consequences for our sins, but even those consequences, being caught in sin, for instance, is God's faithfulness in bringing you and me back to Him and delivering us from the flesh and from the devil. The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 5, entitled, The Providence of Providence, talks of this. It says, the most wise and righteous and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their hearts, to chastise them to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled, and to raise them to a more in close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasion of sin and for sundry of other just and whole ends. The unconditional faithfulness of God the Father through Jesus Christ is the foundation in our sure confidence in this life and as we face death. Therefore, when you are caught in sin as Israel was, when the devil throws his fiery darts at you, when you doubt, when you despair, when you are terrorized, look by faith to the God who does not forsake. Look to God who never forsakes His people. In all of these circumstances, look to the One who will not forsake you, but who delights to receive you into His arms. In all of these circumstances of life, do not listen to your feelings. Do not listen to the lies of the devil. Do not listen to anybody except it be the Word of God. For His Word is sure and it tells you today that God will not forsake you. God does not forsake, but tells you and me of His great love for us. Therefore, do not turn aside from the Lord following after perishing in the vain things of life, but turn to the God who loves you and who you know to be the great Comforter and the Deliverer. Let's secondly look at, point to, for His great name's sake, For His great name's sake He will not forsake. He will not forsake because He cannot forsake. The Lord God of Israel covenanted Himself with a people. And not because of anything that they did, not because they are lovable, not because of anything other than the fact that He was pleased to have a specific people. It goes against God's name to forsake. It goes against the nature of who God is to forsake. The great I Am, the One who speaks all things into existence. The One that creates and does whatsoever He pleases. The One whose plans are not contingent on any outside influences. This God, the God of Scripture, is unchangeable. For proof of this, Numbers 23, 19 states, God is not human that he should lie, not a human being that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? God is unchangeable, and he's unchangeable in his relationship towards us. But as we know, humans, human beings change. And we know this to be true from our experience. For example, we often set out to accomplish a task or a goal. And we might set out to accomplish that goal with great fervor and passion. Only for a few minutes later, we just decide not to do it anymore and to give up. But the God of Israel, your God, never changes. He is not like that at all. He cannot change because of who He is by nature. Your God and my God and the God of all of His elect people will not and cannot change. Because of His great namesake, He cannot do this. It goes against His innermost being to change. And therefore, when we entertain the thoughts or the voices of the devil or the world that say, God does not love me because of my sin. Or, this time is the last straw. Or, I have sinned one too many times. God does not love me, but he condemns me. We can say to those things boldly and confidently that those are lies straight from hell. because God's Word stands. His Word says, I will not forsake you. And the Holy Spirit testifies with our spirit as well that we are the children of God. The Holy Spirit is our advocate and He tells us with a peaceful whisper or a loud exclamation that we are the children of God. Israel sinned greatly. They severed themselves from God in their desire to be like the nations. They had everything. They had an abundance of blessing and favor in the Lord. Samuel listed that favor. How time and time again the Lord delivered them. Yet they denied Him. And we too deny Him. Every day in thought word and in deeds. Think with me believers about how often we sever ourselves from God. It could be a desire like Israel to be like the world. We look around maybe as Asaph did in the Psalms and are envious of the prosperity and the strength of the world. We look around as Asaph did in Psalms in our envious of what the world has, it seems like they have it so much better than us and that we have it so much worse. We easily fall into worldly desires in acting on them. As Asaph says in Psalm 73, verse 2, our feet slip and we slide down the slippery slope of the pleasures of this life. How often also do we forsake God in our besetting sins? Like Israel, we continuously turn our faces from God. We seek out our own idols, whether they be money or fame, family can be an idol, friends, drugs, sexual immorality, whatever besetting sin it may be, or lying, or gossiping, or stealing, or cheating, whatever it may be. And think about it. Some of those are just outward sins in nature. But think about all the times we turn from God inwardly. Again, gossiping, slander, jealousy, hatred. And now, furthermore, think about all the times we turn from God spiritually. Maybe we avoid God for days or weeks in prayer. Or we don't, we're not in the scripture as we ought to be every day. And we avoid them spiritually. Or, think of the great example of severing themselves from Jesus and Peter. And not living out his identity in Christ as he ought to. Beloved, we forsake God every day. And even at our best, we still are far short of the perfect standard of the law. And so what beauty, splendor, and peace and grace do we find when we think on the God who changes not? What freedom? Likewise, when we look to the ultimate fulfillment and culmination of God's changelessness in Jesus Christ. What love we find when we look to Christ, the author and the finisher of our faith. For in Christ is the glorious fulfillment of the Lord God who swore by His name to never forsake His people. And I speak for myself, if not for all of you, when I say that the glorious truth of God's unchangeableness Shown forth and ultimately fulfilled in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ is what moves us. It is what gets us out of bed in the morning. It is what quiets our fears and our anxieties and our despairs. For without it, in facing a holy God, the law, our thoughts, and the voice of the devil, we would surely be condemned. And we would be terrorized without quiet or peace. This is the King that we have. This is the King that rules over us. This King has entered into every believer's heart and mind. And He is a King of compassion and unconditional love for His people. He will never forsake you. And so, turn back in repentance from your sin to Him. Turn to Him by faith and serve Him in humbleness. Do not run from Him. Do not turn to anything else, but render unto Him a continual return of love. And is this not the experience of the Christian life? One of continual turning? Is it not the example of It's not David the example set for us in the Psalms. The Psalms that display every emotion, whether it be high or low, or any feeling. It truly is the experience of the Christian life. For we are weak and feeble. Yet the Lord knows this. He remembers our frame. He knows that we are dust. And he has given us himself as the sure foundation of our life. Jesus Christ, the firm foundation. And so plead to God on behalf of His name, He who changes not. Thirdly and finally, we'll consider pleasing to himself, pleasing to himself. We have considered that the Lord will not forsake, and He will not forsake because of His great name's sake. That He cannot forsake, and that it goes against His nature and His being. But the truth of His unconditional love for His people goes far beyond even that. It goes far beyond in that it reaches out to His will. His will of choosing for Himself a people. His will of choosing you and me out of His own good pleasure. And this is what we'll consider. What a truth this is. A truth that sinks deep into the heart of the believer, bringing tears to his or her eyes. Who am I that God should be mindful of me? And yet, the text states that it pleased Him. It pleased Him to make myself, to make yourself and all those who believe in Jesus Christ, His own. It pleased the Lord to make us His own and therefore it continues to please the Lord to work in us throughout our lives according to His good pleasure. This here is the crux of the text, that though we born-again Christians often fall, and often fall in grievous ways, the Lord is pleased to be our God. He loves to be our God. His disposition towards all of His people is that of love. As I was studying this text, it occurred to me that we then ought to look at even our fallenness, our wicked past life, our struggle with besetting sins in our trials as good and gracious gifts of God who ordains all things. He is pleased to continue to work in us through our fallenness to conform us into the image of Jesus Christ. Everything in our lives is ordained by God and so our outlook, even on the thorns and thistles of this life, ought to be a posture of rejoicing because God has ordained all things to circumcise our hearts, to cut away the old, to make way for the new, He makes, He ordains it all that we might look more and more like Jesus Christ each and every day. Jesus Christ, the ideal and true King. It pleased Him to make you and me His people, and it pleases Him to use everything in our lives for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. Romans 8, verse 28. Are we thankful then? Are we rejoicing then because of the King that we have? The King that will not forsake His people, that cannot forsake His people, but loves His people for His own namesake and choosing? Or do we desire yet to still to be like the nations? All of us struggle with this in one way or another. Either we want to be like the world or we forget, like Israel, the great king that we have. The call then for all of us here today is to repent and to believe. Turn back to the Lord whose name is great. He will not chide. but He will receive you, and He loves to receive you. Turn back to Him because of His great name's sake. Turn to Him in prayer, calling on His name. You and I are blessed to be able to plead with the Lord on the grounds of His name. He says it in His word that He will not forsake because of His great name's sake. Let us then go to Him, pleading with Him, on behalf of His name, pleading with Him on behalf of His name. This changes the whole outlook of the believer's lives. Our whole lives are staked on His unshakable promises. This also changes how we plead and talk with the Lord. We do not plead with the Lord based on our name. We do not plead with the Lord based on the world. No, but we plead, we cry out, we ground our supplications and our prayers on the great and unchangeable loving name of the Lord. The sun in the sky was not fully risen, if you will, for the people in the Old Testament. They could see it, they could see its shining light, but they could only look to what would come. The Messiah was not there. He had not come yet, but we We, beloved, have the full radiance of the noonday sun shining upon us like a hot summer day. The full radiance of God's love and mercy is shown fully and brightly to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God's promises and His love for wretched sinners. Hebrews 1 verse 3 states, Jesus Christ is the radiance of God's glory and exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. Brothers and sisters, Jesus shines brightly. The endless mercy and grace that He readily and freely gives are yours. It is always there, no matter what trials you go through, no matter what sin besets you. His free grace and mercy are there for you. Run to Jesus Christ. Do not hide from Him, for He will never and can never forsake you. This is his character. You have his word, literally. If you find yourself listening today, though, maybe as an unbeliever, someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ, listen up. There is a word for you as well. If you are weighed down by your sin, your sin before a holy God, and you know that it is a damnable offense against him, The same call goes to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. He is ready and He is willing to save sinners to the utmost. This call is urgent. It's urgent because judgment is coming. A judgment that is terrifying and makes one shudder at the thought of it. In the road of idolatry, in the way of the world, lead only to destruction. Just look at Israel. The road they were going down was a sure road to torment and damnation. But think also of the universal judgment we see today. Just this past week, with the hurricane season going on, taking place in Florida, Hurricane Milton. Those are I always say it's funny, we call them natural disasters, but there's really nothing natural about them, right? And while they are not God's judgment, maybe specifically on the people of Florida, as was in the case of the Old Testament days, it is a display and a sobering warning of the final judgment that will take place on the last day. And so then, turn not aside from the Lord, but turn to the Lord, people of God. Turn to the Lord, all who are weary and heavy laden, for He will give you rest. And you can be assured that the Lord will keep you. Your sins grieve Him, your sins do Bring seasons of chastisement, but your sins do not remove you from His covenant faithfulness towards you. He established the covenant and He kept the covenant in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Be assured then, He will continue to draw Himself to you because His grace is irresistible. fret not, he will not forsake you because of his great name and his disposition of love towards you. He is and will always be holding you fast. Amen. Let us pray. Father, as we read this chapter, we're blown away by your grace and mercy towards sinners. How often we turn from you And we see this in the life of Jesus as well with the disciples. The disciples don't understand what he's about. They constantly choose the world rather than him. And yet, his response to them was merciful and gracious, one of compassion. And we see this in the text today, how you treated your people, Israel. Lord, and I pray that we would put away and put off false ideas of who you are, and help us to see that, yes, while you are a holy God, you are a gracious God, and that our sin before your face was paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. So help us to see Him, the ideal King, the true King, and help us, Lord, to yearn and to look forward to the day when You will come to earth, and You will make all things new, and You will establish an eternal kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. And we pray this in Your name. Amen.