All right. Amen. You remember those prayer requests in your own private prayer times through the week. But for now, we're going to rewind the Sunday school clock. We have been going through the life of Christ, and that takes we've been about the year 27. So we're going to go dial the clock back to the year 1100 B.C. OK, so long before the time of Christ, during the times of the judges, and even though we speak about a judge today, his story is found not in the book of Judges, but in the book of 1 Samuel. A lot of people don't realize that Samuel was one of the judges of Israel. He was the last one, and he was a judge that was both a civil leader and a religious leader, and a religious leader in the truest sense. He was a prophet and a preacher and led the nation not just to military victory over their enemies, but led the nation to spiritual revival, which led to victories over their enemy. And today's main characters are God and Samuel. And the story is about how Samuel leads Israel into a time of spiritual revival and relative peace. Something we take for granted, isn't it? that we live in a nation of peace. We don't have to worry about, at least currently, we don't have to worry about invading armies, right? Can you imagine living in a day and age when, like we look to spring as baseball season? They feared spring because it meant invading season. And who was going to try to invade you this year? And hopefully your king was strong and everybody was afraid of him. Oftentimes that wasn't the case. Oftentimes there wasn't any organized defense. And so there was always this, this up and down of, of violence and peace. And, um, that's why God raised up judges from time to time and also raised up enemies against Israel from time to time to, uh, for the purpose of chastising them, to remind them of who they should be following. The key word today is, uh, A Hebrew word which has become somewhat of a name, popular name in our culture, that is Ebenezer. Again, appreciate Charles Dickens' creativity, but he kind of ruined this word for a lot of people because you can't help but think of Ebenezer Scrooge. It is one of my favorite stories, fictional stories that is. But everyone hears Ebenezer and they think of a grumpy old man. But it's actually a really great word. It's a word of testimony, a word that glorifies God. The climax of the story is in chapter 7 and verse 8, where the children of Israel said to Samuel, cease not to cry unto the Lord God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. And that's the climax of the story, because we see that there is a problem, isn't there? And the only solution to the problem is what? Prayer. And even the backslidden children of Israel are beginning to see that what is needed here is prayer. Now look, if you would, in chapter 7 and verse number 1. And the men of Kirjath-Jerim came and fetched up the ark of the Lord and brought it unto the house of Abinadab in the hill and sanctified Eliezer his son to keep the ark of the Lord. You know what the ark of the Lord looks like, right? Yeah, you saw Indiana Jones. But remember that it's basically an ornate box that's covered with gold, and there is a lid on top of it, and it's also made of gold. And there's two, we don't know what they look like, and I'm just going to give you an abstract representation here. There's two figures on the top that are cherubim, and they're facing each other. And it was understood that the presence of God was on top of the Ark and in fact it was seen there when it was in the tabernacle, God's presence by a visible manifestation on top of the Ark and it was carried with two staves that went through the rings on the corners. But typically, it resided in the tabernacle in one room called the Holy of Holies. And there it sat all by itself, except for God's presence. And the high priest, one man, one time a year, would go into the Holy of Holies, where he would bring the blood sacrifice from the Day of Atonement. And he would sprinkle it on the lid of the ark called the mercy seat. But During Samuel's lifetime, there was a high priest. His name was Eli. And he had two very, very wicked sons who were also priests. And their names were Hophni and Phinehas. And they were terrible men. And the Lord removed his blessing from Israel because of their disobedience. And because of that, they were conquered by the Philistines, and now they were being oppressed by the Philistines. Long story short, a battle comes into play. The children of Israel fetch the Ark of the Covenant out of the tabernacle. Hophni and Phinehas are bringing it to the army. And they're going to use it like this, if I may, this mascot to sort of rally the troops, right? Maybe God will bring his power and smite the enemy. Well, they needed to learn this lesson because they're thinking like idolaters. And here's how they're thinking, that this object inherently, in and of itself, is supernaturally giving them power. What they're ignoring is that it's a representation of God who has commandments. That even inside the ark, there are commandments, right? And just having the ark around does not guarantee blessing if there is disobedience. And so they don't have a relationship with God, but they want the benefits of God without the relationship of God. And he's going to show them that that's just really not how it works at all. And so Hophni and Phinehas, who have broken every commandment inside the Ark of the Covenant, are bringing the Ark of the Covenant to the camp of Israel, and there's this great shouting, right? Everyone's all motivated, now we're gonna whip up on the Philistines, we got the Ark, man, this is our secret weapon. And the Philistines are even thinking, oh man, why are the Hebrews shouting like that? Oh, they have the Ark, oh no, we're gonna die, the Ark of the Covenant is in the, and these are mighty gods, they say, that brought the Israelites up out of the land of Egypt, right? And they remember the stories of the 10 plagues and whatnot. And so the Philistines are fearful. Battle comes. Lo and behold, the Philistines win. They smite the Hebrews and the Ark of the Covenant does them no good. And in fact, Hophni and Phinehas are slain. The Ark of the Covenant is captured and the Philistines take it to their Temple of Dagon as a trophy of their victory over the Hebrews. The children of Israel are sad. Again, I'm condensing about four chapters of history into a few paragraphs. Eventually, the Ark of the Covenant doesn't do well for the Philistines. God smites them with plagues. They say, we got to get rid of this ark. They do. It comes to a man's house in Beth Shemesh, and the Hebrews there carry on with it in a way that is forbidden. They are peeking and prying into the Ark. God judges them. They send the Ark to, or they leave the Ark alone for like 20 years, right? That has passed. The Ark of the Covenant is not in the tabernacle. And God's people are beginning to feel this growing backsliddenness and that God is not with them. And they're not right with God. And it's not just that the Ark of the Covenant isn't where it shouldn't, where it doesn't belong, but their hearts are where it doesn't belong. That's the real lesson here. So now we come to chapter seven. Um, and you see that they fessed up the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of a Benadab in the hill and sanctified Eliezer, his son to keep the ark of the Lord. And it came to pass while the ark abode in Kerjath, Jerem, that the time was long for it was 20 years and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. So the answer to number one is 20 years, the Ark of the Lord was in someone's house, right? And it was being guarded, but nevertheless, it wasn't in the tabernacle like it should have been. The Bible says that the people began to lament after the Lord. And part of this was because we see that there is a man named Samuel that goes about preaching, and he is preaching against the idolatry of the nation. And he's telling them, The reason why things are the way they are is because God is chastising you, his people. And look in verse number three, and Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, if ye do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtoreth from among you and prepare your hearts unto the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. So we understand that Samuel was operating as an itinerant preacher, spelled like this. No, I messed it up. Itinerant. What is an itinerant preacher? Wrong. Yes, he travels around, not that he isn't satisfied, but he travels around and preaches from place to place. He's an itinerant preacher. And his preaching emphasizes two areas that the Hebrews needed to hear. They needed to repent of idolatry, okay? Idolatry. And related to that, they needed to serve God alone. And by serving God, the word serve in the Old Testament is, well, it's synonymous with worship, okay? It's not service only in the sense of servitude and doing something for the Lord, but it also means worshiping the Lord. And they needed to repent of idolatry and serve the Lord alone and worship him only. And so that's what Samuel was preaching quite frequently. And that was the gist of his messages. And it began to have an effect on the people. They would hear this preaching and it would They were convicted about their idolatry and their backsliddenness. And what is idolatry? Let's just be real basic here. What's idolatry? Who has a good answer to that? Devon, we'll go to you. Worshiping anything that's not God. Paul, something along those lines? Yeah, anything that we worship that isn't God. And by worship and serve, we don't just mean that you bow down and pray to, but rather if If you have something in your life that pushes away your worship of God, whether or not you think you're worshiping it or not, it has become an idol. And in the sense that you are no longer worshiping God, but you're obsessed or you're following or you're pursuing this, whatever it is, that has become an idol. It can be anything from a person to a statue, to money, to a job, to, I mean, even, it could be anything, right? John Calvin said, the human heart, and I'm paraphrasing, the human heart is an idol factory. That is, we don't have to find idols, we can make them up in our own hearts, and oftentimes we do. And so they needed to repent of their idolatry, they needed to serve God alone. And may I ask you a little application question And you answer this in your own heart, but is there anything in your life that is pushing God out of worship? That is, you're not serving him alone, but something else has begun to take his place, and he is eclipsing God. And whatever that is, that is becoming an idol, if it hasn't already become an idol. Now look in verse number five in 1 Samuel chapter seven. Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray for you unto the Lord. And the fact that he is calling them to a prayer meeting where he's going to do the praying and they're showing up, I think that's pretty good indication that God is beginning to move in the hearts of people. And they gathered together, verse six, to Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day. What does it mean to fast? To not eat, which is today is not a day of fasting. But there are days of fasting in the lives of God's people. And sometimes they come because of certain spiritual needs. and sometimes God's people just do them on a regular basis. I hope that if you are physically able to fast that you do it in a somewhat regular fashion spiritually. I know that some of you are not able to do that and you should certainly talk to your doctor about fasting if maybe there's a question about your physical ability. But it's good for us spiritually to deny ourselves physically. And that's what fasting is. And they come to this town, Mizpah. Samuel is there to pray for them and obviously to preach and to lead them in worship. Water was drawn and poured out, which is interesting. That's not something we do in our Baptist worship services. We draw water and then we put people in it. Baptism, amen. But we don't usually draw it and pour it out in an act of worship. And this was symbolic of repentance and renewal. We see in verse six that they confess, we have sinned against the Lord. And the sacred act of pouring out water before the Lord was repeated by David in second Samuel chapter 23. And you can read about that if you want. but it's a sign of repentance. It's a sign of all that we have. And let's think about it. Think about the symbology here. What does water do for us? Cleanses, Devon? Sustenance? Yeah, it hydrates us. Yeah, Paul? can heal, keeps us alive. Yeah. So water is life, isn't it? And, uh, in a way this drawing water and pouring it out unto the Lord, it's not that God is thirsty and that's how we give them a drink. That's absurd. But rather we acknowledge that God is the water source for our lives. And again, I speak metaphorically that he is the fount of living water, that he gives us life like water gives us life, except even the water is from the Lord. And his spirit, of course, is compared to water many times in scripture. And so that's how this this this act of drawing and pouring out water is symbolic of not only repentance and renewal, but also of appreciation that that God sustains us and God blesses us. And David poured out water when some mighty men from his special forces unit broke through a Philistine garrison, drew water out of Bethlehem's well because he was getting all nostalgic and stuff. They bring it to him and as a gift, hey, you know, Captain, here is water from the well that you grew up with as a child. David was so impressed by the valor of his men and their love to him that he felt it would be disrespecting them if he just drank the water, so he gave it to the Lord. How do you give it to the Lord? He poured it out unto the Lord, and so that's what happens in 2 Samuel 23. Now, the day was also a day of fasting, which is an expression of repentance from sin and dependence on God. So all of these things, there's overlapping dependence. There's overlapping symbolism here, how we need God for life. And the water shows that pouring out to God acknowledges that we see that all things come from his hand. The day of fasting is an expression that what we need more than food is we need God's blessing. We need communion with God. Now, we see in verse seven that the villains, they show up. Dun, dun, dun. And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to miss, but the Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines understandably. So, and the children of Israel said to Samuel, cease not to cry into the Lord, our God, for us that, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. So understand that the climactic moment that is, that is here. Okay. They are, There, for a revival meeting and a prayer meeting, they're expressing their repentance, they're acknowledging God alone, and the catalyst of this was that the oppression of the Philistines, they're getting tired of it and they see that it's a result of their sin. So now they're coming to deal with this sin in Mespa. Meanwhile, guess who is gathering on the horizon? The Philistines. Oh man, now what are we gonna do? And so they're in a spiritual state of mind, which is good. They tell Samuel, look, whatever you do, don't stop praying for us because we know that what we need right now is God more than ever. And we know that the Lord hears your prayers. And so they ask him, keep praying, keep praying. And look in verse number nine, And Samuel took a sucking lamb, so a little lamb. And what does that represent? Jesus. What'd you say? Jesus. John the Baptist called Jesus the what? The Lamb of God. What did John the Revelator see in Revelation? He saw a lamb standing as it had been slain. So this is obviously a metaphor all throughout scripture of Christ as our sacrifice. And he takes this lamb, sir? I said typology. Typology, yes. He takes this lamb and sacrifices it. And verse nine, Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel and the Lord, what? heard him. So meanwhile, you understand the Philistines are preparing an ambush. Let me erase some of my board here so you can see. The Philistines are preparing an ambush. They want to fight. They see an opportunity here. The answer there is ambush. They want to fight with Israel and bring them further under their dominance. Look now if you would in verse number 10. And as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited them. That's a fun word. What does it mean to discomfit? Or discomfit, I think it's discomfit. Discombobulate, yes. Clear as mud. Yes. So in other words, it means to put them in disarray. It means that they're completely now disorganized and they're running for their lives, right? And they were smitten before Israel. And why were they smitten before Israel? And that means that the Israel was whooping up on them. Why? Samuel was praying. And then what happened? The Lord He thundered, right? He thundered on the Philistines, and that scared them. And you may be thinking, ah, it's just a little bit of thunder. Yeah. If you've ever been in a real severe storm where you feared for your life, then you know what kind of fear. Then imagine that multiplied 1,000 times, and then not only is there a physical manifestation of thundering, but there is a spiritual element to it. Right, so these physical manifestations was like what the Lord did in Egypt. He's sort of making fun of their gods by cursing everything that they worshipped and using what they worshipped against them. And in a similar way, you know, storms, thunders, lightnings, these are things that the pagans would have worshipped and feared. And the Lord is coming against them in this manner with thundering, and it throws them into panic. Thundering. Now look in verse number 12. Verse 11. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and smote them until they came under Bethkar. That's a town several miles away. I forget the distance. And then Samuel took a stone. And we would understand that this is a big stone. and set it up between Mishpah and Shin and called the name of it Ebenezer saying hitherto hath the Lord helped us. And this big rock that he set up, you understand, it would have been noticeable and it would have been semi-permanent because they're hard to move, right? I have a fondness for large rock formations because I grew up in the Rockies. and I wanted a rock formation in my, I wanted a big rock in my yard, and my yard didn't have any big rocks, and so my ever-thoughtful wife decided, and I forget the occasion, I forget the occasion, was it birthday, anniversary, Christmas, or just cause? Probably just cause. She and my son Noah, when he was still at home, and a young strapping teenager, she found a large rock They don't sell them at Walmart. But it was on the side of the road and her and Noah, mostly Noah, her and Noah picked up this gigantic rock and with a great deal of effort put it into the van, I guess it was at the time. And I, yeah, and I come home and there is this gigantic medium-sized rock sitting on my lawn. And my wife says, surprise. And guess what? the rock is there still today. And you can see it when you come to my house, it's behind the Japanese maple. Um, and it's not going anywhere. And one day if we sell the house, I imagine the new owners will probably leave the rock there. Uh, cause it looks nice and they're hard to move. And so this, this rock that, that Samuel sets up, uh, it, I'm, I'm, this is my conjecture. I would imagine it took more than, you know, uh, a teenage boy and an adult woman to move it. It was probably a large rock. Um, and they set it up and he calls it, he names it Ebenezer and Ebenezer means stone of help, not Scrooge stone of help. Yeah. Help. So next time we sing come back, maybe we should sing come down this morning. I didn't have it scheduled. But here I raise mine Ebenezer. Some of the newer hymnals, they take that out because they don't think anybody knows what that means anymore, which is a sad commentary on American Christianity. But if you know your scriptures, you know that when we raise our Ebenezer, we are raising this memorial that God has been helpful to us. And I'm going to be preaching about that in the sermon later on. Devon? Yeah, he sure did. And I'm preaching through some of the Psalms on Sunday nights and the recurring theme in the Psalms is that God is my rock. He is my fortress. He is my shield. All of these defensive terms, right? And what do you, when you need to hide behind something, do you want to hide behind a hay bale or a rock? Yeah, cover and concealment. That's right. So now we see and I need to wrap it up here. Samuel rides a circuit we read about in this this chapter. And by riding a circuit, I mean like a circuit riding preacher. You've heard of those back in the eighteen hundreds, the Baptists and the Methodists really saturated the American wilderness with the gospel. But he would ride the circuit between Ramah and Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah. And during his leadership of Israel, The Philistines and the Amorites kept their distance. So that blessing of God, the material temporal blessing of God is returning to earthly Israel because of their spiritual repentance. And during Samuel's ministry, Ramah was the epicenter, the headquarters of his prophetic ministry. And if you go to visit my mom and dad's house, you're going to go 70 west for a long, long, long, long, long, long time. You're going to get off in Lyman, Colorado. And on the way to Colorado Springs, you'll pass a town called Ramah. And that's what Ramah, Colorado is named after, the city in the Bible. Now, let me make a few applications and then we'll be done. 20 years after the men of Beth Shemesh were smitten for unlawfully peering into the ark. You can read about that in the previous chapters. And I do recommend, by the way, if you need a little homework, I shouldn't use that word, it makes people cringe. If you'd like to do some background reading that will edify your soul this afternoon, read 1 Samuel chapters 4 through 7, okay? And you can see what I'm talking about. the men of Beth Shemesh were smitten for unlawfully peering into the ark. And the Bible says that the children of Israel lamented after the Lord. And Matthew Henry says of that, it was better with the Israelites when they wanted the ark, or that is they lacked, they lacked having the ark and were lamenting after it when they had the ark and were prying into it. You see what he's saying? When they didn't have the ark, they lamented. When they had the ark, they were breaking the law of God and prying into it, and they were priding themselves in it. And he makes this point. It's better to see people longing in the scarcity of the means of grace than loathing in the abundance of them, okay? It's better to see them longing because of the scarcity of it than to be loathing with the abundance of it. Now that doesn't mean that we should make church hard to get to and we shouldn't read the Bible very often. What he's saying is that we are prone when we have an abundance of the means of grace. And by means of grace is not means of saving grace, it's means of sanctifying grace. Understand that about that phrase, okay? We're not talking about here of earning salvation. We're talking about you have been justified and now you're growing in grace to be more like Jesus. The means of grace are Bible reading, Bible preaching, church worship, the Lord's Supper, prayer, and singing. We see this in the book of Acts, that these are the means of grace. These are activities you do, to grow spiritually, not to earn salvation, but to grow in grace, to be like Jesus. And when there is a scarcity of the means of grace, it's good when God's people desire and miss them, okay? It teaches us a lesson that this is what we need. But a common problem is And I say because I was one who was raised in church. All of my life I've known Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, my entire life. You understand? It's easy for people like me to take it for granted. To see it as routine and even begin to interpret it as empty formality versus those who wish that they could come and hear and participate and can't. For instance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I forget his exact words, and obviously he and I would disagree theologically in many different places, but I appreciate his testimony during his imprisonment, how that because he was imprisoned by the Nazis and was essentially forbidden from Christian fellowship, that he longed for it, and he had a renewed appreciation for what he was missing. So, and I hope that you would see the... Well, the Bible says that the full soul, or the one who is filled up, the full, not full F-O-O-L, but F-U-L-L, the full soul loatheth an honeycomb. And we're going to experience that today. We're going to go downstairs. We're going to we're going to eat. We're going to eat the fat and drink the sweet, like Nehemiah says. Right. And we're going to be full. Jill. Yes, it is Bible reading. I'll put it this way. Bible, both reading and preaching prayer. The Lord's Supper. of Christian fellowship, that is the assembling with believers for worship. And I just forgot the last one. It'll come to me singing. Yes. So and that's five. But two of them have to do with the Bible as far as reading and preaching. And you can read this in the book of Acts in different places. One of them and I forget the address, but it says that at Pentecost, the the new Christians, they They continued in the apostle's doctrine and teaching and in the breaking of bread and of fellowship and prayer. And so you find all of that sort of summarized in that verse in the book of Acts. And these are what the Lord uses to, these are God's gifts to his people. So Bible reading, preaching, singing, praying, fellowship, these are what we need to grow in grace. And may the Lord help us to relish these things. Paul, is your hand up, sir? The Philistines are also, or it's called Palestine, is actually referring to the Philistines. It's a way to spite the Israelis. Excuse me, in their own land. Yeah, and I'm gonna let you, the last two answers are this. Number nine is tabernacle, number 10 is prophet. For sake of time, I'll let you review those. Real quick though, picking up what Paul said, I read recently that The name for Judea was changed to Philistia after the final war with the Jews against the Romans, the Bar Kokhba Rebellion. The Jews were essentially not wiped out, but they completely lost their national identity after that rebellion. This was after the year 70, we're looking at like mid-100s. And because, and Rome, Rome was going to take Jerusalem, which had already been sacked 70 years previous to that, and they were going to rebuild it and dedicate a temple to Jupiter. And the Jews said, no, we're not doing this. And so there was this rebellion, one final annihilation of national identity. And the area was renamed Philistia. I think Philistia, Syria. But again, it was no longer called Judea after that. And it was a way of sort of salt in a wound. Anyways, we're out of time. I hear people assembling downstairs. Church will start in 12 minutes, so we're going to dismiss you now and see you back here real soon.