Samuel 7, I'll be preaching from there today, and there are outlines on the back table if you didn't get one when you came in, and it has the text printed there for you as well. So in our morning sermon series we've been working our way through the books of Samuel. We are in 1 Samuel now, we've not been at it real long. This book opens at a time when God's people had drifted far away from Him. In the first chapter, we were introduced to a family that was perhaps more godly than most families at this time, and that wasn't saying very much. They went up to the central sanctuary to worship annually and seemed to have some fear of the Lord, to be sure, but Elkina, the father-husband, had married two wives who were fierce rivals with each other. So there was a lot of division in their home. The less loved of these wives had many children and relentlessly ridiculed the other wife who was barren. And Hannah was her name, and she was so distressed about this, that when the family went to worship, she could not enter into the feasting and the joy of the Lord as they were enjoying to do. But she was rather full of sorrow and tears. She was fasting rather than feasting. She cried out to the Lord for a child, and in doing so, was marvelously restored to Him. We talked about that. Sometimes we have something in our lives and it's not right. Maybe we kind of know the Lord. Maybe, you know, and we start praying about that thing and crying out to Him and say, Lord, help me with this. Help me with this. And we cry out to Him. As we do that, we begin to look at Him. And we saw that she came before the very presence of the Lord. You know, she was really communing with God. And so as she prayed to him, she found him in a way that she had not really known him before. She became enamored with God himself, and she wanted him to be known. And so now in praying for the child, she turned it into a vow where she said, Lord, if you give me this child, I'm going to give him back to you. I'm not even going to keep him. I'm gonna, at an early age, I'm gonna hand him over to serve in the temple with the priest there. And God did give her a son, and she followed through with her vow, presenting her little son Samuel to serve in the Lord's house, along with a beautiful prayer that we looked at. It was a marvelous prayer, similar to the one that Mary prayed when she conceived the Lord Jesus. Mary's prayer was actually patterned after Hannah's. And it was a prayer that she was looking to God who had looked on her barrenness and given her a child is the one who would look upon his people's barrenness like they as the people of God were not bearing fruit. They were not alive in God. There was no fruit coming from them. And she said that she prayed that God would then bring forth fruit from them by his his grace and power. And she was she was looking to him to do that. That's the kind of God he is. So we saw that the Lord was through all of this, beginning to do a great work in His people, who had drifted so far away from Him over the past three centuries, during the time of the judges. He was beginning, like Hannah was someone that was raised up to really seek the Lord in behalf of the whole nation. And then there were other people, too, of course, that would be godly and that would be praying at this time. We know people like Boaz in the Book of Ruth that were godly. And so there were people that that were there and Hannah kind of represents them. But these people were beginning to multiply. There are people that were beginning to say, we really need God to come and work among us. And we talked about that with our church, how we need to do that. We need to pray that, you know, we were going through a time, sort of wilderness time and to pray, you know, Lord, visit us, have mercy upon us, do your work. Among us in the heart of chapter two, we're shown the sorry condition of the house of the Lord at Shiloh, where where God had placed the sanctuary at that time where they went up for the annual worship. It's supposed to be three times a year. But where Eli the high priest presided, his two sons that were presiding there, I don't want to say serving, they were wicked. They were very wicked. They took portions of the sacrifice that were supposed to be given to God, and they didn't respect the offerings that were brought there. And they even had sex with the women that were brought up to the temple. But peppered throughout that narrative, do you remember? The hope that we saw, peppered through that narrative, it kept saying, but Samuel... ministered to the Lord. But Samuel was maturing and growing. But Samuel was serving the Lord. It repeated that four times, just peppered throughout. It would show these terrible things that were going on, the judgments that were going to come on Eli's house. But Samuel, but Samuel, but Samuel. God was giving us an indication that he was working. Even though nobody could see little Samuel, most people didn't even know about him. And what God was gonna do with him, God was establishing him as a prophet. And Samuel began to give prophecies. And those prophecies were fulfilled and people recognized him as a prophet. One of the prophecies that he gave was that Eli's house was going to be visited with God's judgment because of their wickedness. and that his sons would be killed and various judgments that would fall upon them. So that helped to establish Samuel as a prophet, but it was also, of course, discouraging to see. But you see, it was also encouraging because what God was doing is he was dealing with the corruption so that he could bring his people where they really needed to be. So in chapter three, we saw how he gave Samuel these prophecies, even as a little child, and how people began to recognize him. Samuel was the one that God had appointed to eventually anoint a king that was a king after God's own heart. So and that would bring change to the whole nation. So what was begun here with Hannah and Samuel was going to extend eventually as we go through this book to the whole nation coming to God and worshiping him and loving him and serving him the way they should. Chapter four, and we see the prophecies of Samuel about the destruction of Eli's house fulfilled. the Philistines, a nation that God had said that he left deliberately in order that whenever Israel went astray, he would use them to come against them and to defeat them and chasten them. God brought the Philistines against them because of where they were at this time. And this is where the prophecies that Samuel had given about Eli's house were fulfilled. Israel, they came and the Philistines and 4,000 men died on the battlefield in Israel. They were soundly defeated in one day. That's huge numbers. And then, so they said, what will we do? What they should have done is repent and turn to the Lord. But what do they do instead? they turned to the ritual stuff. They were doing the rituals, you know, they still had their temple and the Shiloh, the tabernacle, and they were doing their things there. So they said, let's bring the Ark of the Covenant out on the battlefield, and then we'll be able to defeat the Philistines. And they did, they brought it all out, they're cheering and everything, and the Philistines were, oh no, what's going to happen? And God said, My the Ark of the Covenant is not a rabbit's foot. I'm not I'm not going to go along with this. And so he made the defeat even worse. 30,000 died on that day and they captured the Ark and they killed the two sons of Eli who were so wicked and all fulfilling what Samuel had told about. They carried the Ark off and the Philistines said, now we've got this Ark of God and they were used to their pagan gods that were demons. And they said, now we can control this God and we can use him to do our stuff, our battles and our crops or whatever. And we've got our God Dagon. So they set the Ark of the Covenant like it was an idol up next to Dagon. And now it was a symbol of God's presence. And remember what happened? Dagon fell on his face overnight and was down on his face prostrate before God. And not God, but before the Ark. And then they said, oh, I wonder what happened? And they propped it back up. And the next day, he was not only fallen down again, but he was broken. His head and hands were cut off. And there's a lot about hands. See, they said, God is in our hands. And God said, no, you're in my hands. And their God's hands could do nothing. And God made all of this very clear in that. And so we saw all of that as we went through that. I don't want to go into too much detail here. But that's what happened in chapter 5 and 6. And God's hand was very heavy upon them. Again, the hand of the Lord. What did he do to the Philistines when they tried to use the ark like that? he brought this terrible plague upon them. They had tumors, so that many of them actually died. And other ones had these terrible tumors, and they wanted to get the ark away. So they sent it to another city, and they didn't know for sure where the tumors came from, but as soon as the ark went to that city, they got the tumors. They died. So they sent it to another city. So they sent it to another city, and then the men of that city said, no, no, don't bring it here. So then they took it out in the field, and the problems went on. And finally they said, we've got to get rid of this thing. And they put it on a cart to go wherever it wanted to go with a couple of cows hooked up to it. They also had the cows, their calves, they put in back in the barn. And then, so the cows would naturally want to go to their calves, but instead they went straight up the road and went back to Israel, took the ark back to Beshemesh. And so the people of Bethshemesh saw it, and they said, oh, God's presence, the sign of God's presence has come back, the Ark of the Covenant is back. And the Philistines were really glad it's gone from us, and they'd become very humble before God. They were pleading that He would have mercy on them and offering sacrifices to Him and stuff at their priest's recommendation. So anyway, the Ark was back to Israel, and they were glad. And then God struck 70 men in a little village of Bathshemesh dead because they looked at the ark. And you weren't supposed to look at the ark. It was a sacred piece of furniture that was supposed to be in the veil behind the temple. And God wasn't going to let them think that everything was right just because the ark came back. And so then they, instead of repenting and looking to God for mercy, said, we got to get the ark out of here. Same thing the Philistines said. So they send it to a place called Kirgash-Jerim. And that was a place where there were Gentiles that were actually living among the people of God as the people of God, as servants of God. So they actually feared God and were worshiping Him as God. They were the people that had pretended, the Gibeonites, that had pretended that they were from a faraway country so that they wouldn't be destroyed when Joshua came into the land. And they got Joshua to make a covenant with them and promised that he would protect them, and he made the covenant. And then he realized that they were Canaanites. You guys lied. But he said, okay, well, I'm not gonna destroy you because I made a vow to you, but you'll be our water carriers and our woodcutters. So they lived in a place where there were a lot of woods, and they made wood, they cut wood for the sacrifices, to burn the fires and all of these kind of things. And that's where the ark was taken. Very interesting. It was not to Israelites, but to these Gentiles, and they took care of the ark. That was kind of a rebuke to the people of Veshemesh, and God let the ark rest there in peace. I'm getting into too much detail about the past. This is where we pick up with our reading today. There's so much content there that we've looked at in a fairly short time. But chapter seven, this is where we pick up today. I'll read it to you now. 1 Samuel 7, beginning at verse one. This is the word of God. Then the men of Kirjath-Jerim came and took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abednadab on the hill, and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath-Jerim a long time, it was there 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. So the children of Israel put away the bales and the asterisks. Some versions say gods and goddesses, that would be another way to, it could refer to that. Put away the bales and the asterisks. And Samuel said, So they gathered together at Mishpah, drew water, poured it out before the Lord, and they fasted that day and said there, And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mishpah. 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 nearer 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 up 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 it's name Ebenezer, saying, thus far the Lord has helped us. As I mentioned, the word Ebenezer means stone of help. Verse 13, 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. Now it doesn't mean that they didn't try to attack them and there weren't any battles that they had to fight with them, but it means that they didn't really succeed in gaining dominion as they had in times past. 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, Gilgal, 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. And there we end the reading of God's word. May God add his blessing to the reading of his holy word. What we have here is a wonderful example of true repentance. What it looks like for someone to turn away from their sin and to turn to God. What does that look like? The Lord is beginning to extend His grace beyond that tiny little remnant of people in Israel that had repented, and they were actually trusting the Lord and serving Him, and to bring others in at this time. He's beginning to move among them. Those few who are crying out to Him in prayer for revival in their land, God was beginning to bring it. It's a gracious work that, as I mentioned before, will extend all the way to the whole nation when David is anointed king. So let's take a look at this for our own edification, that we can learn about repentance, what it is in our lives, how it operates, what it brings about. It's a very important lesson for us. So first of all, what real repentance looks like. Be sure that you have real repentance because there's a lot of counterfeits. Real repentance is characterized by a hunger for God himself. The words in verse two stand out. All the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. That's God's covenant name. They were yearning for Him. Isn't that tremendous? It says the whole house of Israel did that. They had not cared about God Himself for a long time. This was the whole church at that time. They wanted Him. after this 20-year period. How different this was from the lamentation that had been at Bethshemesh just 20 years before when God had struck some of the people dead for the wrong approach to the Ark. And He said, get them out of here. We don't want Him here. Instead of saying, this is a holy God, we need to be restored to Him. He's a gracious God, and He's dealing with us, because we aren't dealing with Him. Now though, you see, they're not lamenting because of bad things that happened to them, they're lamenting because they're far away from God. And they want God in their lives. Now, the question to you, of course, is, is that what you want? Do you just want God to do stuff for you? I suppose everybody wants that. Do you want God? Do you want to walk with Him? Do you want to see the glory of God, the majesty of God, the beauty of God? Do you want to know Him? Do you want to indeed have Him working powerfully in your life, but especially working in you so that you're growing in your love and your devotion to Him, that you're knowing Him? And do you want that for the church, for our congregation, for other churches, for the church all over the world, indeed for the whole world itself? Is that your desire? Real repentance is more. than just a desire to be delivered from your troubles or even from the sins that trouble you. I mean, a lot of people have addictions and things like that to various sins that really mess up their lives and they want to be free from it. Well, it's a good thing to want to be free from sin. But do you want God? Do you want to be free from sin so that you can have communion with God? Real repentance is about restoration to God. Do you desire to maintain a living relationship with the Lord? Do you yearn for Him and cry out to Him when your love for Him dries up? Or when you don't see the manifestation of His love to you? Since preaching a while back through the Song of Solomon, this has been a go-to in my own life whenever I dry up. And that happens fairly frequently. Whenever my love for God dries up, then I ask him to come back and to manifest his love to me. That's what you have all through the song of Solomon, the bride of Christ crying out to him to come and show me your love. Kiss me with the kisses of your lips. Come to me like we're talking about the mountains of Beathar. Through the mountains that separate us like a stag running across those mountains, a gazelle coming swiftly. That's why I'm preaching on that because this is such an important thing while we're doing an afternoon series on that whole thing of the mountains of Beathar. How Christ overcomes them and He does, He answers. He comes back and He restores that love for Him and that knowledge of His love. So what had happened over these 20 years to change the people that they wanted God now? What had taken place? God was working in them. It appears that he was at work through Samuel. Because Samuel was recognized as a prophet already before the ark was even taken away. And we're told later on how Samuel was doing a circuit and going through and judging the people, which doesn't mean, we think of a judge and we think about a guy on the bench that's adjudicating court cases. But in the Bible, the judges, they're described in the book of Judges are much broader than that. They're people that are representing God. They're really very much like Christ. They have some prophetic functions and some priestly functions sometimes, and they have kingly functions, ruling functions, bringing the people back together and discipline and all those things. They do all of that. And so Samuel was a judge. He's going around and he's bringing the word of God to them. He's telling them about the promises of God and the character of God. And it began to have an effect. So that they didn't just want to have things go well in their lives, but they wanted God. That was the change that came about. Before, they didn't pay Samuel much attention about that part. You know, they wanted to fix things, but they didn't want God in their lives. And now, that was happening to all Israel. Now when Samuel discerned that the people were wanting God, he began to tell them what real repentance looks like. because he knew about the counterfeits. He knew about the artificial stuff. So real repentance includes turning away from idols. Samuel made it clear that if you were sincere about returning to God, that if the people were sincere, they would turn from all allegiance to idols. He said in verse three, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines." Samuel knew that if they kept maintaining alliances to things that God opposes, that their talk about wanting God was just empty. If they said, if they were content to keep doing things that displeased God and say, oh we want God. They didn't want God. He recognized that. The idols that the nations around them served were demons. They looked to them especially for blessing their crops and giving them fertility and things like that. Now, when Israel was being chastened by the Lord, he was not like the other gods, the demons. When the Lord was with his people chasing them, he would withhold things from them, like rain and blessings on their crops. We see that all the time in the Old Testament, how God did that. And so the people in Israel turned to these idols. You see how that works? They look at the other nations and, oh, well, their crops are doing okay. Ours are not doing well with the Lord. Well, they talk to the other nations, oh, we're serving Baal, like he sends the rain, he does all these, oh, well, we'll get Baal too. And they were like the pagan nations. And there was an extra draw to the rituals of these gods because they had exciting worship that appeals to the flesh. I mean, their worship included things like getting drunk at worship. And, something very exciting to some of them, having sex with temple prostitutes. Fertility rites. Well, that's something that they really enjoyed. And it was hard to, not something they want to turn away from. There was partying and all kinds of things that went on in their worship. Even worse, it was a way of showing their dissatisfaction with the Lord for withholding His blessings from their crops and saying, well, these nations are doing better with their gods than we are with our gods. Isn't that exactly what happens in a person's life? Like maybe somebody grows up in the church and they get kind of, you know, they're kind of unhappy because God's not giving them all the things that they want. They've got some hard things in their life. And they look at the world and they say, well, these people seem like they're happy. Things are going well with them. And then they say, well, I'm going to do some stuff like the world does. and they go over and do that. That's one of the things that draws people into immorality and disobedience and all kinds of things like that. It's a way of saying, well, God's not giving me what I want. I'll go and do this stuff that displeases God. We need to realize how powerful a thing that is because people don't admit it. They don't like to talk about it, but it's very real. Sometimes these folks will take a modified form of Christianity. You know what I mean? The kind where certain things that maybe the world doesn't like today are taken out of their creed. like that Jesus is the only way of salvation, and that people go to hell if they don't trust in Jesus. They don't like that stuff. And so they take out some of that, or maybe about gender, or those things that are going on in the world today. They'll just pull out those things that they don't like, and they'll go to church, and they'll do all the rituals, and all these things, and they're actually rebelling against God when they do that. So this rebellion has more appeal for professing believers than we might think. When you turn to pornography, drunkenness, gluttony, unauthorized worship, or other such things, it's always an expression of dissatisfaction with God and what He has given you. When you chuck the harder aspects of biblical worship, it's the same thing. But praise God When Samuel preached to them and told them to put away all of these idols, they did so. Verse four, so the children of Israel put away the bells and the asterisks and serve the Lord only. This could only be explained as a true work of God. If only they had continued with this faithfulness in their own generation and in future generations. Now, what about your own repentance? Is it genuine? The question being, have you turned from the things that you know are not displeasing to God? I mean, that are displeasing to God. If you haven't done that, then whatever your talk about wanting God is not genuine. Repentance is not just a heart thing. It is a heart thing, but it's not just a heart thing. It always involves tangibly turning away from things that displease Him. If you're clinging to what you know He forbids, the Bible makes it clear you have no grounds for assurance that you love the Lord your God. If you're rejecting the ordinances, the commands, and the truths about God that you don't like, then you're in the process of departing from Him. There's a third component of real repentance that's found in our text. Okay, so we've seen those two, there's a yearning after God, and then there's this practical turning away from things that displease Him. Third component, real repentance has a formal public expression in the church. In this case, Samuel calls for a special meeting because the whole nation is repenting. You can see that the assembly includes prayers for restoration and deliverance from enemies. It includes fasting. It includes confession of sin. And it has this pouring out of water that it mentions. There's some debate about what that means. I don't know for sure what it means, but something like that they were showing that they were pouring out their lives before God. You know, as a sacrifice to God. Sometimes that's used as a drink offering. It was kind of like that. So perhaps it's that. Verse 5 and 6 say, And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mishpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered together at Mishpah, 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 Mishpah. In other words, he led them. It is appropriate to call for fasting. at the local church level. We've done it before at local church level. At the presbytery level, we've had days of fasting called at the presbytery level. And beyond that, the synod sometimes is called for that. The leaders of our nation actually should call for such days. We're far from that, aren't we? So is Israel. They were far from that and now it's happening. And we've seen that before in our nation's history. When troubles came and the people would cry out to God, the leaders would lead them to a day of fasting. This fasting is also something that ought to be done by individuals when they repent. In other words, sometimes a whole nation repents, sometimes a church repents, sometimes an individual repents. We recently had an example of this, didn't we? When when Yonita, who had been removed completely from the church, when she repented and we had a feasting time to to welcome her back into the church as she had repented and she came back to openly confess her sin and her allegiance to Christ, her new allegiance to Christ. Of course, when someone comes to faith from the world to. or somebody that's an unbeliever, and they come and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, then God has appointed baptism for them. It's an outward confession that they need to be washed from their sins and that they're looking to Jesus who is the one that washes them by His Spirit and by His death on the cross. They make a public profession of faith. It's not a private thing. They come publicly before the Lord. And when children are brought up in the Lord, it's required of them, when they are a sufficient age and ability, to affirm their faith and their commitment to the Lord. That they are committed to following the Lord. That they are turning from their sins. That they have been doing so, perhaps, and are resting in Christ alone for forgiveness through His saving work on the cross. By gathering each week, there is a sense in which we're testifying to these things. We come together as God's people, and especially at the Lord's table, we're testifying that we're looking to Christ alone. We're confessing that we're sinners and that we need him. But when there has been a more significant breach in our lives, always one that has put someone under church discipline, then they need to be publicly restored and to confess that they have turned back to the Lord. Now let's look at what God does when we repent. Okay, so when we repent, the Lord delivers us from our adversaries. You have all kinds of enemies, people that don't want us to serve the Lord, enemies of God. The enemies of the Lord will turn against you when you repent. It's instinctive for them to do so. It's just natural. They'll turn against you. You see what happened in our text. As soon as the Philistines heard that Israel had gathered at Mishpah, they went up against them. Now when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mishpah, when they heard that, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. Those who are themselves not reconciled to God do not like to be reminded about God. because they're trying to forget Him. They have taken on the very difficult task of trying to forget the true and living God, even though His fingerprints are on every aspect of creation and His judgments are evident in all the earth, they're trying to forget Him. It makes it even worse for them when people turn to Him and find Him and begin to serve Him and call on His name and their lives are transformed in ways that defy explanation. There is that, and there is also the fact that Satan. meaning Satan and all his allies, when I refer to Satan, all the demons, the fallen angels, they instigate these unbelievers to oppose those who are repenting and turning to the Lord in any way that they can. They get the world to try to oppose them and to come against them. It's so common that new believers who come to the Lord or people who return to the Lord will meet opposition from all kinds of places. their unbelieving parents maybe, other relatives, especially if they're nominal Christians, those are the ones that are the worst, their spouses, their coworkers, their friends, and of course, Satan's forces will directly tempt them and try to discourage them and lead them back to the world. New believers get attacked. People that were just repenting get attacked. Adversaries. In our text, Israel responds to this attack exactly the way they ought to. Because God is at work. What do they do? It's a real work of God. First, we see that they are afraid. Verse seven continues. And when the children of Israel heard of it, that the Philistines were coming, they were afraid of the Philistines. Afraid, but wait, was that good? Was that good for them to be afraid? Yes, it was. They recognized the power of temptation that they had fallen under before. They recognized the strength of the Philistines and how they were helpless before them and the Philistines had superior power and everything in their arms and all that, they were iron workers. So they recognized that the Philistines are stronger than they are and had powerful weapons that they did not have. The people of Israel don't want to face them alone because they know their weakness. They will not be able to stand before them. They know that. And that's what we know when we repent. We know how weak we are. It's clear that there is a true work of grace in them, though, because they don't despair. They don't say, oh, we can't do anything. The Philistines are coming, and they give up. What do they do? They're afraid. but they turn to the right place for help. Look at verse 8. What a wonderful change! Last time when the Philistines attacked them, they turned to rituals and they brought the ark out. This time they have repented and they turn to the Lord in prayer and they turn to the one who God appointed to represent him. Like I said before, the judges in the Bible are like Christ. In the Old Testament, they're types of Christ and they represent his ministry. And so Samuel is there as a priest to offer sacrifices for them. Of course, Jesus has offered sacrifices for us now. So they turn and they say, intercede for us and pray for us. They were praying too, but they're looking to the one that God had appointed to intercede for them. You should always turn to the Lord for help when enemies attack. Don't say, I can deal with this. I can handle this. But cry out to God and say, Lord, help me. My adversaries are coming against me and I cannot stand because I'm weak. And unless you help me, I will fall. You should always turn to Him. The Lord is faithful to deliver you from your enemies when you turn to Him. Samuel here is their judge, both a prophet and a priest, prays for them, and he offers a sacrifice for them. Again, representing the sacrifice, ultimately, that Jesus would offer. It was a sacrifice of a burnt offering. It was a dedication, showing that they were dedicated to Him, that the sacrifice was representing true dedication that they did not have. They knew their heart was prone to wonder, as we sang earlier. And so they they're looking to to the one who is represented in the sacrifice. And then there was also atonement in the burnt offering. You can see this in verse nine. Our heavenly father always hears Jesus and always accepts him when he prays for us, for our forgiveness and for mercy. And because of the sacrifice that he has offered, Jesus has secured our victory. So the outcome is dramatic. Verse 10. Now as Samuel, notice, as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, right while he's doing it, the Philistines drew near to the battle against Israel. But the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day and so confused them that they were overpowered, overcome before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as below Beth-kar. Now our curiosity is not satisfied here. What was this thunder? What did he do? What did this look like? We don't know. There's all kinds of discussion about that. What we know is that God terrified these attackers that were so bold and confident and they turned and hightailed out of there and Israel was able to chase them all the way down back to their place and soundly defeat them. We never know just how the Lord will obtain the victory against our adversaries, because he doesn't do it in the same way. Or even always how he did it after it is done. But when we pray and we ask God to not let our enemies overtake us, to not let them draw us away from God, to not let them discourage us, when we ask God to help us, then he defeats our enemies. Now again, not just if we're trying to get out of something that we don't like. But if we're wanting God, if we're wanting Him, then we cry out to Him about our enemies, He's gonna deal with them. You won't always know how He did it. Sometimes they'll just change. Sometimes they'll be coming as relentlessly as ever and you'll have amazing ability to just go on for the Lord. He promised in any case that they will not prevail over us. Sometimes our adversaries will attack us. Jesus said they may even kill us. but they never succeed in getting what they want, pulling us away from God. Jesus said they can kill your body, but they cannot destroy your soul. We will experience deliverance from them all. The gospel promise includes that we will be delivered at last from all of our enemies who rise up against us. Praise the Lord for that. You need to pay attention to that in scripture. We think about being delivered from our sin, which is very, very important. The Bible also promises that we'll be delivered from all of our adversaries. Even death itself will be destroyed. Okay, so praise the Lord. Praise the Lord indeed. That brings us to the third thing that we look at from this text. When we repent, our Lord provides what we need to maintain our repentance. Isn't that important? I mean, you don't want to just repent and have everything go great, and you're back with God, and then you're off again. You don't want that. So what does he do? You see that Samuel memorializes this deliverance with a monument. As the prophet of the Lord, Samuel, who is a type of Jesus, again, a representative of him before he came, provides a way for them to remember what God has done. Verse 12, 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. Ebenezer, as I told you, means stone of help. And by saying thus far the Lord has helped us, it speaks not only of this particular deliverance that they had, but of how the Lord has sustained His people all of their history and all of their history thus far. He has kept us and he's brought us as the people of God to the place that we are right now. That's a beautiful thing to think about. And not only that, saying thus far has he brought us indicates he's got a lot farther to bring us yet. That's what we look at here. And later on in 2 Samuel 7, when David is given promises about a son that will be on his throne forever and ever and never die and reign over all things. David says, you have brought me this far. You have brought me to the place where my house, who am I and what is my house, that you have brought me this far. It's the same idea. And we look back and we can see God working. The Ebenezers in history, hitherto have you brought me, this far have you brought me. It speaks that God is not finished yet. Philippians 1.5 says that He will complete what He has begun. That we can be absolutely confident about that. Now that the greatest deliverance of all has come, our Lord Jesus has given us an Ebenezer, baptism, and the Lord's Supper to memorialize his saving work on the cross that he has done for us. Baptism by sprinkling with water testifies not just that what Jesus did on the cross, but it testifies to the application of that work on our lives, that that work has cleansed us, is cleansing us, that we're looking to it to cleanse us, and the Lord's Supper, that he is nourishing us, that it points directly at how Jesus was offered or offered himself on the cross for the remission of our sins, and how His sacrifice nourishes us now, so that we continue in the grace of God. We grow from grace to grace. No Christian should neglect these memorials of the work that Christ has done for us, as well as memorials of the work that He has done in us, in history, in our lives, when we see God working. The sacraments are not only testimonies of His completed work on the cross. I want to emphasize that. They are also testimonies of the application and benefits of His work to each one of us. Each time we come to the table, we testify of His saving work. You have brought me this far. You kept me yet another week. I have grown in your grace for yet another week. And we go on and we're looking to the future. Help me now to go on into the future. It's a wonderful thing. The text goes on to show how the Lord continues to give his people dominion over their enemies. He brings them farther and farther in their walk. Verse 13 through 15 tells how the Philistines were unable to make progress against Israel and how Israel was able to take back what had been lost. It says, So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come any more 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. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. In His people, He chastens us for a time, and we may have losses when God chastens us. That's what happened to them. But He will always restore that and much more. How much bigger is the church today than it was when Israel was defeated by the Philistines and recovered some of this little bit of territory that they had? You see, now the church is all over the world. Our enemies cannot prevail. Their victories will never be sustained. God will restore even what is lost in a temporary way. It's always a trajectory of growth. This is very encouraging. We're going to take the whole world for Jesus Christ. That's what God promises. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Kings and nations will all come. and bow down before Him. He has overcome and He will take it all and deliver it up to God when it is all brought before Him. We see how the Lord also provides faithful ministry to His church for our preservation. Verse 15, And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. The judges of the Old Testament were not, again, what we think of a judge in our day. They were those that led the people the way Jesus leads us now. Samuel was there for Israel as a faithful judge throughout his whole life, bringing God's word to them, offering sacrifice for their sins, covering their sins. Verse 16 describes how he faithfully went about as a circuit riding preacher to bring God's word, discipline, and promises to bear in their lives. Verse 16, He went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, judged Israel in all those places. Verse 17 tells us that He even built an altar during this time when there was no sanctuary. He built it in order to testify to them that the Lord is reconciled through the blood of the covenant. as God promised. Now, where is our altar? Jesus Christ is the one who has offered the sacrifice that takes away our sin. He is reigning in heaven. He offered himself in heaven for our sins. On the cross, on earth, and in heaven before God, he brought his sacrifice. And Jesus Christ has taken away our sins, and there's no other priest now. He's the only priest, and we look to him as the one who has done this. We have it even better. In the Old Testament, the prophets, priests, and kings, and the judges, who in a sense were all of these, were not always faithful, were they? But now we have our Lord Jesus to lead us. And He never fails. We can always go to Him and know that we will find the help that we need. He has raised up also preachers and elders that He gives to His church, not to offer sacrifices for the people, but rather to shepherd the people and lead them in His name. He uses them to preserve you and to keep you in the way. He commands you to submit yourself to them and to avail yourself of the ministry that they have to you. This is how He preserves His people today. The ministers and elders He gives you are worthless unless they point you to Jesus Christ and His powerful saving work. Their task is to represent Him in the world until we go to be with Him in glory. So remember where we began with all this. God's people wanted Him. They wanted God Himself. They wanted to be restored to Him. They repented and He came to them. He delivered them from their enemies. And then He provided for their preservation by giving them memorials and ministry that would care for their souls. This is what He does. Be thankful to Him and bless His name. Let's stand and pray to our God. O Lord our God, how thankful we are. for this wonderful chapter in the book of Samuel, where we see how you began to work in your people and to restore them. It's a long process. We're going to see that there were many ups and downs along the way, but the nation as a whole was crying out to you. They were turning to you. They were turning away from their false gods and their idols, and they were trusting in the Lord their God, putting away those idols. And we thank you that they are yearning for you now. And we thank you that as the number of them grew more and more, that we're desiring that, that you bring forth many things in answer to their prayer. First, there is Samuel, and he gets things going. And then later, there is David, who leads them to full repentance and brings about a holy kingdom that is before your face and that is victorious over all of their enemies. Lord, how we pray that you would work in your church today. We are in a sorry state, and we pray, Lord, for the church in North America, for the church in Canada. Oh, Lord, bring us to this repentance. Bring us to desire to have communion with you as our God, to know you, to see your glory, to delight in you, to have you working in our lives, to do those things that are pleasing to you. Father, give us a disdain for the things that will prevent us from being near to you, the things that will interfere with our fellowship with you. We pray that, Lord, you would take them out of our lives. We are not sufficient to defend ourselves and ward off our adversaries, but your grace is sufficient for us through the Lord Jesus Christ who is crucified for us. Oh Lord, thank you for the things that you have given to maintain our walk with you. You have given us your word, your sacraments, your prayers, praises that we bring to you, church discipline, oversight by elders, and preaching, and all of these things you have appointed for us. And we pray that we would avail ourselves of all of them. And Father, that you would be glorified in our lives. You have been so kind to us, Lord. You have been so merciful and gracious. And we pray, Lord, that this would cause us to have a greater delight in you than what we have now as we think about it and we consider it. This far have you brought us, Lord. And we thank you that you will bring us all the way if we are indeed your elect people that are appointed to salvation through Jesus Christ. We praise you for our Lord Jesus Christ and for the measures that He took in order to redeem us, going all the way to the cross to bear our sins, taking the shame and all of the burden of our guilt. We thank you that He took it before the world and also before you, before the church and before everyone. And we thank You that You raised Him up again, that You accepted His sacrifice and You seated Him on Your right hand. And now He is Lord and He will reign until all of His enemies are brought under His feet. We praise You and we thank You, Lord, for the great hope that we have. We raise our Ebenezer to You, Lord, and we ask You to continue to work in our lives until the end. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. God's people receive the blessing of the Lord. It comes to you in his name. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.