Let's open God's Word together, again, to the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 7, and we'll read together. 1 Samuel chapter 7, verses 3 through 17. 1 Samuel chapter 7, verses 3 through 17. I'll actually start reading at verse 2, 1 Samuel 7, verse 2. From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-Jarim, a long time passed, some 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtoreth from among you, and direct your heart to the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreth, and they served the Lord only. Then Samuel said, gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, we have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the people 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. So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them as far as below Bethkar. Then Solomon took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer. For he said, till now the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath. And Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places. Then he would return to Ramah, for his home was there. And there also he judged Israel. And he built there an altar to the Lord. Thanks be to God for his word. About 20 years ago, two authors, Christian Smith and Melinda Denton, made headlines when they published a book entitled, Soul Searching, The Religious and Spiritual Life of American Teenagers. In that book, they suggested that the default religion of America's youth is not Christianity, though it certainly disguises itself as Christianity. Rather, the default religion of America's young people and those who had taught them and those who came after them is something they called moralistic, therapeutic deism. I'll explain what that means. The basic beliefs of this faith were as follows, and this is from an article by Colin Hansen. First, a God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. Second, God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. Third, the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. Fourth, God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. And fifth, good people go to heaven when they die. The God of moralistic therapeutic deism is a small God. This is the God of mass market Christianity, if you will, the God of faith family football, the God of T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Joyce Myers, Paula White, This is the sort of God you'll hear about in most of what passes as Christian music today. Basically, people want the benefits of a relationship with God, but they don't want the burden of that relationship. To use biblical language, they want the blessings of the covenant without the obligations of the covenant. So they want community, they want marriage advice, they want financial advice, they want moralism, they want a therapeutic religion, a religion that they will see as useful, that will make them feel better and feel better about themselves. And if you look at the bestsellers on Christian lists, those will be the kind of books that cater to this kind of religion. They want a God who will fix their lives, who will patch things up for them, but a God who will not demand too much of them. They want a contractor God, a God they can negotiate with on equal footing, who will come into their lives, cut out what they don't want, and then patch up the holes that he makes while he's doing the renovations. They don't want a God who is fierce, a God who is untamable, a God who is set on doing things his own way for his own glory. They want a rabbit's foot God. a God who will make their lives better in the ways they want it improved, who they can count on to bring them good luck, good fortune. They want a God they can carry around in their pocket and take out whenever things get a bit too hairy for them. And now, of course, the question comes, what kind of God do you want in your life? What kind of God do you want in your life? Do you want the contractor? A God who will fix things up for you, but leave the structure of your life more or less intact. So you figure you've got a pretty good idea of where your life should go, and you'd like it very much if God would cooperate with you. If God would fit into the mold of your life. Do you want the rabbit's foot, a God who will bring good fortune into your life, a God who will keep you out of trouble and make good things come your way? Do you want a God who will send rain when you want rain and sun when you want sun, a God who will help you make your children listen and behave, but a God who won't be too picky about how you spend your Sundays or your money? What kind of God do you want in your life? See, Israel in 1 Samuel 7 is depicted as mourning after the Lord, lamenting after the Lord. The whole nation is in weeping because they cannot find the Lord. Samuel, we learned in chapter three several weeks ago, Samuel was appointed by God and then went forth as a prophet of the Lord. And his word came to all Israel from the top to the bottom. He preached judgment against the religious leaders, against the house of Eli, and I can't imagine he did anything less against all the house of Israel. He would have been bringing God's law to bear, standing like a watchman on the walls of Zion, declaring to God's people that if they continued to dishonor God, God would also dishonor them, treat them lightly, punish them. But as we saw in chapter four, That is not the kind of God Israel wanted. In chapter 4, we learn that they wanted a rabbit's foot, or at best, a contractor. And when God refused to be put in their box, when He refused to be manipulated by them in that way, when He showed them that He, despite His matchless love and mercy, He was a fierce God and a jealous God, they put Him away. not daring to have anything to do with him. They sequestered his ark, that place where he dwelt, in a safe place, a faraway place, in quarantine in the house of Abinadab on the hill where he couldn't do too much damage to them anymore. That is the Israel that was now weeping, lamenting after the Lord for 20 years. Israel needed to be saved not first and foremost from the Philistines, their earthly enemies, but Israel needed to be saved from themselves and from their idea of what God ought to be. The Philistines, rather, were like a pest, an annoyance in the eyes of God. He could swat them whenever he wanted. His primary focus, the primary focus, the primary issue, rather, that needed resolution was not the earthly enemies his people faced, but the state of his people's hardened hearts. And so before he will rescue them from their earthly problems, though he'll get about to that, God will first address their hearts. He will save them from their earthly enemies, their earthly problems, but first things first. And this is often the way it is with us, you understand. And quite frankly, this is one of the things about God that we're annoyed at the most. Before he'll solve what we consider to be our biggest problem, He goes after what he considers to be our biggest problem, even if that problem, our real issue, is invisible to our eyes. But let's see what this royal revival that God works here in 1 Samuel 7 looks like, and let's find out what lessons we can take from it. We'll consider first, in the first few verses, three through six, the grace that God shows to hard hearts, the grace of repentance. Then we'll consider from verses 7 through 11 the grace that God shows to vulnerable people, the grace of rescue. And then finally, we'll see the grace that God shows to forgetful people, verses 12 through 17, the grace of remembrance, the grace of repentance, the grace of rescue, the grace of repentance. We begin our text After 20 years of lamenting, 20 years of weeping, 20 years of Samuel preaching to Israel, telling them to return to the Lord, and they are sorrowful. They are weeping. They are lamenting. But something you should know is that sorrow is not the same thing as repentance. Sorrow is not the same thing as repentance. It's part of repentance, yes. Even acknowledging your sin is not the same thing as repentance. Again, it's part of repentance, but it's not the same thing. It's not the whole thing. Even confessing your sin is not the same as repentance. You can acknowledge, I am a sinner, and not be repentant. So Samuel calls Israel to true and full repentance. He says to Israel, and we can assume that this was a message that he repeated again and again and again and again and again as he was preaching throughout Israel. He says to Israel, if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the asteroids from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines. Samuel is preaching to a people in pain, a people who are miserable, a people who are weeping, lamenting. But look at what he does. These are not the tender words of a therapist telling you everything will be alright. Samuel is telling the people, yeah, you are miserable. But you've made your misery yourself. You've chosen your misery for yourselves and you know the solution. You've always known the solution. And I don't doubt that there are some here this afternoon who need to hear exactly that. You're miserable. You're lamenting. You feel so weak in your Christian life. You don't know if there's any life there at all. You're like the psalmist in Psalm 31 when he refused to repent. When I kept silent, he says, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. That is what an unrepentant heart sounds like. And if that's where you are this afternoon, My advice to you is exactly what Samuel gave to Israel. Return to the Lord with your whole heart. Don't think that you can keep Him cordoned off in a corner while you go about your business. Don't think that that will lead to a happy life. Don't think that you can keep Him off to the side so that He won't do much harm to your hopes and dreams and happiness. You've got to give him everything, the whole heart, the whole heart. Give him free and unrestrained access to all the areas of your heart and submit them all to him. He's what your heart was made for. So, of course, like Israel, you'll be miserable without him. But, you might respond, but pastor, there are things in my life that just feel right. They just look so good to me, and I get so much satisfaction from them. If I return to God with my whole heart, I know that He is going to make me give this up. I don't know if I can do that. Now listen, if that's you this afternoon, if you see your sin as the best thing you could be doing, Then it is my hope and my prayer that God will show you the folly of your sin. It is my hope and my prayer that you will be made miserable by what you are holding dear, but by that which is truly miserable." See, Israel here has reached a low ebb, the low point of their history. They've had enough of their misery. And now finally, they want their broken hearts to be healed. God's absence has made them miserable, so they need to return to God. And Samuel shows them, and he shows us the way to revival, the way of repentance. First of all, confession. You must confess your sins and repent of them. Put away the foreign gods and the asteroth from you, Samuel tells Israel. Second, faith. You must believe in the Lord alone. Direct your hearts to the Lord, Samuel says. Third, commitment or obedience. Live for Him and Him alone, Samuel says to Israel. Serve the Lord alone. And you know, all three of these are elements of personal repentance, but historically all three of these together have been elements of broader revival as well in churches, in communities, in countries even. You will not be refreshed in your Christian life. The power of the Holy Spirit will not ordinarily pour through your heart if these three are not present. If you first of all refuse to confess your sins, if you don't abhor and hate them and treat them as unnaturally disgusting, these things that God hates, then of course you'll be damning up the rivers of spiritual life. The flesh and the Spirit are antithetical to one another. They're always fighting against each other. But where repentance reigns, that is where the Spirit does some of His most visible work. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. If you do not put your gods away from you, you will stay miserable. If you don't get rid of those things that you are trusting in to give you satisfaction, that sinful way of life that you hope beyond hope will bring you some happiness will do no such thing. So first of all, confess your sins. Secondly, if you do not direct your heart to the Lord, you will, again, you will remain spiritually barren and fruitless. It's not enough to take your sin and put it away from yourself. If you don't then, after that, if you don't then follow hard after God, if you don't give all your effort to following after Him, then you will remain in a state of barrenness. Yes, you'll have pulled up the weeds. But if you don't plant anything in the weed's place, you're not actually doing yourself any spiritual good. And more than likely, you'll go right back to your sin, and your later state will be worse, even more miserable than the first. So first, you must confess your sins. Secondly, you must direct your heart to the Lord. And then thirdly, if you decide to forsake your sin and believe in God, but you do not resolve to serve God and Him alone, then you will, again, you will see very little good coming into your life. But if you will turn from your sin and put it away, never to return, and if you will turn to God and serve Him with your whole heart, Man, you are well on your way to a fruitful Christian life. Samuel says, if you want to return to the Lord, if you want to stop lamenting, and you want to start rejoicing in the Lord, then you must do these three things, and He will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines. Essentially, he's saying to Israel, you guys, you guys get your hearts right, do whatever it takes to get your hearts right, and God will deal with the Philistines. Don't worry about them. And Samuel preaches this message throughout Israel. He teaches all the people for what seems like 20 years that they need to confess their sins and turn from their idols. And what happens? After 20 years, his preaching bears fruit. So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreth, and they serve the Lord only. God shows grace. and softens their hard hearts. They grieve over their alienation, and Samuel's preaching is used to bring them back to their Lord. So their hearts are being fixed. But are all their problems solved? No, the nation is still under the curse of God. They're still under the oppressive Philistines. They're still under the thumb of a hostile foreign power. If you think back to the covenant blessings and curses in Deuteronomy, you'll know that this oppression by a foreign power was no random occurrence. This is a curse from God Himself. And so Samuel tells Israel, gather in Mizpah for what amounts to a covenant renewal ceremony, or in more modern parlance, a revival. And this happens several times in the Old Testament, when God's people seem to be at a low ebb, God sends a prophet or some other leader to bring them back in repentance, to bring them back in faithfulness to Him. It's this pattern that gets repeated over and over and over and over again. And you see, don't you, how Samuel here so clearly foreshadows Christ, who came not to those who were healthy, but to those who were sick, to those who were broken, to those who were miserable, to those who most keenly felt the effect of the curse. Not a curse that brought the Philistines, but a curse that brought sin and death into the world. Christ came not merely to remove the curse from them, though, but to take it upon Himself. And so Israel gathers at the command of Samuel, they gather at Mizpah, they draw water from a well and pour it onto the ground as a demonstration of repentance, they fast, they confess their sins, and Samuel prays for them. He's acting, you see, in a similar way to Moses. God's people are under God's curse, and so God's mediator prays for them, for their curse to be removed from them, and there Samuel judges the people of Israel. He teaches them what is right and what is wrong, and he leads them back to covenant faithfulness. And it's wonderful. And I'm sure they would have rejoiced and made a tremendous amount of noise in their joy. But let's not forget the Philistines. They still need to be dealt with. God's people have been restored to faithfulness to God, first things first. But now it remains to be seen just how faithful God will be to them. Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the people 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 hands of the Philistines. You see, after so many years of domination by the Philistines, Israel's instinct is to fear whenever the Philistines show up. Like a dog who's been kicked too many times, they've learned to flinch at every sudden move. And how many people who've been dominated by one sin or another don't have this very same reaction when they're confronted once more with a thing that once held them captive. Their instinct is to fear, to shake in their boots because they know the power and potential of their former Lord. What Paul says in 1 Corinthians, and such were some of you. And what he says in Romans chapter 6, you have died to sin. These gospel truths have not yet come home to them. But you know the Lord has mercy for fearful Christians also. He doesn't despise us for our fears, but in our fears, he comforts us. And he tells us to fear not. Israel no longer needs to fear their enemies. They've been reconciled to their God, and their God will fight for them. He promised to do so. But people need reassuring. People need reassuring. They need to know that Samuel's mediation, his position between them and their God is ongoing. And it is a comfort, isn't it? To know in the midst of your fears that your Lord Jesus is praying for you, isn't it? And you've heard, I'm sure, what Shane said about the prayers of Christ. If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He's praying for me. I'll say it again because it's so good. If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me. And his prayers for you, dear Christian, they are endless and they are tireless. He prays for you. Your Jesus, dear Christian, is a perfect mediator, one who knows your weakness and sees your weakness, who knows what it is like to be weak and to be attacked by temptation. And he is praying for you. And so Samuel prays for the people of Israel. Before he prays, however, he takes a lamb and he offers it up as a burnt offering to the Lord, a sacrifice to cover sins and to remind Israel that their sins have been covered. And then Samuel cries out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answers, it seems, even before Samuel cries out. How does the Lord answer? He does what all good kings do. He puts his armor on. And he marches out in front of his people as their champion, as their hero, as their king, and he puts his and their enemies to flight. What does it say? The Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And then the men of Israel also take action. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them as far as below Beth-kar. You see, Israel needs no human king like the other nations do. They need no human champion like the nations have. Israel, most blessed of all the nations of the world, Israel has the Lord of hosts as their champion, as their hero. He does not equip them for the fight. That's right, he does not equip them for the fight as he did when Moses raised his hands and interceded for the people when they fought against Amalek in the wilderness. No, the Lord knows their vulnerability and their weakness from their recent fast, and he himself breaks out against their enemies and fights them himself. He does not equip them for the fight, he fights for them. He shows grace to a vulnerable people, and he saves them from all their enemies. This is our God, who sees us when we are weak and takes up arms on our behalf. But you know, of course, don't you, that this is not the first time that God has done this for Israel. This is not the first time that the Lord himself has gone out like a warrior and saved his people from the nations around them. Israel, at this point, has existed as a nation for perhaps 400, 500 years. And for 400, 500 years, God has been saving his people again and again and again and again. And Samuel knows his history, and he knows how prone the people of Israel are to forgetting. He knows that if there is not some permanent monument to remind them of what the Lord has done for them, they will soon forget. And so just as Joshua had the people of Israel set up a monument on the west side of the Jordan after they had crossed, so now the Judge Samuel takes a great stone and sets it up as a monument between Mizpah and She'an, right beside the highway, if you will. And he gives it a name, Ebenezer, stone of help. And he says to Israel, till now the Lord has helped us, and don't you forget it. And you know that though God has revived his people again and again and again and again throughout the centuries and now throughout the millennia, his people in their signature weakness continue to forget. We continue to forget. And so knowing our weakness, God does what Samuel does. He gives us tangible signs of his goodness, of his salvation in the past, of his faithfulness for the future. Our Belgian Confession tells us, for example, that God gives us sacraments because of our dullness. That's a very polite way of saying that because we're so forgetful and dumb, God draws the gospel for us in pictures, in the water of baptism and in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. as testaments to His goodness and His kindness. He's our helper, declare the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper, the One who gives us strength and the spiritual energy that we need to continue. He is our sustainer. He's our helper, say the waters of baptism, the One who makes us clean, the One who makes us fit servants of His. Israel needs a reminder. And so Samuel sets up this stone, this Ebenezer, hither by thy help I've come. And so it was, and now the rest of this section of Samuel almost closes in storybook form. And so it was that this curse was broken. The Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Akron to Gath. Ekron to Gath, rather, and Israel delivered their territory from the hands of the Philistines, and there was peace also between Israel and the Amorites, and Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and they all lived happily ever after. Not quite. But to a great degree, things do end quite happily here for Israel. They're under the gracious rule of their God and their king, And when you have a good king, you have a good life. And a good amount of time will pass between the end of chapter seven and the beginning of chapter eight. Now, there is still a great deal left to be desired in the hearts of the people of Israel, but for the time being, God has brought them peace. He has given them the desires of their hearts. Because you understand, don't you? that if you seek the face of God and don't merely seek His hand, if you seek the Lord with your whole heart, turn aside from your sin and serve Him with all your life, things will go well with you. Now, the world may rise up against you because you're seeking the face of God. Your own flesh may revolt against you because you are seeking the face of God. The presence of God is the only place where your soul will ever find the rest that it truly needs. It's the only place where your soul will ever find true and lasting peace. It's what you were made for. It's what you need more than anything else, the presence of God. And so it is worth whatever sacrifice is required, whatever idols you have to tear from God's throne, do it, do it. Whatever relationships you have to lose, whatever idols you have to give up. God has made you for yourself. And your heart longs to live under his good rule. Your heart longs to have him as your king. And your heart will be restless. By the grace of God, your heart will be restless until it finds its rest in him. Don't settle for cheap imitations and small gods. They will never work out for you. Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near. Let's pray.