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doing, chapter 12, today. Renewal
is often necessary for us. It's necessary for us as individuals,
necessary as families, local churches, and for the church,
the whole church. Renewal is something that is
needed because we have a constant tendency to drift away from the
Lord. Last week in 1 Samuel 11, we
saw at the end of that chapter how Samuel had called Israel
together at Gilgal to renew the kingdom. They had already come
together, if you'll remember, to fight against Nahash, the
Ammonite, who had come with great cruelty against Jabesh Gilead,
one of the cities in Israel. They ask for the people of Jabesh,
in their weakness, ask for a treaty, for him to make a treaty with
them, that they would be his servants. And he said, sure,
I'll do that if you will pluck out your right eyes. All you
pluck out your right eye and let me show how how weak you
are and how weak your nation is. And that was a bit too much
for them. So then they said, OK, well,
let us call if you're going to try to insult the whole nation.
Let us call the nation to see if they'll come and rescue us.
If this is against the whole nation, let's do it that way.
And so he's a very proud man. He figured the way they were
divided and everything, he knew about their situation. He figured
that they wouldn't be able to get people together anyway. So
he said, go ahead. And then when Saul heard the
word, as the messengers went out from Jabesh to find help,
Saul was just out plowing. He hadn't really taken a positional
stance as a king where he was in a palace or anything like
that. He was still just like a secular guy or an ordinary citizen doing
his work in the fields. But when he heard this news,
you remember that the Spirit of God came upon him. The Spirit
of God came upon him in a way to enable him to act as a king,
to gift him with what he needed as a king. And he was very angry
to hear this against his nation and it stirred him up and he
went out and he called all the people to come together from
all over Israel to defend Jabesh Gilead. And they did. 330,000 people gathered together
to go and rescue their brothers. Saul, after they defeated them,
gave the glory to God. He was doing very well at this
point. And everyone was rejoicing. and their new king and thinking,
isn't it a wonderful thing that we have a king now to lead us
to battle like this and to fight against our enemies? They were all very encouraged,
very positive in the way that they were thinking about things.
And so Samuel seizes the opportunity when this was their sentiment
to say, you know what? We need to renew the kingdom.
They were feeling pretty renewed, but he told him, let's let's
gather together at Gilgal to renew the kingdom right now.
Everybody's here. They're all excited. Let's go
before the Lord. And so they came and they celebrated.
They did sacrifices, all of these different things. And we see
in chapter 11 at the end of the chapter, starting in verse 14,
Samuel says to them, come, let us go to Gilgal and renew the
kingdom there. So that's what he wants to do,
renew the kingdom. So all the people went to Gilgal and there
they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. So they actually,
in a more formal way, recognized him as king. There were several
stages that we've seen along the way of him coming to be king.
It says, There they made sacrifices of peace offerings before the
Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly. So it was a positive time, but
Samuel is wanting to renew the kingdom because Samuel knew that
although they were praising God for their deliverance, the thing
that they attributed most to their victory was that now they
had a king like the nations. It worked. would be there thinking
like, wow, we've got our king and now look, we're unstoppable
now. And he wanted to help them rather
to put their hope in the Lord where it belonged. And in many
ways, he's showing them, in this whole passage, that the difference
whether you prosper in these ways as a nation or not, has
to do with your faithfulness to God. Not whether you have
a king or don't have a king. That all in the previous years,
that whenever you were unfaithful, you would be defeated, you would
be broken down, you would have famines, all these things, because
God would bring that. And when you serve the Lord,
then you prospered. You overcame your enemies. You
were delivered from God, delivered you from them. And so it's not
about whether you have a king or not. It's about whether or
not you have God's blessing or not. So let's look at this chapter. I'll read it to you. Samuel addresses
them in chapter 12, that's where the address is. This is one of
those passages where there's a gathering and this announced
with a speech that's going to come forward and the next chapter
is the speech. So it's really flowing on, I
think, from chapter 11. Not everybody agrees with that.
Some people say this is a brand new thing here, this assembly,
but I think it's flowing right out of the end of chapter 11.
So here is God's word. This is recorded for us in the
scripture to help us as God's people to center our hope in
God alone and not in superficial things like what kind of government
we have. So listen as I read it to you beginning in 1 Samuel
12 verse 1. Now Samuel said to all Israel, Indeed, I have heeded
your voice in all that you said to me and have made a king over
you. And now here is your king walking
before you. And I'm old and gray headed.
And look, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from
my childhood to this day. Here I am. Witness against me
before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken
or whose donkey have I taken or whom have I cheated? Whom
have I oppressed or from whom has my hand or from whose hand
have I received any bribe with which to blind my eyes? I'll
restore it to you. And they said, you have not cheated
us or oppressed us, nor have you taken anything from any man's
hand. He makes absolutely sure here.
He said, then he said to them, the Lord is witness against you
and his anointed. The new king is witness this
day that you have not found anything in my hand. And they answered,
he is witness. Then Samuel said to the people,
it is the Lord who raised up Moses and Aaron and who brought
your fathers up from the land of Egypt. Notice it is the Lord
that did that. Now, therefore, stand still that
I may reason with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous
acts of the Lord, which he did to you and your fathers. When
Jacob had gone into Egypt and your fathers cried out to the
Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers
out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. And just just
a comment to note as we read along, notice how many times
it says Lord here over and over in this passage. And when they
forgot the Lord, their God, he sold them into the hand of Sarah,
commander of the army of Hazor into the hand of the Philistines
and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they and they fought
against them. Then they cried out to the Lord
and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and
serve bales and asterisks. But now deliver us from the hand
of our enemies and we will serve you. And the Lord sent Jeroboam,
Bedin, Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand
of your enemies on every side and you dwelt in safety. And
when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites came against
you, the thing that had just happened in the previous chapter,
you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us when the
Lord your God was your king. Now, therefore, here is the king
whom you have chosen. in whom you have desired. And
take note, the Lord has set a king over you. If you fear the Lord
and serve him and obey his voice and do not rebel against the
commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns
over you will continue following the Lord, your God. However,
if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against
the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will
be against you as it was against your fathers. Now, therefore,
stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before
your eyes. Is today not the wheat harvest? I will call to the Lord
and he will send thunder and rain that you may perceive and
see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight
of the Lord and asking a king for yourselves. So Samuel called
to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And
all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all
the people said to Samuel, Pray for your servants to the Lord
your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our
sins the evil of asking a king for ourselves. Then Samuel said
to the people, Do not fear, you have done all this wickedness,
yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord
with all your heart. And do not turn aside, for then
you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver,
for they are nothing. For the Lord will not forsake
his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased
the Lord to make you his people. Moreover, as for me, far be it
from me that I should sin against the Lord and ceasing to pray
for you. But I will teach you the good
and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with
all your heart for consider what great things he has done for
you. And if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both
you and your king. And there we end the reading
of the Lord's word. Thanks be to God for his precious
word. This is such helpful revelation
from the Lord our God to us, to all of his people in every
age. It is written for our benefit. Some of what he says and does
here is hard for us to hear as God's people, hard for us to
accept. but if you take it to heart,
it will do you a lot of good. It will help you to see things
as they really are because the Lord is God and he rules over
all. When you do that, you will come
away with renewed delight in the Lord your God. There is no
one like him. So has the church been weak over
the last several hundred years? As it was over the last several
hundred years when Samuel said these things to the church in
his day. One thing is certain it is not the Lord or his prophetic
word that is to blame or that are to blame for these things.
Do you ever act like, first of all, let's consider God's word.
Do you ever act like God's word that's given to us, the prophetic
word that we have in the scriptures is insufficient or even harmful? Don't. His prophetic word is
never our problem. It's never that we're following
the word too much and that we need to stop doing that if we're
really going to flourish. God has been speaking to his
people through his prophet Samuel. The Lord has always especially
guarded his word to make sure that it remains pure and holy,
completely without error or deficiency of any kind. He has been raising
up prophets all along, including for his people. When Samuel came
along, men like Abraham, who received revelations from God
that he revealed to his posterity, Moses and the various judges
he brought, he raised them up to address his people with his
word. In their time of need, the word
came to them in God's sovereign plan at the appropriate time. His word is always of inestimable
value to his people, and whenever they shun it and neglect it,
it does them irreparable harm. So now Samuel has grown old and
they do not know who the next prophet will be. His sons are
not godly men. And that's somewhat irrelevant
because the way God worked at this time was he would raise
up a leader, and that leader would be there until he died.
And the leader's son didn't become the new leader. It wasn't like
a succession with kings and things like that. The prophets, God
would raise up one over here and one over there. Sometimes
there'd be a few years they wouldn't have one, and then he would bring
one. He did it when they needed it. And so they needed to trust
God to bring his word to them when they needed it. And they
already had his word from Moses and different places like that,
that they could also turn to to receive guidance and help.
So, Samuel asked them if there had been a problem with his ministry
to them because they were saying, you know, we need a king. So
has there been a problem with my prophetic ministry among you?
In verse 1 and 2, he essentially asks or says, I have set up a
king as you have requested to replace me. You know, he's basically
saying, I walked before you and led you up until this point,
and now he's going, I have walked before you, now he's going to
walk before you in that way, as your leader. And then in verses
three and five, three through five, he asks them if he has
in any way been unfaithful, dishonest, or oppressive to them, and they
swear that he has not. God always raised up the prophets
that his people needed. And the prophets always spoke.
The prophets are unique in this regard. They always spoke the
unadulterated word of God. It doesn't mean they were never
false prophets, but it wasn't like one prophet pretty well
spoke the word of God, but not all the way. And another prophet
did. It's not like that. Either you're a false prophet
or you're a true prophet who absolutely speaks the word of
God with absolute purity and integrity. And there's nothing
that you ever say as far as it being, when you're speaking for
God, that is false. If there was, then they were
to be stoned, actually, if they were not true to the Lord. All
of their prophecies, all the things that they said, this is
going to happen, if they didn't happen, then it showed that they
were a false prophet. There was no messing around with
this because God wants His people to know that you can count on
His word. If we can't do that, then we
don't have any kind of guidance that will stabilize us in the
world that we can trust. We are all over the place. We're
going this way and that way. We don't know right from wrong.
We get all confused. We're led astray. So God has
been very gracious to give us His Word. Now we have the complete
Word of God in the Bible today. It is of inestimable value to
us. Here we have God's unadulterated
counsel and directives about how we're to live before him,
about what we're to believe, what he has done for us, about
his saving work in Christ, words that we can absolutely trust. He uses his word to expose our
sin. He uses it to bring us back to
his way. He uses it to establish us in
comfort of his promises. When we have gone astray and
come back too often, we act like that it will be harmful for us
if we fully follow God's word. that this would be a little bit
too much, that we would be better off if we didn't quite follow
all the things that God has actually said. There are things that we
don't like in the Word, and we think it does not have sufficient
answers for some of our anxieties, and our relationships, and our
parenting, and our daily work, and things like that. Do you
not see that? There is a constant, is this
not true? There is a constant tendency
in the church to increasingly, little by little, but increasingly
from generation to generation, pull away from God's word as
one generation comes and goes. First, we neglect it. Oh, I'm
too busy to read it, right? So there's a neglect at first
that comes in where before there was a zeal for hunger for God's
word. Then we dismiss the parts that
we don't like. Well, I don't like these particular
things that the word says. It usually starts in the areas
of things like worship or in morality, different areas of
like, especially sexual morality. We start to want to soften things
up a little bit in that area. gender roles of male and female,
then we start to say that the word is dated and that we start
to criticize it, in other words. Before we were just kind of leaving
out parts and kind of saying, oh, you know, I don't know about
that. But then we start to criticize it and as another generation
comes along to say that it is dated and that it can't really
speak to all the complex problems that we have today, that we need
other kinds of help. And then we begin to reject certain
teachings and certain commandments and to begin to say, well, surely
Christ did not say this or mean this. Surely Christ is not the
only way of salvation. There's lots of other religions
that are do good in the world, too. And what's the big difference
with those? And we begin to more and more.
The Bible is not right in what it says about homosexuality or
it's not right about some of these other until at last we
have very little of God because we have very little of his word
of what he has revealed to us about himself. And so we're left
in the darkness to flounder around. Is that not the pathway that
you see over the centuries that the church gradually drifts into? They come away from the foundation
of God's holy word. We need to confess then that
God's word is much to be desired and that God's word is wholly
sufficient to help us with godliness. It's not sufficient to help you
know how to build a car, but it helps you to know what attitude
you should have as you build a car and how you glorify God
as you build a car or whatever you're doing. It is infallible. It is without error. It is from
God. And we start to fudge on those
things, then we're going to drift away. We need to bear witness
that his prophets are true. And this is what Samuel gets
them to say. Have I dealt falsely with you? Have I misrepresented
God here? The church's weakness is not
then because of a problem with God's word. His prophetic word
that He's given us. That's not why the church has
problems. It's not that we need to stop obeying the word in this
area because it turns people away or something like that.
And that's the problem with the church. That's what we think.
And our error and our sin. But that's not what it is. Neither
is the church's weakness because of any unfaithfulness in God. Samuel lays out for the people
how the Lord has constantly preserved his church. In fact, he's the
one that gathered them and formed them in the first place. He is
the one who initially called them and took them to be his
people. We would never have come to him if he had not done that. When we say that in Psalm 100,
I think Psalm 100 is not talking about creation when it says the
Lord is the one that made us, but it's talking about him making
us as people, as his people, distinct from those who are not
his people. So 1 Samuel 12, 6 through 8,
then Samuel said to the people, it is the Lord who raised up
Moses and Aaron when they were born as a nation, right? Moses
and Aaron came forth. and who brought your fathers
up from the land of Egypt. Now, therefore, stand still that
I may reason with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous
acts of the Lord, which he did to you and your fathers. When
Jacob had gone into Egypt and your fathers cried out to the
Lord, when the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers
out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. Think of how faithful
God has been to call his people together. Think how faithful
he has been to call you to be one of his people when you would
have had no interest in him if he had not called you. Some of
you, he even called from your birth, from the womb, that over
all your years of your life, God has sustained you and he
has brought you into his communion and fellowship. That is his work.
He chose you. He appointed you to be his people. He is the one who repeatedly
also not only gathers his people, but he restores his people when
they drift away, as we've seen they so often do. Samuel shows
how throughout the time of the judges, those previous over three
centuries, there was this pattern where the church would drift
away and turn to empty idols. And then the Lord would afflict
them with famine and enemies. and disorder in order to break
them and humble them. And then they would cry out to
the Lord, and then the Lord would faithfully deliver them. He was
faithful not only to bring the deliverance when they cried out
to him, but also to bring the chastisement when they turned
away from him. He's faithful to do both for
his people. If he only did one and not the
other, then we would never be corrected and come back to him.
First Samuel 12, 9 through 11. And when they forgot the Lord
their God, he sold them into the hand of Caesara, commander
of the army of Hazor, into the hand of the Philistines, and
into the hand of the king of Moab. How often do we see nations
today that are largely Christian nations that fear God, but they
begin to drift away from God, and he delivers them over to
some dictator. that leads them in all kinds
of crazy ways. We see that over and over. They
come into bondage in this way, he says, and they fought against
them. OK, then they cried verse 10.
Then they cried out to the Lord and said, we have sinned because
we have forsaken the Lord and serve the Baals and the Ashtoreths.
But now deliver us from the hand of our enemies and we will serve
you. Over and over again, God did this. And the Lord sent Jeroboam,
Baden, nobody quite knows who he is, there are guesses, Jephthah,
and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies
on every side, and you dwelt in safety. Does God not continue
to do that to this day? If he had not, the church would
have perished long ago. I come from a church myself,
grew up in a church that had drifted away from God. It was
already quite drifted when I was in it, and it's drifted a lot
more over my lifetime. The church that I grew up in
and God delivered me. He called me out from that from
that bondage that they were they were going into the bondage of
the world and its philosophy and its corrupt ways. And God
delivered me out to to be in the remnant church. We could
say a church that was reformed according to his word. This is
how he works. He does that with his church
through the generations. This is how the church continues.
So let us confess as well that the church's weakness is not
because God has been unfaithful. It's not because of his word,
the problem with his word, nor is it because God has been unfaithful.
In verse 12 through 15, Samuel shows what the cause of the church's
weakness is. When we are faithful, God strengthens
and blesses us, but when we are unfaithful and turn away from
him, he turns against us in order to correct us. Just now, the
Lord had graciously given them a new king, and he'd given them
a great victory by that king, and they were celebrating that,
what God had done through the agency of their king, and he
had used the agency of their king. 1 Samuel 12, 12-13, and
when you saw that Nahash, king of the Amorites, came against
you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us, when
the Lord your God was your king. So they said, we're seeing this
Nahash guy. Remember, we saw that he had
already been coming into other cities, and Jabesh Gilead was
the one he came to lately, but he had already done that. So
it was when they actually, back in chapter 8, when they wanted
a king. Then this was their reason. They
saw this guy coming along. They said, we've got to have
a king so that we can defend ourselves. He says, now, therefore, here
is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have desired. Would
God not have raised someone up for them as he had always done
in the past if they had cried out to him? Indeed, he would.
He says, and take note, the Lord has set a king over you. So God,
he did what you wanted, gave you a king, but he's the one
that delivered you. The Lord then, he tells them,
this is very gracious of the Lord. Samuel tells them, if you
keep on following the Lord, if you and your king keep on following
the Lord, then it will go well for you. But if you don't, Then
it won't go well for you and your king. The issue is whether
you're faithful to the Lord. The issue is not whether you
have a king or not. It was perfect all along before that. It was
the same thing. When you followed the Lord, it went well. When
you didn't, it went ill. It's gonna be exactly the same
now that you have a king. That's the issue, not what kind
of government you have. So Samuel is straightening them
out. Look at what he says, verse 14.
If you fear the Lord and serve him and obey him and do not rebel
against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king
who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God.
Notice the four things. If you fear the Lord, if you
serve the Lord, if you obey his voice, if you do not rebel against
his commandment, fear, serve, obey, and don't rebel, they will
continue following the Lord in victory. But Samuel warns them
what will happen if they don't. The Lord will turn against them.
Now, not against them to utterly destroy and wipe them out, but
against them to chasten them and restore them. So they'll
be like this weak church that's constantly having to be chastened
again, and they can't defeat their enemies, and then they're
back up again, and they're down again, and up again, if they're
not following the Lord. He says, however, if you do not
obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment
of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you,
and he qualifies it, as it was against your fathers. How was
it against their fathers? Was it to like say, got a new
nation now? No, it was against the fathers
as a chosen people of God that were corrected by God by humbling
them and bringing them under the dominion of their enemies
and things. That was how God worked with their fathers. He
says that's the way he's going to work now. He won't let his
people go on without correcting them. Other nations may prosper
when they're not following Lord, but not the church. It's very
important for God's people to see this basic truth, which is
so in every age. We always want to attribute the
church's weakness to something else besides that we have not
been faithful. Something that has nothing to
do with our unfaithfulness when it has everything to do with
that. But there is an important qualification that is very necessary
for me to make here. What I am saying to you and what
this passage teaches is what is true of the church as a whole
as we exist in the world. Now try to track with me on that.
It might be a little hard to follow, but it's true of the
whole church what we're saying here. We should be concerned
about the church as a whole and not just our congregation or
our denomination. Of course, we should be concerned
about our own congregation and about our own denomination. But
these principles have to do with the church as a whole in the
world. The church is weak in the world
and not making the progress that the whole church should be making
in bringing the nations to Jesus Christ, under the feet of Jesus
Christ. Because of our ongoing unfaithfulness,
We see in the Bible, for example, that Isaiah had disciples and
they were faithful, but they did not flourish in the sense
of having great dominion and power. They were the ones that
were trampled upon more than anyone, even by their own nation.
And their whole nation, of course, was being destroyed by their
enemies because of the unfaithfulness of the whole church. And so there
can be faithful people within that are not prospering in the
way that we're talking about of having great dominion and
going forward and all of these things because of the whole church. Now, we see this in many different
ways. We see it with Isaiah and his disciples. What about Elijah?
He had many prophets that were with him that were preaching
the word of God. They were hiding out in caves, terrified to show
their face. And you see that in places today,
like we have brothers and sisters here that come from China. The
church in China meets underground. And yet that doesn't mean that
they're unfaithful. You see, it's the whole church
that is unfaithful. If the whole church was faithful,
then we would see the nations being brought and disciple brought
into brought into God's kingdom. And what about the seven churches
in Revelation? Some of the most faithful churches
are the ones actually that are not outwardly flourishing as
much at that time. And so we don't want to have
a guilt trip that if we're struggling along, but we're being faithful,
that that means that we're not being faithful. We also don't
wanna have a pride that refuses to look at how we've been unfaithful.
So we have to be very, very careful here and to come before the Lord
and evaluate with his word. This is it's a very sobering
thing to to think about. But, you know, God does not frequently
have to chase in churches that are overall faithful when they
start to drift. Neither is this to say that they
don't drift all the way into apostasy. What happens when a
faithful church drifts into apostasy? Then God brings out faithful
people from among them so that his church, there's continuing
witness to his truth. Sometimes it's a small persecuted
minority that comes out. This has been the history all
through God's work. The election, those who are truly
elect of God are the remnant that he preserves. The whole
New Testament church is actually a remnant church of the Old Testament
church. Because Jesus came and his disciples were rejected and
persecuted and they were very weak when Jesus was here. He
ended up as their leader being put on the cross. In another
way, they were very strong, right? But in terms of the world and
how you'd look at the world, it looked like there was utter
defeat that way. And yet he was out of that came
the church out of the apostate church. The Trinitarian church
several centuries later came out from the Aryan church that
denied the deity of Jesus Christ and such things. And then the
Protestant church is a remnant church that came out of the Roman
Catholic church. And now what has happened to
the Protestant church? We have to come out of the Protestant
church because it has gone astray. But overall, the whole church
is weak in the world because of unfaithfulness. So I hope
you're tracking with this. We need to be careful that we
don't suppose the problem to be with God's faithfulness or
with the lack of sufficiency of his word. That brings us to
our next point from Samuel. He shows that it is very wrong
of us to put our hope in superficial fixes that we devise rather than
in what or who and the Lord our God. If we start trusting in
superficial fixes, we're not gonna prosper. The people were
still thinking that the solution was in a change of government,
even as Samuel was addressing them. We are masters at coming
up with superficial solutions for the church, instead of thinking
that the need is basic repentance. It's not marketing strategies.
I've seen so many marketing strategies for the church over the years.
It's not social programs. It's not new techniques. It's
not more appealing worship to the world, more appealing doctrine
to the world where we shave off things that the world's not going
to like very much. I'm going to preach about that
because people don't like to hear that. Not new forms of government,
not entertainment, not therapy programs, not any of this. It's following the Lord our God. We may see temporary responses
when we do certain things seeking to see furtherance of the kingdom,
but we're actually doing our part overall to weaken the church.
when we rely on such things. We need God's blessing. We need
the word, sacraments, and prayer done faithfully. We need holy
lives. yielded to God, leaning on his
grace. So the Lord, through Samuel,
makes it unmistakable that it's not from them having a king that
things are going well for them. It's because of his mercy and
grace. That their superficial fixes are not what has brought
their victory that they have just experienced. People didn't
see how wrong they were. So God chastens them. They simply
did not get it. You see, they were sort of deceived
because God had been gracious to them. They said, well, we
got this new king and it worked. Like, everything's good now,
we got this new king. Samuel basically has just said
to them, you know, everything was good before when you followed
the Lord. It wasn't good when you didn't.
It's still the same. You see, to say that all was
well because they had a king, that was their sin. God very
often will bless his people anyway when they have superficial fixes,
but then he does things to convince them that it was not because
of the superficial fix. All the way back, you have Jacob.
What did Jacob do? I've gotta get God's blessing.
Oh no, Esau's the older, he's gonna get the blessing. What
am I gonna do? Oh no, I'll deceive my father. I mean, his mother,
of course, was with him in all this. We gotta do something,
and they did that. Even Abraham. God promised us
blessing through a child. We don't have a child. What are
we going to do? And then Sarah says, Oh, you can take my maidservant
and have a child by her. Hagar, did that work? That case,
it didn't work with Jacob. It didn't work. He got the blessing
when he did deception with Abraham. It didn't work. God said, No,
it's not that child. I'm gonna give you a child by
Sarah in the right way. So you see, we can't. We can't
look at what happens and say, Look, look, look, it was the
right thing because look at what happened. No, God is merciful
and sometimes, you know, he'll he'll use things. So in this
case, God has just blessed his people with their new king because
he's merciful and gracious and they needed deliverance. But. He says, I do not approve of
you relying on the fact that you have a new king. How does
he do that? He has to do it in a dramatic
way. He has to spank his people. He chastens them. As a faithful,
caring father, he gives them a good spanking to make them
realize how displeased he is with what they did, because they
still think that it's okay. The Bible says that parents who
don't do this hate their children. They say that they love them
too much to chasten them, but the truth is that they love their
own feelings too much to do what is best for their child. The
scriptures are clear. Proverbs 13, 24. He who spares
his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him
promptly. Proverbs 19, 18. Chasten your son while there
is hope and do not set your heart on his destruction. This is exactly
one of those areas where we start to drift away from trusting God. We say, oh, no, no, no, no, that's
not a good thing that God's word says there. Oh, no, no, no, no,
that won't be a good thing. And we drift away. We don't trust
what God says. We've got a better way. We talked
to some experts, and they said this wasn't the best way. So
we're going to use another way. OK, that's a side point, but
it's a good illustration. Look at what the Lord does to
spank them for suggesting that It was not faith and repentance,
but a new form of government that was needed by them. First
Samuel 12, 16 to 18. Samuel says, Now, therefore,
stand and see the great thing which the Lord will do before
your eyes is today, not the wheat harvest. I will call to the Lord
and he will send thunder and rain that you may perceive and
see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight
of the Lord. He makes it completely unmistakable. in asking for a
king for yourselves. So Samuel called to the Lord,
and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people
greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Now the wheat harvest in Israel,
that was in May or June, right? And in that time of year, it
doesn't rain. It doesn't rain in this area. It just doesn't. As one commentator,
Ralph Davis, put it, it's funny because I listened to some other
sermons on Samuel and a lot of people quoted this illustration,
it's so good. He said, that's like getting
six inches of snow in Miami in the middle of the summer. It's
like, okay, prophet comes and says, I'm gonna make it snow,
you're gonna have a devastating snowstorm that will bring great
trouble to you. Miami, Florida today. It's like,
whoa, you know, that's not what you expect to happen. This was
God. And this is what Samuel did in
this case. In this way, the Lord was showing
them that he was angry with them what they did, because this storm,
when it was the wheat harvest, if you did have rain like that
in the tender crop, it would destroy the crop. So he basically
wiped out their wheat harvest. They didn't starve, they had
other crops that came at other times of year. We don't know
how widespread it was, if it was just in the local area, but
this is what, he was spanking them, he was giving them a good
sting. And to say, I am not pleased
with you saying that you need a king or that you didn't have
a king and that's the problem. Because I've been your king and
you haven't had a problem as long as you were faithful. Now,
let me add to any of you who may not be trusting the Lord
today, God calls you to come and be his people. He calls you
to come and be part of his people. And then you'll be under his
chastening care because you see, there's two different ways that
God brings judgment. He brings judgment upon his children
to correct them because he's committed to them. Like I said,
this is the kind of thing that he said, like I did with your
fathers. Your nation is still going on because I did this.
If I hadn't, you would have drifted away completely. The other kind
of judgment that he brings is where it's against his enemies
who are not his people. And he brings them to utter destruction
and cast them out. So if you're not trusting the
Lord, you may not have a lot of trouble in this world, may
or may not. But that trouble is gonna come
on the day of judgment. And so you better deal with that
before it's too late. Okay, you can see how the people
respond. This banking is very good for
them. It says that they greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. God
brought them where they needed to be. How wise and good he is. He will not let his people go
on in their rebellion or their indifference. Finally, they see
how wrong it was for them to ask for a king the way that they
had. In verse 19, they plead with
Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel,
pray for your servants, to the Lord your God, that we may not
die. For we have added to all our
sins, thinking about looking back over their history, the
evil of asking a king for ourselves. Now Samuel, you see, he represented
to them Christ as a priest. He offered sacrifices, prayed
for them when they sinned. So they asked him to pray for
them. This is equivalent to us today praying in Jesus' name.
Our priest is exalted at the right hand of God in heaven,
and he has a sacrifice that he offered that has taken away our
sins. And so when we pray in Jesus'
name, which we do in the new covenant, we're asking that God
would receive us on account of our priest and the sacrifice
that he made for us. Not only did he die on the cross,
but he also prays for us and we want him to pray for us. We
say, Lord, pray for us. What a wonderful change God had
brought about in them. They were so proud, but now they're
pleading to the Lord for mercy. They will be forgetting this,
though, all too soon, won't they? Samuel knew that. So what does
he do? The third thing that we see in
this chapter is that despite what we have done, the Lord is
absolutely committed to his church. Samuel beautifully preaches this
gospel to them, this good news that God saves his people and
he keeps his people. In verse 20, he says, Do not
fear. You have done all this wickedness,
yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord
with all your heart. Notice that he does not say,
oh, it's not a big deal, it's okay, don't worry about it. No,
he was showing them that it was a big deal, with the storm and
everything, and he reinforces that. He doesn't minimize it
now because they had some repentance. He says, you have done all this
wickedness. Yes, indeed, it was wickedness.
You are not to find comfort by minimizing your sins. They are
great. but find comfort in maximizing
the mercy of God. That's where you find comfort.
He does assure them then that despite what they have done,
they can pick up right where they are and they can go on for
the Lord. They can start trusting the Lord
and following the Lord right here and right now. They don't
have to wallow around in their sin. There's an atonement for
sin and God will, He loves His people and He wants to restore
them and He chastens them not to beat them down and grind them
into the ground so that they can't serve Him anymore. But
he chastens them in order that they may be lifted up and turn
their eyes back to God and get back on track and go forward
for him. Don't keep visiting. Maybe you
have some serious sins in your past. Don't keep going back and
visiting those sins and reliving them like you have to make atonement
for them or something by feeling the pain of them and all of these
things. No, go forward in the Lord. Go on. He receives you
through Christ. Don't carry those sins with you.
Lay them on the Lord. He came to bear our sins. He
is the sin bearer. So bring it to him and you will
know mercy and forgiveness. Yes, indeed. Serve the Lord then
with all your heart. We have Christ. The Lamb of God
is the sacrifice. They had the blood of bulls and
goats when Samuel was around. We have the Son of God who came
and gave himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world. What comfort. What assurance
we can have that when we come to him, our sin is covered, however
great it was, and we can go forward now for the Lord. The reason that he sent Jesus
is to give you a new start in his grace. See how he warns his
people not to go after empty and worthless things. Verse 21,
do not turn aside for then you would go after empty things which
cannot profit or deliver for they are nothing. The word translated
empty things can also be translated nothings. So he's saying he uses
the same root word. Don't go after nothings because
they're nothing. That's basically what he's saying.
Whatever you're going to trust in instead of the Lord. is nothing. It's an idol. It's not adequate. Idols are things we trust in.
A new government. Adding and taking something from
God's word to make it better, we think. Some new scheme for
self-improvement. Or we can trust in things like
riches or, you know, romance is going to make everything good
or success or whatever it might be. Samuel explains that no matter
what we do, if we are those that God has chosen a part of his
eternal church, He has taken us to be his people and he is
absolutely committed to us, whether we do good or bad, whether he
has to chasten us or whether he can bless us and reward us.
He's going to do what needs to be done. He's committed to us. If you have taken yourself, if
you have come to Jesus Christ, if God has called you and you
have come and said, Lord, I give myself to you for salvation.
My salvation is in your hands. You must save me from my sin. You must lead me. If you have
done that, you have come to him, then you have been justified.
You have been declared righteous, and God is absolutely committed
to you. No matter what you do, he'll
restore you. He'll bring you back. He'll chasten
you. He'll keep on working with you according to whatever the
need may be. You will have his blessing. Look at verse 22. For the Lord
will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because
it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. This is the security
that you have if you have entrusted your soul to him for salvation. He has given you a new heart,
and he will keep you trusting. He will correct you and restore
you. And what about Samuel, whom they
set aside for a king? just as we set Jesus aside when
we neglect his word. Well, now they're pleading with
Samuel to pray for them, and he tells them that he is absolutely
committed to them. Samuel is still absolutely committed
to them. Moreover, he says, verse 23,
as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the
Lord and ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the
good and the right way. Not only will he keep on praying
for them, but he will keep on bringing God's word to them.
Jesus does that for us. He constantly intercedes for
us, and he constantly brings God's word to us in fresh ways.
This is his commitment to us if we are his true people. And
then once again, Samuel repeats the fact that their welfare as
God's church will be contingent upon their faithfulness to him.
Once again is the message that blessing will come to the whole
church when they serve God and chastisement and hardship when
we forsake God. Verse 24, only fear the Lord
and serve him in truth with all your heart. For consider what
great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly,
you will be swept away, both you and your king. Samuel knows
them. He knows how quickly they will
forget. The Lord is so very good. what delight they may have, what
prosperity they may enjoy, if only they would fear the Lord
and serve him in truth with all their heart. It's not what they had done in
having a king that would bring blessing, but it is the Lord
God. But let me add again the qualification
that I mentioned before. This is not saying that we'll
have no trouble if we're faithful as a church or if you're faithful
as a Christian, that you'll have everything will be prosperous
and everything will succeed for you. Jesus was absolutely faithful
and he had much affliction. And we were taught by him and
by his apostles that if we're faithful, we will have much affliction
in this world, much persecution. But this is true for the whole
church, what we're talking about, that the church will advance
her agenda, that God has called her to make disciples of all
nations when she is faithfully following the Lord instead of
being brought under bondage to the nations that are against
God. It's also true to us in a certain way as individuals. If you fear the Lord and serve
him and are true in your heart, then you will have sweet communion
with him even through your persecutions and all that you go through.
And you'll have deep joy through all the crosses and things that
you're called to endure in this life. You will come to see his
love and faithfulness in ways that you never even imagined
that it was so great. Your soul will be brought to
the bursting point with the love of God. Yet all the while you
will, like our Lord, be deeply burdened for the state of the
whole church. You will yearn to see her faithful
throughout. You will pray earnestly for that,
not as someone who is in competition with your part of the church
with another part of the church. It's not a competition like that.
We are burdened about the condition of the whole state of God's people.
All who are baptized in his name, the unfaithful parts of the church,
as well as the faithful parts. We need to be burdened by that.
We need to pray for the church, not only that the hardships and
lack of prosperity that this will bring, but also the way
that it dishonors God and brings reproach on his name. We should
be concerned about that, that people are baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ and they're teaching false doctrine and they're not
following God and they're living a life that brings reproach to
him. We pray about this the way Daniel
prayed for the whole church and all the while, You will trust
him to bring it about that what will happen, that his kingdom
would come so that his will will be done on earth as it is in
heaven. That's what we're praying for.
That's what we desire. Why has that not happened? Because
of the church's unfaithfulness. Pray that the church would repent
and that the people of God would turn to him, that we would come
together in Jesus Christ and that we would go forth with the
gospel to make disciples of all nations as has been commanded.
Please stand and let's ask God. Oh Lord our God, we come to you
with humility and thanksgiving. Father, we see how faithful you
have been to your church through the ages, how it would have faded
out and been destroyed long ago if you had not constantly nursed
it, if you had not constantly chastened us like little children
to humble us and to bring us back again. If you had not delivered
us over into the hands of our enemies so that we would wake
up and realize that we need to follow you and that it's not
our own schemes and our own measures that keep us safe. But it's you,
oh, Lord. And we pray that we would cherish
your word and that we would cherish your faithfulness and that we
would see your hand, oh, Lord. And we look, Lord, for the church
as a whole. Oh, Father, we have sinned against
you. We have turned from your ways. We have been unfaithful.
We have not followed your word. Oh, Lord, we have brought much
sorrow to ourselves. We see, Lord, that our enemies
are strong and that we are weak. And we pray, oh, Lord, that you
would restore your church, that you would make her mighty in
the earth as an agent to bring the nations to Jesus Christ.
Oh, Father, we desire to see a lot more because you've promised
a lot more and you've told us to pray for a lot more, even
that your kingdom would come and that your will would be done
on earth as it is in heaven. What a prayer that is, O Lord.
And we ask you to give us faith to pray that prayer and to give
us humility to see why that prayer is not yet answered. O Lord,
we know that you have a sovereign plan and that you're working
that plan, but it is not for us to hide under that. It is for us to earnestly beseech
you to break us, O Lord, And to make us holy, to make your
church holy, that we may go forth and do what you have called us
to do. And so here we are, Lord, praying to you in the name of
Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world. Father, have mercy on us, forgive us for our sins,
establish us in righteousness and help us to go forth in faithfulness. We know that many in the church
are not truly your people, though they are called by your name.
But Father, you deal with us as a whole body, both the elect
and those who are not elect. And yet to the elect, you have
these special promises that sustain us and keep us and give us hope.
We thank you, Lord, that those who have lived in the world in
very apostate times like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, that
they have known your comfort in those times, even like our
Lord Jesus and his apostles. Father, we thank you for the
hope and the confidence that we have, even in the midst of
a crooked and perverse generation. Help us, Lord, to be faithful
to you, to love you and to walk with you, to have communion with
you, to be sustained by your promises and the hope that you
have given us as your people, to be upheld by your Holy Spirit
so that we will not be tempted to go to draw away or to go away
from you. Oh, Lord, you are good and gracious
and merciful. There is no one like you, O Lord.
Honor your name, we pray. Show forth your power and your
mighty arm in the world. Show forth your mercy and your
grace. For you are to be glorified and all nations are to come and
bow before you. Oh, Lord, our God, have mercy
and deliver us, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. It talks about God
inclining our hearts to him. We need to remember that he does
that working within us, yes. But he also does it by sending
a thunderstorm that destroys our crops. He inclines our heart
to him. He has all kinds of different
ways at his disposal to do that. So receive now the blessing of
the Lord our God. May the Lord your God be with
you as he was with your fathers. May he not leave you nor forsake
you that he may incline your hearts to himself to walk in
his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments
which he commanded your fathers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen.
Renewing the Kingdom
Series 1 Samuel
Samuel knew that although they were praising God for their deliverance, the thing they attributed most to their victory was that now they had a king like the nations. He wanted to help them to set their hope in the Lord. We will look at his address today that helps the church in every generation to hope in God.
| Sermon ID | 32125216586157 |
| Duration | 58:47 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Samuel 12; Acts 20:17-38 |
| Language | English |
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