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.