Let's turn together in God's Word to 1 Samuel 7, and we will be looking at verses 3 through 17 this morning. Hear now God's Word. And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, Then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and erect your heart to the Lord, and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines." So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only. Then Samuel said, Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you. So they gathered at Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before the Lord, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. And the people of Israel said to Samuel, Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them as far as below Bethkar. And Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shenn and called its name Ebenezer. For he said, Till now the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life, and he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all these places. Then he would return to Ramah, for his home was there, and there also he judged Israel. And he built there an altar to the Lord. So, Father, reading from God's word this morning, may he add his blessing to our hearts. Please be seated. The last couple of chapters in the book of 1 Samuel, God has told his story of redemption using a box. It's a golden box. It's a very special box. It's a box with an amazing lid on top. It's the Ark of the Covenant. But here in verse 3 of chapter 7, we return to the namesake of this book. We return to Samuel. And Samuel, if you remember from the beginning, Samuel is a transitional figure, moving us from the time of the judges in the land of Israel, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, to the time of the kings, particularly with the aim of establishing King David on his throne, the righteous king of Israel. And so Samuel being reintroduced, in some sense, picks up on that timeline again. It picks up on that timeline of transition from the time where Israel was forsaking to the Lord to the time when Israel is going to repent and, at least for a season, be faithful to the Lord. Now, in our text, we can, first of all, notice just how far gone Israel is. Because Israel has to be told, even after they're lamenting after the Lord for 20 years, they have to be told to put aside their idols. They have idols, the Baals, the Ashtoreth, and they're clinging to these. Well, in this text, the gods of the nations which have been adopted by Israel, they have to be put away. And so the Lord shows what the putting aside of idols does. When Israel sets aside its idols, The Lord works its safety and its deliverance. And Samuel introduces that really in verse 3, that if they put away their foreign gods, and if they direct their hearts to the Lord and serve him only, that he will deliver. And so we see that as we're working our way through this text. But we want to understand these things not as a promise to an easy life for a Christian. So what we want to do is guard ourselves against thinking that because we are Christian, therefore God always gives us victory over any person that may oppose us in this life. It's not a question of victory over earthly opponents, but what we do see from this text and many other places, that God's covenant promise include a sense that the Christian, by God at work in him, will always have the victory. Because when God's people repent, He fights their battles and he defeats their foes. Now what we're going to do is we're going to take an earthly account, an earthly story, and see a spiritual significance in it as we consider that, that God's people, when God's people repent, that he fights their battles and defeats their foes. So first we're going to look at the historical experience of Israel. and kind of see how they order themselves in this process of repentance, deliverance, and peace. And so we're going to first look at the historical experience of Israel, and as we see the historical experience of Israel, we're going to make a spiritual application of that progression in the life of the Christian as well. So, as we think about this historical experience, or the earthly account of what happens to Israel, our aim is to learn a spiritual lesson from this historical experience. Because Israel is really a training manual for the Christian church. Israel does not live in isolation from the Christian Church. The Christian Church, from 1 Corinthians 10-11, should look at Israel as a model of sort, an example either good or bad. 1 Corinthians 10-11 is talking particularly about the judgments that we can behold that take place in Israel, and it says there, these things happen to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction. So we're taking that principle and applying it to this account in Scripture so that we, in particular in this case, can think about repentance, not only in national Israel, but also how repentance works itself out in the believer today. And to help us with that, we should understand the structure. Ali's been teaching us about finding structure in the Psalms. What's also beneficial when you look at the narrative accounts, especially as you're seeking to understand what we can be taught about repentance. So we can look at this account and break it down in three broad categories. Verses three through six, we should understand that as an expression of Israel in repentance. Israel is turning from its sin. The second section would be from verses 7 through 11, where we see God delivering Israel. And then lastly, in verses 12 through 14, we see the peace that results from it. So there's the repentance of Israel at the beginning, the deliverance of God in the middle, and the peace that he gives to Israel right at the end. And so that's the outline that we're going to follow to understand how repentance works. How did it work in Israel? And then how does it work for us? So last Lord's Day, before we get to the repentance of Israel, we have to set the stage and we have to remember that the ark of the covenant of God. had been left in Kiriath-Jerim for 20 years. So this is a city where the tabernacle of God is not pitched. It's in Shiloh. And so we made the observation last Lord's Day that there is a significant deficiency in Israel now because of where the ark is. They may be lamenting after the Lord, and that may in part be caused by this deficiency in Israel's worship, because once a year they had this special feast called the Day of Atonement. And Leviticus 16 verse 14 describes what should happen, what the high priest should do with the sin offering on the Day of Atonement. And it says that the high priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat, on the east side, and in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with a finger seven times. Now, you might say to yourself, I don't see any mention of this golden box that we've been talking about. The mention of it is the mercy seat, because the mercy seat is the name given to the lid of the ark. Well, the lid of the ark is not in the tabernacle, so the high priest can't sprinkle the blood for the purification of Israel's sins in the Most Holy Place because the ark is in the house of Abinadab on the hill. Okay, so all of that sets the stage so that we understand for 20 years, for 20 years, Israel either has not celebrated the Day of Atonement as they should, or they've had to modify it in some way so that the weight of sin is adding up. And that's to be our understanding of what's happening in Israel from the time of the judges, all the way really up to David as king. But it's coming to a head here in the judgeship of Samuel. Israel, it says in verse 2, is lamenting after the Lord. God is not easing up the weight of conviction that he's bringing upon his people. His people know something is not right, something is missing, and they're lamenting after the Lord. And God does that not to be unkind to his people. but it's actually a great mercy. When he lets conviction settle on us so that we turn to him, that is a great mercy that God gives to his people. And so that's the process that Israel is undergoing, and it can be a guide for us. So let's understand what Israel's doing in this repentance, in this deliverance, and this peace. Let's first think about the repentance. of Israel. So look with me in verse 3. And what is Samuel doing? He is challenging the house of Israel. He is challenging what we've read about them in verse 2. In verse 2 it says they're lamenting after the Lord. And Samuel's saying, if you are lamenting after the Lord, if you truly are returning to the Lord, then something will happen. In essence, Samuel's saying, it's fine to say that you're repenting, but let me see that you're repenting. It's fine to say we're seeking after the Lord, but what in your behavior shows me that you are seeking after the Lord? And he says, these evidences in Israel will be the putting away of the foreign gods. Israel is steeped in idolatry. And Samuel says, if they are truly repentant, they will put away their idols. Now, is Samuel saying that they must forsake their sin before they come to the Lord? Just as a way of a teaser, let me say that would be to put the onus of salvation on man. That would be to make man's action the cause of approaching God. So Samuel is actually saying something quite different. He is saying, that if they come to the Lord, they will by necessity forsake their idols. That's the order that Samuel is setting before us. The particular sin in play here, in this case, is the idolatry of Israel. Israel is worshipping the Baal, he's worshipping Asherah, these foreign Mesopotamian gods, idols. But at the word of the prophets, they are challenged as to whether their repentance is genuine. And because the prophet challenges them, and because the repentance seems to be truly in their hearts at this point, Israel does put away these false gods, and they worship only the Lord of Heaven. Verse 4 tells us that, that they serve the Lord only. But their repentance actually goes even further than that. It's kind of the preliminary, but if you look in verse 6, you actually see some expression, some public expressions. of grief over their sin. And they gather at this place called Mizpah, and there they make a verbal confession to the Lord. At the end of verse 6, we have sinned against the Lord. There's no equivocating, There's no making excuses. They're simply acknowledging their sin before God. There is also a change in action. There's an expression in action. They draw water and pour it out without drinking it. They refuse food as an expression of grief over their sin. But at the core, at the heart of it, they are acknowledging that they have sinned against God. A crucial part of their repentance. In Psalm 32 verse 3, later on David will talk about the effect of holding back from your confession of sin to God. It's not just enough to know for yourself that you have sinned, there's something important in Israel's acknowledging verbally that they have sinned against God. In Psalm 32, verse three, the psalmist says, when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Well, remember, it says in verse two. The house of Israel lamented after the Lord for 20 years. That's the groaning all day long of a nation that's not confessing its sin to the Lord. They are repentant. They put away their gods. They have public expressions of grief over their sin in the pouring out of the water, in the fasting, and they verbally acknowledge that they have sinned against God, a crucial part of the repentance of Israel. Well, the second part comes in verse 7 through 11, where we see God's deliverance. And really, we should understand that in light of verse 3, where Samuel says to the people of God, if you serve the Lord only, He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistine. So the progression in the first part is, they do set aside their idols, they do serve the Lord only, and verses 7 through 11 show us the deliverance of God's people by His mighty hand. In some sense, there is an immediate test as to whether or not Israel believes what they've said. There's an immediate test whether they will serve the Lord only. There's an immediate test to their faith and their trust in God because it says that the Philistines gather when they hear that Israel is at Mizpah. And they gather to make war against the people of Israel. Now, it's not explained to us exactly why they're gathering. It could be that the Philistines think that Israel is gathering an army so that they want to fight and rebel against the Philistines. Or it could be just that the Philistines view this as a strategically juicy opportunity. There's a lot of Hebrews together, and we can really weaken them as a nation at this point. We're not told why, but what we do know is that when Israel hears that the Philistines have gathered, they are afraid. But even in their fear, we see something of the healthy response of the repentant person. Even in his fear, when he is confronted with his old foes, he still trusts in the Lord. Israel still trusts in the Lord. They, in verse 8, respond well by asking Samuel to pray for them. Now, you might say it'd be better if they had prayed themselves. I think you can read that verse in terms of an understanding that Israel was going out to confront their foe, and they're asking Samuel to stay behind and pray for them while they're confronting their foe. And so here we have Samuel praying, offering a burnt offering, and then it says in verse 9 that the Lord heard him, that the Lord answered Samuel. And the moment is so dramatic. because Israel is a weaker nation. The Philistines, in some sense, are in the ascendancy, and they are, in some sense, even up through the reign of Saul, oppressors. You remember who David fights when he fights the giant. He fights Goliath, who is a Philistine. Even at the beginning of Saul's reign, when Jonathan is Saul's son, so Saul and Jonathan are establishing the royal family in Israel. They are the ones who stand against the Philistines, but when it describes their fight against the Philistines, it shows the deficit. So 1 Samuel 13, 19 talks about how when Israel is about to fight a battle against the Philistines, There was neither sword nor spear in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan. But Saul and Jonathan only had swords in the armies of Israel. That means they're fighting with pitchforks. They're fighting with other tools and weapons. But it's not the weapons of warfare. Technologically, Their weapons of warfare are greatly inferior to those of the Philistines. And actually in the next verse, in verse 20 of chapter 13, you read how the Philistines are controlling them. How the Israelites don't even have access to sharpening blades in their own country. How they had to go to the Philistines for that. So the Philistines are dominating the people of Israel. And also in this moment, Israel is weak. Israel is afraid, but in the midst of their fear, because they don't trust in any other gods but the Lord, they put their confidence in Him. And right at that moment, as Samuel is praying for the people of Israel, the Philistines attack. It is Israel at its weakest. And that's when God shows Himself to be strong. God shows his power in defeating the Philistine army. He thunders against the Philistines to such an extent that the army of the Philistines is in disarray. Now, you can hear a loud thunderclap, and that can unsettle you. But this must have been something quite different. It must have been continuous. It was so loud, so disconcerting, that the Philistine army, this trained army, falls into dismay and disarray. The Israelites, it says in verse 11, they defeat them with a crushing victory. They go from Mizpah all the way down to Bethkar, and they're defeating their enemies. Now, we have to hold on to the point. The point of all of this description is that God is the one who defeats the enemies of his people. His people repented, and so now God has granted them the victory, as Samuel said would happen. And that takes us to verse 12, where we see the peace that comes from God. There is a lasting peace in Israel. So if you look in that, there is peace. The Philistines don't invade the Israelites' territory anymore, at least for a season. There's peace between Israel and the Amorites, another enemy of the people of God. There is a lasting peace that comes with Israel's repentance, which is still the Lord's work. You see it in verse 13, because it says the Philistines are subdued because The hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. So the result of God's hand being against Israel's enemies is that the invasions stop, Israel's cities are restored, Israel's territories are restored, the Amorites are at peace, and there's kind of a ribbon tied around this whole event that started in chapter 4 and is carrying through to today in verse 12. In verse 12, you notice that Samuel sets up a stone so that Israel would remember, that Israel would remember what happened. And what is the name of that stone? The name of that stone is Ebenezer, which means stone of help. And it says the reasoning for naming it is given in verse 12, till now the Lord has helped us. And that really should make us go back to chapter four. And in chapter four, that's where the battle with the Philistines and the Ark begins. And Israel goes out to battle against the Philistines, it says in verse one, and they encamped at a place. And if you look in your Bible, what is the name of that place where Israel's armies first gather, where they face defeat before the Philistines? The name of that place is Ebenezer. Now, there's two things that could be going on. It could be that both of these events are taking place at the same place, or it could be that Samuel is pointing our attention back to that first moment, because how did Israel first interpret their judgment at the hands of the Philistines? What did Phineas' wife name her son when she was dying in childhood? She named him Ichabod. the glory of the Lord has departed. But you can also think of it as there already, God drawing his people to see the nature of their sin. that they would repent, that they would lament before God for these 20 years, that they would put away their false gods, that they would worship the Lord only so that he would deliver them. In both cases, whether it be through the discipline of God or through the victories that God gives, both of them take place at Ebenezer. Both of them are, God is my helper. the stone of my help." In some sense it points us ahead to Hebrews 12 and verse 11 where it says, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. That's what Samuel's saying, I believe, from this text. By repeating Ebenezer in both places, the discipline of God is training them. And for those 20 years, they may have thought it was misery, but God was taking them and training them and preparing them for repentance, that they would be reconciled to him, that he would deliver them, that they would have peace. And Samuel wants the people of God to remember that. And that's part of what we see of Samuel in the last verses. I'm not going to talk about them too much, but you see Samuel as judge, and he goes on this circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah to Ramah. It's not a particularly large circle, but it does tell us something about Samuel as a judge. He is persistent in that he judges Israel all his days. He goes to where the people are. He doesn't wait for the people to come to him, but he goes to them and he reminds them of the work of the God, and he leads them in worship. Samuel's focal point is seen in the altar that he sets up. He desires that Israel would turn from these false gods and worship the one true God. That's the earthly account. That's what happens to Israel. Now, how do we as Christians today, from this earthly event, see a spiritually significant lesson? How do we receive instruction from the things that happen to Israel, particularly as it pertains to our repentance? And so the first thing we do is consider repentance in general, not repentance of Israel, but repentance of the sinner. As Israel puts away their idols, which is a historical event, If you are united to Christ, you will do the same thing, which is the spiritual significance of it. We don't have statues. Usually today there are still places where statues are set up and shrines are set up and so on. Oftentimes in the West, I think it's fair to say that our idols are more in the heart. Our idols are more in terms of things like achievement and power and wealth and possessions and accumulation of possessions and so on. So we should think of ourselves not in terms of physical idols, physical statues, but these spiritually invasive, God-replacing thoughts. Because if we are to draw near to God, something has to be true. It has to be done in obedience to the first commandments, which says, there shall be no other gods before you. and I hinted at this when we were talking about it with Israel, this doctrine sits on a razor's edge. You can easily get this doctrine wrong, and you've seen the church get this doctrine wrong throughout church history. An example of that would be the Merrill Controversy of the 1700s, where there was this big controversy in the Scottish church about this very question, do I need to repent before I can come to God? Well, let's remember the order in 1 Samuel. First, Israel laments, in verse 2. And then they put away their idols, in verse 4. The work of God, which convicts of sin, which causes Israel to lament, comes first, and the fruit of that conviction follows. So, the putting away of sin is a continual process that results from this work that God does in the sinner. Must you repent before you can come to the Lord? I think it's a strange way to ask the question. It's a strange way to ask the question because salvation doesn't begin with you. What does Ephesians 2 verse 1 tell us about where we are? when we are in sin. We are dead in sin and trespass. What does Jesus say to Nicodemus must happen in order for him to inherit the kingdom? It says you must be born again. So, to ask the question as to whether or not our repentance should come before we draw near to the Lord, it's the wrong question to ask, because before anything happens in you, in your relationship with God, God does something in you first. God goes to you first, and when he comes to you, he awakens in you this grief over sin and this desire to change and to walk in his ways. Your faith, your repentance is a gift from God. And because you are dead in sin, it cannot start with you. So so we are repentant. but we are repented in the right order. Our repentance should have included with it a verbal expression of our grief over sin. It should have a physical manifestation in the putting away of the idols and the expressions of grief in our life, but it comes as a gift from God. Lament came first, then the putting away of idols. Conviction over sin comes first, then comes your being made holy. That's the order in the Christian life. And then next, what you see as a Christian is this deliverance that God brings to you. Israel's enemies are defeated. That's a historical event. What is the spiritual equivalent of that historical event? Well, we have to get our thinking straight again, because we tend to think of enemies in terms of nations. That's just how we're wired, or physical opponents. So, for example, as a country, when we think of our enemies, we think of a place maybe like China or North Korea or Russia. Those are the villains in our nation. But those are not your enemies as a Christian. There are people in China and Russia and North Korea who are your brothers. They're not your enemies. There will be people from China and Russia and North Korea with you in heaven for eternity. So those nations are not your enemies. They're not the ones, geopolitically maybe they are our enemies. But when we think of our Christian walk, we don't think of countries, we think of something else. The enemy of the Christian is anything that causes him to be drawn away from the Lord, anything that tempts him to sin. And so your enemy as a Christian, the one that you want God to deliver you from, is the world, the flesh, and the devil. Those are your enemies. And when you come to God in repentance, He most definitely defeats those enemies in your life. The world, not the globe, not the earth, not even what we see around us in terms of landscapes and seas and oceans and all that kind of stuff. No, the world, those in creation who stand opposed to God's people. Those who seek to worship something other than God. That's the world. That's your enemy. Or the devil. He is real. The devil is the spiritual prince of that world. He's the captain of those forces. He's the fallen angel who works at every chance to undermine the Christian, and to accuse the Christian, and to say to your conscience, see, you're not good enough, and to stand before God and say, see, they're not good enough. That's your enemy, and your flesh. See, sometimes we think that the enemy is always out there. It's always other people that are causing us. Well, look at your own heart. What are the temptations of your own heart? Could be a sinful desire, your flesh, which seeks to draw you away after idols, after a spiritual pursuit that replaces God. That's what the enemy does, whether it be the world, the flesh, the devil, something or someone who says to you, did God really say? Or someone who says to you, you can repent later. Or someone who says to you, your sin really isn't that significant. Look what this other person is doing. That other person is way worse than you are. And all of these things are enemies which are seeking to defeat you. And for the Christian, we have the assurance that when we serve only the Lord, that he will defeat our foes. It's part of what Christ does for you as your mediator. It's the particular blessing that we enjoy when Christ is our mediator. He is our prophet. He tells us everything that we need to know. Everything from God is given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He proclaims it. He is our priest. He intercedes for us before the throne of God. He sacrifices himself on the cross to pay the penalty for the guilt of our sin. But he's also our king. He is our King, and as our King, He does several things. He does some things that we might balk against, in the sense of He gives us laws. Christ as King gives us laws, things that we are to follow. He gives us officers to govern His people. He provides for us. That's what He does as King. But our larger catechism, which is a summary of what the Bible teaches, our larger catechism in question answer 45 also points out to us that as king, Christ restrains and conquers all his and our enemies. Christ is your king. His enemies, or your enemies, are his enemies. and His enemies are your enemies. And He conquers them. Galatians 1 Corinthians 15 says of Christ that He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. There is that forward-looking hope in the final defeat of the enemies of Christ, which will be the final defeat of your enemies as well. When Christ is ultimately victorious, he returns in glory, in the splendor of heaven, what will be put away? The devil will be thrown into the lake of fire. The world will be judged and will join him. And he will take your flesh and remove everything that is polluted from it. So that in heaven's glory, it will be impossible for your flesh to tempt you to sin. That's the glory, the work of Christ as your Redeemer. He defeats the world, the flesh, and the devil. And you receive the benefits of that when you are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ, is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Now, sometimes It doesn't maybe seem like that to you, that Christ is defeating our enemies. Maybe the flesh is strong. Maybe you're tempted and you fall. Or maybe the temptations that the world brings are just too much and you fall. Or maybe the devil is successful. He's limited in his tricks, but he's very good at them. And you see yourself falling again because of the devil's temptation. And you say, it doesn't seem like Christ is defeating my enemies. He is king. That's not a possibility. That's an objective reality. So when your circumstance doesn't, when your interpretation of your circumstance doesn't line up with Christ as your king, the problem is not that he is not king. The problem is that you're not trusting in him as king. The hope of the Christian is to see Christ as the victorious king. And so we come not thinking that everything in this life will be easy. But we come with a confidence that when we place our hope only in him, that he delivers us ultimately from the world, the flesh and the devil. And then we have this last part of this earthly account, where Israel is given peace from the attacks of the Philistines, they're given peace in their relationship with their old foes, the Amorites. And we see the spiritual continuation of that as well, where repentance and deliverance give personal peace. There's that great declaration in Romans 5, when Paul is describing the effects of justification. Justification, when we're pardoned for our sin and we're declared righteous in the presence of God. God does that. And the consequence of that is gloriously summarized in Romans 5, 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have what? We have peace with God in our Lord Jesus Christ. The eternal result of repentance for sin and deliverance is this piece. Think about it in your own experience. There are two effects that sin has in your life. If sin is not addressed in your life, there's one of two results that will be taking place. The first one is constant turmoil. What do I mean by that? You are going to see the effects of sin everywhere in your life. Your sinful decisions will have a disruptive effect in your life because sin is destruction. If you are an adulterer, your marriage will fall apart. If you struggle with anger, it will manifest itself in your family and your family won't be a place of peace. If you're dishonest, you'll be fired from your job for theft or fraud or something like that. You will see the turmoil of sin if you do not turn from it. Because it's rebellion against God. And God created the world to be God glorifying, not God demeaning. So sin, even if it seems to have a momentary delight, it always returns to that inner churning. This turmoil where you never have rest. That's what Israel's lamenting is for that 20 years. It's that churning. There's no rest for the people of God. And the second effect of unrepentant sin would be this crushing shame that we can feel. If you acknowledge that you are sinful without going to the Lord with it, If you hold on to that sin of the past, if you hold on to even that big moment that seems to captivate all of your thoughts about your past, if you acknowledge your sin without laying it at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross, you will always carry with you this burden of shame. the knowledge of guilt and sin will result in shame. Now, let me say that shame is a gift if it is properly understood. To have shame for sin is your conscience saying to you, God does not approve. And so in some sense, our shame is a warning, but to have shame and to cling to it rather than confessing it, rather than finding forgiveness in Christ, is not healthy. It will not lead to peace. So you must not only acknowledge your sin, you can't go through your life without acknowledging your sin, but even in acknowledging your sin, you must lay it at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is repentance and deliverance. And when repentance and deliverance happen, you have peace as the result. So the chaos of the time of the judges, in our account here in chapter seven, it's temporarily halted. This is a good news story in Israel, and Israel has lacked good news stories for a long time. They are turning from their idols, they are turning to the Lord, and they're worshiping Him, and they're repenting. The idolatry of the nation is being put away, the enemies of the nations are being defeated, and the central point is in between these two stones, these two Ebenezers, that God has been the help of the people of Israel from point A to point B. So what of you today, my friend? Are your idols put away, the things that are more important to you than God? Have the world and the flesh and the devil been defeated in Christ? Are you crucified with him? Are you declared righteous in the presence of God because the blood of Christ has been applied to you? Does Romans 5 describe you? Do you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? Do not leave these questions aside. Do not say, I will deal with these things later. because God offers peace to you now. Trust in Him. Let Him be your King, that He would defeat all His and your enemies. Let's pray together.