Consider what great things He has done for you." Those are some great words, aren't they? I've thought about this message this week. My prayer has been to believe more and more in the Holy Spirit and that the Lord would bring His Word to us and work in us that these things that were written a long time ago, covering events long, long ago, and as someone said, far, far away, that he would bring them home to us. This is an address by Samuel that is meant to be an address that brings repentance and renewal. And as we gather this day on this Lord's Day, may it be so for us. It is a good time for us to consider the great things the Lord has done for us, and that we might see our need of repentance, and that we might be renewed ourselves. We had a State of the Church meeting the other night, Wednesday night, a time to reflect and consider. We will celebrate at the end of this, toward the end of this year, our 30th anniversary as a church. And so it is a good time for us to reflect, consider the great things that the Lord has done for us, and that he might take the searchlight of his word and bring us to a renewed sense of being God's people and what that really means for us, that he would renew us. as we consider even this passage of Scripture today. And so it is historical, it's a narrative of something that happened a long time ago, but as we know that in God's Word, God speaks to us in the present. He speaks to us right now, today. And may God give us grace that we see ourselves even in the midst of Samuel's address to the Israelites. Verse 1 there says, and Samuel said, and so that ties us to what has gone before. And you remember that it was the deliverance of the Lord of His people when they were under distress. They were being terrorized, we might say, by Nahash, the king of the Ammonites. And the Lord raised up a deliverer in Saul. And so this whole scene here is a time for Israel to take stock, not only of themselves, but of the Lord and the Lord's faithfulness to them. And that's what this address is about. It's called Samuel's Farewell Address. That is not entirely accurate. in that Samuel is not bidding farewell absolutely, because he will remain the prophet and the teacher of his people. But it is the end of an era. It's the end of the era, we might say, of the judges, when God would raise up this one and that one. And Samuel comes on the scene really as a sort of the last of the judges. We might say the first of the prophets. in the sort of first keeping of that promise that God made to Moses that he would raise up another prophet in my name. And we know ultimately that points to the Lord Jesus. But Samuel is that as well. He's the prophet that the Lord has raised up for his people. But this is the beginning of a new era. because Saul has been anointed as king and now the people are in a sort of new day where the deliverer and the prophet is not king, but the Lord has established King Saul. So it is a kind of end of one era, and the beginning of another here in 1 Samuel chapter 12. And it's also a renewal, we might say. In fact, some have looked at this passage as it being a kind of covenant document where the Lord is renewing His covenant with His people. And that covenant would imply what God has done and what God will do. and what the people then are to do in response to that. And that's true even today. We're New Covenant people, but the terms of the covenant really have not changed, as we will see later on. So it is a call, though, to repentance and renewal. And though it does have the flavor of a covenant, it also has the flavor of a trial. Samuel is calling the people together before the King of all. the judge of all the earth who will do right. And he's calling himself as a witness. He's calling the people as a witness. He's calling the Lord himself as a witness. So it has the flavor of a trial here. And that's the way we want to sort of look at it as we divide it up. The first point that I want to make is in these first 15 verses is the Lord through Samuel is making his case. He's in the witness chair, we might say, and he's making his case. He's speaking the truth. He's bringing the evidence. He's laying the facts before them. And the facts call for a verdict. And the verdict will be made first by the people and then by God himself. And secondly, he will commend this trial scene and the truth of it the verdict which will be made with a display of His glory. The Lord will visibly, physically display to the people for His glory. It's kind of a stamp of approval upon what the Lord has said and what the Lord has done. That's my second point. And then the third is also revealed in this address the grace and the mercy and the character of our God, that He is holy, holy, holy, and He is merciful and gracious to His people. And then we'll take a little bit of time to look at the man of grace, the one, the man who has made all of this possible, for his people and for us. Of course, that's the Lord Jesus Christ. So those four things, if you'll just kind of follow along in that way. First of all, through Samuel, the Lord makes his case. We look at these first five verses and notice what Samuel says. He calls our attention, verse four, behold. Whenever we see a behold, as we've said before, that means we're to think about this, we're to look at this, we're to be drawn to this statement that's going to follow. And what Samuel is doing here is really putting himself in the defendant's chair. If you think of a court and the judge and you've got the defendant over here and the prosecution over here. Well, Samuel is presenting himself as God's prophet on the defense. He's in the defendant's chair and he's calling the people to witness. Witness against me. Come bring charges against me, so to speak. And notice what he does. He just lays it out. He said, Behold, the king walks before you, and I'm old and gray, and my sons are with you. Notice, remember that the sons were not faithful. And Samuel's being absolutely transparent here. He's laying himself out. He said, look, you see me. I'm old and gray. My sons are here with you. You know what kind of men they are. And I've walked before you from my youth until this day. No secrets. No secrets. Here I am before you. And he asked the questions, or he begins to say, here I am. Here I am. And he lays himself out, so to speak, and begins to ask this series of questions. Have I, have I, have I. Have I done this? Have I done that? Whose donkey have I taken? Who have I oppressed? And you ought to understand what's going on here. Samuel's going to move. to putting the people in the defense chair, putting the people on charge. And he says to them, the Lord has raised me up as a deliverer, as a prophet, and I want you to see and I want you to make the determination whether or not I have been faithful to that call, and whether the Lord has been faithful in sending me to you as a judge. as a deliverer. And notice the back and forth. Testify against me, verse 3, and I will restore it to you. And then they said, so the jury, so to speak, the people as the jury, sitting in those two rows, we might say, six in the front and six in the rear. And most trials don't work this way, but there's a verdict right there after the testimony. And the verdict is, verse four, you've not defrauded us, you've not oppressed us, You've not taken anything from any man's hand. In other words, you've been faithful. And then he said to them, notice the dialogue, the Lord is witness against you. He's beginning to put them out of the jury box and on the defendant's chair. Here in verse 5, the Lord is witness against you. And his anointed, that is King Saul standing here next to Samuel, and his anointed is witness that you have not found anything in my hand. And they said, he is witness. Okay, so that's the first part of the case is Samuel presenting himself before the people. And the adjudication is not guilty. Not guilty. But Samuel moves on. He's not done with them. And now the table is turned a little bit, and the one who is defendant, the one who's in the chair, is the Lord Himself. Samuel puts the Lord in the defendant's chair. And he says, the Lord is witness. who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt." This is a recurring refrain in the history of Israel, the Lord reminding them of their deliverance. And it's meant to be, in the Old Testament, whenever that comes up, as a New Testament and a New Covenant believer, what are we to think? What was our Egypt? What was our exodus? Well, we were in the land of Egypt. We were in bondage, not to a country, not to a prime minister or a pharaoh. We were in bondage to sin. And it was a bondage that we could not deliver ourselves from. We were in the penitentiary. We were on death row. the verdict had been cast for us, we were on the trial, and we were declared guilty. And the mercy of the Lord was, you will be delivered. And He delivered. So whenever you see in the Old Testament this recurring theme of God's deliverance of His people from Egypt, think, my deliverance. If I'm a Christian, You've been delivered by the power of God, the Spirit of God moving within you, showing you your sin. I'm convicted, it's true, but showing you the great deliverance in the Lord Jesus Christ, pointing you to something that happened over 2,000 years ago and a long, long way away. There is my deliverance at the cross of Jesus Christ. And Samuel's bringing this before the people, how the Lord has been delivering them. He says, now therefore stand still. Okay, they're in the box. Stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that He performed for you and for your fathers. And as we read this, folks, think how much more, how much more we living in these New Covenant days has the Lord brought us every step of the way to where we are even today. You say, well, that was a hard time. Did he deliver? Absolutely. Absolutely. Will he deliver? Absolutely. Absolutely. And so he's working this out, but we want to see this. We want to see it in its context, in its narrative context, but also in the context of ourselves. And he describes the Lord's faithfulness. When Jacob went into Egypt and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord. And the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. But they forgot. They forgot the Lord their God. You ever forget the Lord? Something comes into your pathway, some affliction, some trial, maybe it's some good thing that's come to you and you glory in that good thing and you forget the Lord. You forget that He's the one, He's my life, He's my joy, He's my all. Well, they forgot. And He sold them. hand of affliction, into the hand of Caesara, command of the army of Hazor, takes us back to the time of the judges, command of the army, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, this alternatively the people of God always under oppression from their enemies surrounding them. And they fought against them. They cried out to the Lord and said, we've sinned. They saw that the oppression of the enemies around them, they did not look at second causes, they looked at the first cause. They looked at God Himself. And they said, because we've forsaken the Lord, and because we've served the Baals and the Ashtoreth, these idols that are not able to profit us or deliver us, because we've forsaken them, This has come upon us, but now, verse 10, deliver us out of the hand of our enemies that we may serve you. And what happened? The Lord sent Jerobel and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel. Some of the texts of the Old Testament actually have Samson here. It really doesn't matter. Samuel was the last of the judges, but Samson was one as well. And he sent the judges and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side. And you lived in safety. How good the Lord has been to you, you might have said. How merciful and gracious has He been to you to answer your prayers. That when you call upon the Lord, does He Does He close His eyes? Does He close His ears to your cry? How about it? New Covenant believer. Has the Lord been faithful to you? And you cry out to Him. I think we would all say, yes, yes, He's been faithful. He's been faithful. And you lived in safety. But then verse 12, there's a little change here in verse 12. We want to notice this. It says, And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said, now here, remember that we've just seen in verse, in chapter 11, the first appearance of Nahash the Ammonite. But this verse actually takes us back a bit into chapter 8, when the people asked for a king. And it reminds us that what is probably true is that Nahash the Ammonite has been terrorizing the people, the eastern tribes, east of the Jordan, for some time now. and that the incident with Jabesh Gilead was kind of the climax of that where he laid siege upon the last remnants, perhaps, of the armies of the Eastern tribes. We talked about that a little bit last week. But so that brings us then to verse 12. When you saw that Nahash, contemporary problem, not something in the past, not Egypt, not in the time of the other judges, but now, just recently, you saw that Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, came against you and you said to me, no. In other words, you didn't say, let's pray to the Lord for deliverance. Let's ask the Lord. Let's plead with the Lord to send us a deliverer. You said to the Lord God Almighty, no. Can you imagine that? But you know what? Is it not true? New Covenant believer in Jesus Christ, that when He speaks to us in His Word, do we often say, no, no, I won't do that. I won't obey you here. I won't serve you here. I won't believe you here. This is a different situation. You don't know what's happening to me. You don't know what's around me. This is new, Lord. Your promises, they're not yea and amen and Christ for me. No! No! That's what they said. They said, really, in essence, they're saying, you are not enough for me. You're not enough for me. Is God enough for you? Is the Lord Jesus Christ enough for you? Are His promises for you and enough? Some of you are not believers. You've sat under the Word of God and you've heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You've heard it again and again. I'm not going to say anything today that really is any different than what's been said before. The Lord Jesus has come into the world to save sinners absolutely from their sins. And that if you will turn to Him and put your trust and your faith in Him, He will deliver you. He will deliver you from the wrath to come, and He will be your guard and your guide and your keeper all the days of your life. And He will bring good into your life that you have never experienced before. What will be your answer today? Will it be, no, no. I will not have Him. I will not have Him. Listen, the Word of God is witness today, and it is witness against you. Come to Jesus Christ, merciful, faithful, good Savior. Put your hope in Him. Lay yourselves at His feet. and say to Him, Lord, I cannot save myself. I am distracted. I'm disobedient. I'm willful. I'm selfish. I'm angry. I'm bitter. Whatever it is, you lay yourself at the foot of the cross and say, Lord, save me. Deliver me. Whatever the situation might be. Come to Jesus Christ. Don't say no anymore. And for you who believe on Him, if you've said no, He's merciful. We will see in this story today of the Lord's grace to those who say no. His mercy is to those who say no. And He breaks their hearts over that no, and He grants them repentance and faith. And He begins that process all over again. Isn't this wonderful? If you will confess your sins before the Lord, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Listen, that's a verse for a believer. That's John 1, it's talking to the believer. It's talking to the one who's put his faith in Jesus Christ and who's walking in the light and yet, as we all know, sins. And he says no to God. He says, if you will confess it before me, I will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. And we'll see why he does that. And so Samuel's making his case. You have asked, and the Lord has set a king over you. And notice again, verse 13, and now behold. Again, behold tells us, check this out. This is something to give your attention to, look and see a new era The Lord, even though you said no to him, what the Lord has done is set a king. He's done exactly what you have asked him to do. He has set a king over you. And he's not going to go back on that. If the people repent and say, which they will say, no, no, we did wrong. God's not going to say, OK, we'll take the king away. No, this is a new era. This is a new time. It was actually a promise of God back in the book of Deuteronomy that he was going to install a king over them. The people sort of preempted that promise in their sin, and God did it early, we might say, in their sin. The Lord has set a king over you. So Samuel is now going to renew the covenant in its different form now in that there is a king, but he's calling the people now to a renewed faithfulness, a new repentance, so to speak, a new renewal in this new situation. And these words, again, they come to us, don't they? Now behold the king you've chosen for whom you've asked. Behold the Lord has sent a king over here. Verse 14, here's the new situation, which is really an old situation. If you will fear the Lord, and serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord. And if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. But if you will 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 your king. New situation, old words. We're New Covenant believers, right? Saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are the terms of this New Covenant really any different? What does the Lord call His people to? Well, it's right here. He calls us, as His people, to fear Him, That means we see Him as God over all, God Almighty who delivers, who does everything according to His will. And He says, if you'll fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice and not rebel, it will be well with you. We are again in this New Covenant age. It's the age some theologians call the age of the Spirit. In a sense, the terms here are exactly the same. They're exactly the same. but the Lord, in His mercy, in sending the Lord Jesus Christ, raising Him from the dead, and Jesus Christ has now, on this day, I'm told, historically, the day of Pentecost, He has sent His Spirit into the world, that these requirements of this old covenant made with Israel might be fulfilled in us. In us. For us, in the Lord Jesus Christ and in us by His Spirit. Romans chapter 8 and verse 4 that we looked at this morning. For God did what the law could not do in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. In order that the righteous requirements of the law, what are those? Fear Him. serve Him, obey Him, not rebel against Him, in order that the righteous requirements of His law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, as we did before, but according to the Spirit. How much more? How much more does His Word then come to us? You see why I say that this day is really a day of repentance and renewal. Where do we stand? Do we fear Him? Do we serve Him? When we look at His Word and He says, I want you to do this, do we do that? Do we love our neighbor? Do we forgive trespasses that are against us? that we might be forgiven of our own trespasses? Do we seek to honor and serve the body of Christ, local? Do we hunger and thirst after God's righteousness that we might be filled? Is it our desire to be filled more and more and more with the Holy Spirit? that we might live out before the testimony of the world, the watching world around us, that God is great and glorious. He sits upon His throne in heaven and we worship Him. We give our lives to Him. How much more we who hear these words today. Will you repent? Will you? Will you come to His Word and say, Yes, all of this is true for me, but this day, by God's grace, by the Spirit's power, I want to follow you. I want to follow you. This is a day of renewal. Now Samuel does not wait for a response. Here, this is important. He's given them these terms, and as this narrative has gone on, it's been a sort of give and take, hasn't it? He'll say something, and they'll say, we'll do it. He doesn't wait on it. He doesn't wait for them. Immediately after these terms, so to speak, that he gives them, He wants them to understand who it is that's talking to them. Who it is that's really on the throne. And that's true right now today. This is not a man speaking to you. This is the Lord God Almighty who speaks through a man who opens up God's Word. And He says, now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord that he may send thunder and rain." We need to understand a little something here. First of all, he said, this is a great thing. that he's about to do. In other words, this is something unexpected. You have to know a little something about the planting and harvesting cycle of the Jews, but the wheat harvest was right about this time of year in Israel. There were the early rains that watered the earth and made it soft and pliable for the seed to go in. That's happened in the months before, but now the wheat has grown up and it's time to be harvested. And it's harvested during the dry season. And in fact, rain now particularly thunderstorm type rain, like we've had the last couple of days, would be disaster to a crop. I went out this morning, I looked at the little flowers in the front bed in our home, and they were all sort of beat down. We're going to pray that they'll stand up, right? But they were beat down today by that hard rain. And what the Lord is sending in the wheat harvest, when the people need it not to rain, it needs to be dry so that we can gather our harvest up, the Lord sends thunder and rain down upon it. This is not showers of blessing. This is judgment. on the Lord. This is the hand of the Lord who says, I am able to destroy in a moment. That's what He's doing. Again, if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, you don't have refuge. There's not a covering. You can't get out from under the thunder and the rain. The Lord is judge. He's holy, holy, holy. And you are not. And He's been merciful to send a great Savior. But He is also just. And He will send the thunder and the rain. We know that in His Word. He tells us about this coming day, the day of the Lord, which will not be a day of mercy. It will be a day of judgment. And this is what Samuel, the Lord and Samuel, is working out before the people. I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain, and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, and asking for yourselves a king." So Samuel, notice the immediacy. He doesn't wait for a reply. He doesn't wait for them to say, oh, no, no, no. He does it. So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Thunder and rain. In other words, he sent judgment. He sent a temporal judgment upon the people for their wheat harvest. Now we do not know if that wheat harvest was destroyed absolutely. We don't know. But there was destruction on that day. It was destruction for their livelihoods and for their way of life, and the Lord sent it. It was a message. It was a visible reminder that though you have wanted a king, I'm the true king. I live, I reign over all things, everything is in my hands. Who are you to say no to me? What foolishness is that to say no to me? Because I am king over all." That's what he's saying here. Now, lest we think, well, that's that Old Testament stuff. That's the Lord And then he sent the rain and thunder and rain to the wheat harvest, but he doesn't do that kind of thing anymore. Does he? Does he not? We need to understand, we need to begin to see life through God's way of looking. It used to be that our insurance policies would have a little proviso at the bottom of them that would talk about acts of God. You remember that? Perhaps if you're young, you don't look at insurance policies very much, but that language, for the most part, has been deleted. Because now, we don't believe in acts of God. We think, well, it's just the environment or it's just this or the winds or something. It's all just sort of abstract and haphazard and, you know, things just happen. And, you know, we're strong. We're going to come back and we're going to do this and we're going to do that. It's, you know, after all, we're God. We're king. We're king over the world and over our lives. And, you know, it doesn't really matter because we can suffice. We can rebuild. And the Lord is able to destroy in a moment. We all know back in the fall this deadly hurricane that swept into the Gulf Coast of Florida. And it wasn't the first time, was it, that we've had hurricanes or tornadoes or these visible displays, these so-called natural disasters. Folks, they're not natural disasters. They come from the hand of God, and they are meant to remind us that He is God and no one else is, and that we need to live in submission and fear and service of this God. Every time something like that happens, what it is meant to do is to cause us to look up. is to cause us to look away from all of our supposed strength, all of our supposed wealth, all of our supposed intellect, all of our supposed plans and imaginations, and to look at Him and say, Have mercy. Have mercy upon us. You who hold heaven and earth together, you who sustain the world by the word of your power, that's what these things are meant to do. Because the Bible tells us that He is the one who is in charge. And you say, well, where do we see that? Well, look at the book of Job, for example, when the Lord brought Job to task and he began to speak to Job of these sort of natural occurrences. Job chapter 38 and verse 22, I'm just going to read this quickly. Verse 22 says this, God is speaking to Job, Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, which I have reserved for the time of trouble? Hail comes out of my storehouse. It's not a natural occurrence. It's what I have determined for the day of battle and war. What is the way to the place where the light is distributed or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth? Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt? Where does that come from? to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man. Does it actually rain in the desert if no one is there? Yes, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, to make the ground sprout with grass. Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? Where do they come from? From whose womb did the ice come forth? And who's given birth to the frost of heaven? The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. Let's get down to verse 34. Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, here we are? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? Turn over to chapter 40 and verse 10. And this might have a particular significance for some. The Lord says to Job, adorn yourself with majesty and dignity, clothe yourself with glory and splendor. I think he's being a little facetious there. Pour out the overflowings of your anger. Look on everyone who is proud and abase. He was actually speaking to the Lord there. My apologies. Look on everyone who is proud and abase him. Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked. where they stand. All of these natural occurrences, they all come from the hand of God. And they are meant to check us. They are meant to warn us. In our defiance, in our carelessness, and in our distraction, they are wake-up calls sent from this merciful God who desires all men to repent. That's his desire. We know that from the rest of the chapter. And then we see the response of the people. 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 this evil to ask for ourselves a king. I think they got it. I think they got it. You know, remember before in chapter 8, Samuel argued with them. They were adamant. They said, no, no, no. We'll have a king. We're going to have a king. And they argued with Samuel. Notice, there's no argument here. They got it. They understood. We have done evil. That really is a great place to be spiritually. You know, we spend a lot of our time, don't we, including myself, we spend a lot of our time and a lot of our energy defending ourselves. We defend ourselves before each other. Maybe our wife or child or son or husband or something calls us on something and we defend. Well, no, no, no, no, I didn't do that. Wasn't thinking that. But really, it's a great place to be to just confess. Just to say, yeah, I did it. This is me. This is my heart. I have a heart of pride. I have a heart that wants to go my own way. I don't want to obey the Lord all the time. I don't want to be kind to you. I don't want to be merciful to you. I don't want to be forgiving to you. I want to hold on to this grudge or bitterness or whatever it might be against you and of the Lord. But the sweet, sweet place to be is before the Lord, low. It's counterintuitive. I know it is. to say to the Lord, Lord, you are right, I'm wrong, and lower myself before the Lord. That's supernatural. That's grace. We know that. But I just want to tell you, that is a glorious, sweet place to be, to know you're a sinner. to know that you have sinned in a particular instance and lay yourself out before the Lord and even before others, it's a wonderful place to be. It really is. And we know that because what does Samuel say to them? Verse 20, Samuel said to the people, don't be afraid. It's like he's saying, this is where I've been really trying to get you for a long, long time, and now you're here, so don't be afraid. You're in a great spot. You're in the place where you, as a created human being, is to be before the Lord of glory. And that's low. That's low. To humble yourself, to admit your sin, to confess it before the Lord, to let His searchlight, so to speak, look into all the nooks and crannies of your life and your heart, and to expose them before Himself and you, and eventually others, it's a great place to be. Because the Lord Himself says, don't be afraid. Listen, there has never been a human being who has come into the presence of God confessing his sin that the Lord has said, I'm not going to listen to you. That's the place that He is moving heaven and earth, we might say, to get us there. Don't be afraid. Don't you love those words? When you confess your sin to the Lord and He says, Don't be afraid, my child. You're in a good spot right here. Why don't you stay there for a little while? Why don't you stay in that low place and confess and confess and confess? It's a wonderful place to be, isn't it? Those of you who know something of that, You can testify, can't you? I'm not gonna get you to raise your hand or stand up, but I think I could call on you to say, is that not a good place to be? And the people of God would say, amen. Lowliness before the Lord, it's wonderful. Do not be afraid. And then notice what he says. You have done all this evil. The Lord is so, he's so perfect, isn't he? You know, we confess it, and he goes, yeah, I know. I know, you've done it. I saw it, you did it. You have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. I think this brings up something else that's sometimes a part of our confession, perhaps, or our seeing our sin, is that we like to wallow in it. We like to wallow in the guilt. All guilt, no repentance. The Lord does not show us our sin in order for us to wallow in it. He shows us our sin in order that we might take it to the cross of Jesus Christ and be forgiven. be forgiven and get up off those scraggly knees of ours and serve Him with all of our hearts. That's the purpose, you see. A lot of times we, you know, we get convicted and we're just going to stay there. Oh, woe is me. Oh, woe is me. There's a bit of pride in that. It is as though we could say, yeah, I sinned and that's not in my character. Yeah, it is. That's who we are. We're sinners. Why not admit it? And why not have the mercy of God in forgiveness and in new walk before the Lord? Having your conscience cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and go to Him, you see. Notice what the Lord says. Don't turn aside from following the Lord. His way is the path of repentance. It's confession and repentance and what? Serving Him. Getting up off your knees and following Him. That's the way. Serve the Lord with all your heart. A cleansed heart. A renewed heart. A forgiven heart. A transformed heart. And serve Him. with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things. That's repentance, isn't it? When you sinned, that's what you were doing. You were following after some invented way that you have made in your mind. You've said, this is right. This is what I'm going to do. You've turned. And what has it done? Did you get really something out of it? Did it profit you? Did it deliver you? No. No. No. He did, though. They are empty. They are empty. You follow after the idols of this world, or the idols of the heart, as Ezekiel describes them. Will they profit you? Will they deliver you? Ask you, unbeliever, do you have a deliverer? And what profit has it been to you to follow after the idols of your own heart? Nothing. They're empty. And then look at the great promise. The Lord will not forsake His people. This is the grace and the character of God. Why is it that God does not reject His people when they confess their sins and then repent? It is for His great name's sake. that we might live as repenters and believers and followers after God because it brings Him glory. That's what it's all about, really. To be a Christian has great benefits for me, but it's the Lord's glory that is at stake. And the Lord does not forsake His people. Why? Because He's attached His name to them. And it's for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for Himself. This is wonderful. This is the covenant that God has made with us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's been pleased to make us, every one of us who are a believer in Jesus Christ and who is a member of this local assembly, He has been pleased to make you a people for Him. And He says, now go on and Do your business. Serve the Lord. Fear the Lord. Obey the Lord. Go out from this place renewed and a repentant people and say, no more will I follow after the idols that so entice me from the world and to be a people for himself. See what he does. And then finally, the man of grace. First, of course, it's Samuel. Notice verse 23, Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you. Samuel's going to be a faithful warrior. Samuel's not going to... Think about this. These people have rejected him. In their rejection of the Lord, and they're asking for a king, they've actually rejected Samuel, who the Lord appointed as a judge over them. But Samuel is committed to the Lord himself, and it's because of the Lord that Samuel is going to be the man that God has called him to be. Far be it from me that I should sin against, not you, the Lord, by ceasing to pray for you. And I will instruct you in the good and the right way." Where have we heard kind of those words before? Acts chapter 6, remember the elders, there was a problem in the church and they appointed the deacons and the elders said, our call is to prayer, and the ministry of the Word. That's the call of the under-shepherd, to pray for the people, to intercede for them, the throne of grace, and to preach and teach the Word of God. It's as relevant as this morning, to pray and to instruct in the good and the right way. Now, we said that that's a man of grace. That is a man of grace. man who knows where what his calling is and where his place is in the world of things. But let's go a little higher than that. Who is the real man of grace? It's the Lord Jesus Christ, who in his own person was a prayerful man, a believing man, an instructing man, a teaching man, and even now, seated upon the throne of heaven, the Bible tells us that He intercedes for all of His people. When you stumble and you fall and you feel like you're out of the way, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has purchased you by His own blood, is praying for you. He is interceding for you. And when you cry out with these prayers that you don't know even what to say, the Spirit helps in our weakness. because He intercedes for us. And He's not failed, has He, to open His Word to us, to continue to instruct and to teach us. You see, He's the Lord of the church, right? He's the King of the church. It's not me, it's not any of these other elders, it's Him. So anything that happens that is good, we know it comes from Him. When He opens the Word, it's Him, it's Him, it's Him. when we find strength in our trials and when we repent and confess our sin, when we find strength in Him to go on, when we see the afflictions as from His hand in order to conform us and shape us to the glorious image of Christ. It's Him. It's Him. All through the Christian life, it's Him, Him, Him. And that's His desires, that we see that, we come to Him, we bow before Him, and know that He is faithful. He is faithful. So repent, believe, turn from the empty things, fear, serve, and obey Him. come out from the cold, so to speak, come out from the periphery and come in to the Lord's house and His place, the great shepherd of the sheep. And may God give us grace that we consider the great things that He has done for us. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your grace and your mercy. Thank you for your Word that speaks to us. It's as relevant to us, Lord, as today. Would you grant us the grace to see ourselves in the light of your Word? Would You grant us grace to believe You, to repent of our sins and not wallow in them, but take them to the throne, take them to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, where grace and mercy is enthroned forever and ever and ever. Help those, Lord, who do not yet believe. Whatever reason, whatever the distraction, the discouragement, the fear, the pride, whatever it is, Lord, sweep it away. by your mercy and grace, that they may call upon the name of the Lord, and be answered, and be delivered, and be greatly profited, the abundance of life that there is in Jesus Christ. And help us, O Lord, as your people, to follow after you, and serve you, and obey you, and not rebel against your commandment. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.