The Divine Leadership Transition: Lessons from Saul's Anointing

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

All right, let's go ahead and get right into our Bible study here tonight.

We're in First Samuel, Chapter 12.

First Samuel, Chapter 12.

You can turn there with me.

And where we left off last time was Saul.

And the people of Israel had this amazing victory over the Ammonites.

And if you remember, there was an individual named Nahash who was a type of Satan.

Nahash, his name even means the serpent.

And we see Nahash coming in, and he tempts the people there in Israel to make a compromise.

And they offered that compromise, and they were about to give into that compromise until the Lord brought Saul around for leadership and for strengthening.

And they stood up against the enemy.

And through that, God gave them the victory.

So at that point in time, Saul had already been anointed king, the first king of Israel.

But really it was through that victory and through a culmination that happened after that that he would be coordinated.

And the people were calling out to Saul, giving him honor and glory.

And really, through Saul's godly leadership.

And the Bible mentions that in that specific instance, he was led by the Spirit of God.

But through that godly leadership, the people were driven to worship God.

And really, through the life of Saul, we really see what we would call a dichotomy.

One side of the coin.

He follows the Lord, and there's great blessing on the other side.

He follows his flesh, and he follows darkness and sin.

And obviously, there's difficulty and danger and destruction with that.

And so starting in chapter 12, Samuel, you guys know Samuel.

He's the.

The longtime prophet.

And we even see in First Samuel, he's a judge there for the people of Israel.

And.

And he had been essentially the leader.

Even though God was the king there.

There was something called a theocracy at that point that God was the king.

But really God was using Samuel as the figurehead, as the man to lead the people.

And so basically, there's a passing of the torch from Samuel to Saul.

And Samuel is giving some honest advice.

He's giving biblical guidance to the people of Israel to how they should follow God as they are in the new way of thinking, with Saul being the king, because the temptation for the people would keep their eyes only on Saul as their king and as their guide and as their everything.

But here, what we're going to see is that Samuel is explaining to the people of Israel that even though Saul is your leader, you should still keep your eyes ultimately on the Lord.

And that goes for all of us.

And I think that this is a lesson that all of us can take with us, is that there is going to be an opportunity for us in our life to have people over us in levels of leadership.

That just happens.

All of us have folks that lead us, and there's nothing wrong with that.

What does come to be an issue in our lives is if we look at those leaders as the final authority on everything, if we look to someone as the object of our worship.

And oftentimes we even see situations where a leader, a man can or a woman could be an object of someone's worship and they could eventually leave the proper worship that should be for the Lord and appropriated upon someone who should not receive that worship.

And so Samuel is explaining his testimony.

We're going to see a little bit about Samuel's character and his integrity here.

He's going to talk about how he tried to lead them according to the word of God, which he did.

And then he's going to remind them of some things that they need to think about when there is a passing of a torch.

He says, these are some things that you need to think about as you're in this new situation of having a king.

And I think it's a good picture for all of us to learn about how we should see transition of leadership and how we should follow under man's leadership.

And so verse one, Samuel says here, and Samuel said unto all of Israel, behold, I have hearkened unto your voice and all that you have said unto me and have made a king over you.

So Samuel reminds Israel that really this situation that is happening is because you asked for it.

We'll see a theme in the book of First Samuel that there's a lot of reminding of the people of Israel.

That is their decision that got them to this place.

They wanted a king, they desired a king.

And so what Samuel is telling them is this.

He says, look, what you find yourself in now is a decision that you have made.

God has allowed it and God has worked through it.

But this is certainly a decision that you have made.

And that's a lesson for all of us.

We make decisions in our life and we have to understand that the outcome of those decisions is, is not something that we can blame on God, it's not something that we can blame on somebody else.

I think a lot of times what happens is that we see something that we do or that we decide.

But yet, at least for me, in my own flesh, I want to blame somebody else.

I want to deflect the blame.

I want to deflect the responsibility.

And what Samuel is saying is, the responsibility of the situation that you're in is because of your decisions.

So verse number two, he says, and now behold, the king walketh before you.

He says, so say, look, here is Saul, this is your king.

He says, and I am old and gray headed.

So essentially what Samuel is saying is my time has passed, I'm at the very end and now I'm coaching you, I'm teaching you, I'm discipling you how to follow a new leader.

So he says, I'm old and gray headed, and behold, my sons are with you.

Now that's interesting that he says, my sons are with you.

Because if you remember back, Samuel's sons were not godly.

And so really Samuel's son should have been the ones that were leading.

But now he says, they're with you.

Meaning Samuel made the right decision by demoting his sons to the level of just every other person.

Because what typically happened in the Bible is that individuals would promote their children no matter what the case was, no matter what their spirituality was.

We saw that with Eli.

Remember, Eli had his sons there and they should not have been there.

So Samuel was aware of the sins of his sons.

And we can see that in, in other cases earlier on in First Samuel.

And that's, I think, First Samuel 8 and he reminds the people that, hey, I did the right thing by taking my sons out of leadership and making them just the average everyday person because of their sins that they committed.

And I think that's a good sense of integrity and character in the life of Samuel because he didn't allow his personal inclinations to get in the way of his decision making.

And that's a note of Samuel's integrity.

And so he says then, and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day.

And we know Samuel, we saw Samuel before he was even born.

Remember, his mom, Hannah had prayed for him.

And so from the very beginning, Samuel had been serving the Lord and serving the people of the Lord.

And that just shows Samuel's faithfulness.

And we even look at First Corinthians.

And First Corinthians tells us that a steward, a servant of God should be found faithful.

And so Samuel was a faithful leader.

And so he's reminding them of God's faithfulness.

He's reminding them of his faithfulness.

And verse three says, behold here I am, witness against me before the Lord, meaning this, if there's anything that I have done wrong that maybe I don't even know about, maybe I've offended you, being unawares and I, I didn't know that something that I said or something that I did offended you.

He says, if I have done anything, if I have done anything against you before the Lord, he says, and before his anointed, whose ox have I taken?

Or whose ass have I taken?

Or whom I have defrauded?

Whom I have oppressed?

Of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith, and I will restore it to you.

Now the idea would be this, that Samuel is a man who has lived blamelessly, so he knows that none of this can come back on him.

But what he's showing is transparency, authenticity.

He's saying this, I'm not above you calling me out.

I'm not too good, I'm not too prideful.

I'm not identifying myself as someone who is perfect.

And we see really the characteristics of a strong leader here in the life of Samuel.

He's authentic.

He says, hey, if I've done anything, even though he knows probably that he didn't do any of these sins, he says, if I've even accidentally offended you or come across in a certain way, I want to restore that right now.

And I think that's a great testimony of Samuel and his leadership.

Because really if a leader gets up and says, you can't question me, I'm not wrong, I, I, I'm the one that's always in the right.

That's an indication that that person is not in the place of being a godly leader.

Every leader should be willing to be inspected.

Now, there is a little bit of difficulty when there's different types of criticism.

And, and just as much as a person should be open for criticism, so should the people criticizing understand that it should be constructive criticism and not destructive criticism.

And so it's a two way street on this.

But what Samuel is saying is this, just as he's open for this type of inspection, so everyone should be.

And that's, that's really the life.

Verse 3 is the life of every Christian, if you know, and I've even counseled people to do this, and even I've done this myself.

Even if I perceive something that is not going well with a relationship, even if I didn't know what I did.

I might come up to someone and say, is there anything that I said?

Maybe you took it the wrong way.

Maybe I came across a certain way.

And the reality is, is that there might be a time where we need to admit and restore.

And there's a beautiful picture of that in the New Testament, Matthew chapter 18.

And that talks about the confrontation that Christians should have.

And really, with confirmation, with all of what God has said, we do find restoration can happen.

And so that's what he's talking about here.

He's just talking about this idea of transparency.

Now, we would hope that Saul would follow this example, because no doubt Saul is hearing this, and Saul is around this teaching.

And later on, we know that Saul gets to a place in his life where he's not open for inspection, he's not open for criticism, and actually he gets upset to the place where nobody can come against him.

And so Saul is not a picture of what Samuel is describing here.

Then we get to verse number four, and they said, thou hast not defrauded us.

So this is the testimony of the people back.

They say, no, you've never defrauded us, nor oppressed us, nor neither hast thou taken out of any man's hand.

So again, this is a picture of a leader being what we call blameless in the New Testament and First Timothy, chapter three.

It speaks of one of the character traits that should be possessed by a pastor or a leader of the church.

And really one of those things is called being blameless.

It doesn't mean sinless, by the way, because no one ever could be qualified for any position if it means sinless.

And no doubt Samuel had sin in his life.

We know that he is not perfect because we know that there is none good, no, not one, in.

In the fact that all of us have sinned.

And so they're not saying here that Samuel never sinned, but what they're saying is, is that he's blameless.

And really the.

The literal term there, blameless means that nothing can stick.

I mean, people can accuse you of things, people can say things about you, but because of your public testimony, there's nothing that is going to stick to you when it comes to the negativity and, and that sin nature that all of us have.

It's not going to be a character trait in that person's life.

And so they say they're no, you're not blameless.

Verse 5.

And he said unto them, the Lord is witness against you and his anointed is witness this day that ye have not found ought in my hand.

And they answered, he is witness.

And so essentially the end of verse 5, all Samuel is doing is just confirming that, that before the Lord there's nothing in the midst of a problem.

And really this is, this should be something that all leaders should do as they are transitioning out.

There should be restoration before the new man comes in.

And that's really the struggle.

Sometimes leaders leave a mess.

And the reality is, is that the next guy comes in and finds out all the problems that might be there.

And what Samuel is doing here is she's.

He's, to the best of his ability, trying to leave a clean slate for Saul to walk into.

And so if Israel were to later accuse Samuel, something wrong.

So, for example, once Saul takes office, so to speak, as a king, and they come up and they say, hey, King Saul, you know what Samuel did?

Samuel did this, this, this, this, and this, then they're able to go back and say, no, you confirmed on that day that there was nothing that you had against Samuel.

And so if Israel ever tried to blame Saul for the problems that he's has in his life on Samuel, they would not be able to because Samuel had that blameless testimony.

Now Saul's gonna have a lot to blame about his life, but he can't look to the people and say, well, it was all Samuel's fault.

He left this for me.

So again, Samuel is showing us what it means to be a good leader.

And now he's going to leave them with some advice.

And I think that these are some things that we can take with us as we walk about our Christian life.

And when we look at people that are leading us and their checks really within our Christian walk to the lord.

So verse 6.

And Samuel said unto the people, it is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

So what is he doing here?

He's reminding them of God's provision and deliverance in their past.

So I think it is good to note that when we're walking in our Christian life, we do need to recount the past of what God has done for us before, and not just for us, but for the generations that came before us and ultimately for the generations to follow, because that's really what Samuel's doing here.

Samuel is preparing the next generation to live for the Lord.

And so the next generation is not going to know these things.

And so there's this reminder here to make sure that we tell people that are coming up in the ranks, so to speak, that they should remember what God has done in the past.

And that's what we should do for the next generation if, if God allows.

And if God tarries, there's going to be people that are in this church that are serving the Lord, that are, are coming up and becoming ad, finding opportunities for leadership.

And they might not know what happened here at this church through way of testimony 30, 40, 50 years ago.

And how are they going to know about that?

Well, they're not going to know about it by reading the history book.

How they're going to find out about that is for this generation that's experiencing the blessings to pass along the truths of God to them.

And so that's why the Bible is so, so emphatic even in the Old Testament and the New, that each generation should remind the next generation of the faithfulness of God.

And that's what he's saying here.

He says, don't you guys remember that God, he was the one that delivered us through the leadership of Moses and Aaron and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt.

Now here's what they don't do.

Samuel does not tell the people, remember how blessed and holy Moses and Aaron were because that would be man worship, that would be man focused.

He reminds them that it was the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron.

So there's a recognition of God's power through individuals.

Verse 7.

Now therefore, stand still.

So there's a remembrance of the power of God, there's the remembrance of God's goodness.

But then there's also a challenge to stand still and rest and wait and hear this.

And so he says, stand still that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord which he did to you and to your fathers.

So he basically says this, sit down and listen because I'm about to give you the history.

I'm about to give you all the blessings that God has done for you and your fathers.

Verse 8.

When Jacob was come into Egypt and your fathers cried unto the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.

And when they forgot the Lord.

And so he doesn't just tell them all the good, he, he tells them all the good about God, but he reminds them of their flaws as well.

And I think we need to be reminded of our shortcomings a lot of times.

We see, I'm gonna identify myself here.

I see my past is through rose colored glasses like Everything was good back then.

The good old days.

I remember back when I first started teaching at a Christian school, and there was a lot of problems.

There was a lot of.

Just like, I didn't know what I was doing.

I was.

I was overwhelmed.

But now I look back on, I'm like, man, that was such a smooth time of my life.

It was such a simple time of my life.

But in that moment, it wasn't.

I mean, I was relying on God in every step.

And oftentimes we can do that.

We can look back in our past and we can say, well, everything was so easy.

God was always there.

I never doubted.

But he reminds them here in verse nine, he says, and when they forgot the Lord their God, meaning there was a time, and not just one time, multiple times, which the people of Israel forgot their Lord.

And it says, he sold them into the hand of Cicero, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the King of Moab.

And they fought against them.

Meaning there were times not only when God blessed you in deliverance, but there was also times when God disciplined you and allowed you to go into bondage for certain periods of time to teach you a lesson.

And I think that just as much as we teach our next generation, our children about all the blessings that God has given us, we also should teach them about the lessons that we have learned in our own failures.

And I think that that's one thing that I sometimes struggle with, is I want to tell my children all the good things that God has done that's completely natural and great, but at the same time, am I willing to share with my children, the next generation, all the problems that I had and the mistakes that I made and the lessons I had to learn the hard way so that they don't have to learn it the hard way.

There's a common teaching out there that says, well, everyone's got to learn it the hard way.

Well, not necessarily.

We're all going to go through hardships on our own, and we're all going to find our new hardships.

But we should not just resign to the fact that the next generation has to go through the same problems we've gone through.

Actually, that's why we've gone through those problems, so we can try to protect, to the best of our ability, the same mistakes from happening.

That's why God always reminded the people of Israel of those same mistakes that they were making.

And it was cyclical.

Look at.

Read the Book of Judges.

Okay?

If you, if you've never read through the Book of Judges and saw that vicious cycle that happened with the people of Israel, you see that they weren't learning their lessons and God would condemn them for that.

And so, folks, we need to learn our lessons so that we can teach the lessons to the next generation.

And that's exactly what he's saying here.

So he points out their failures, but not only their failures, but also the discipline that came along with it.

Verse 10.

And they cried unto the Lord, so he doesn't leave them without hope.

He says, and they cried unto the Lord and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served Balaam and Ashtaroth.

But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies and we will serve thee.

So he reminds the people how they got out of the problems that they had.

The problem that they had was sin and rebellion.

And we see what their problem was there.

They admitted to serving Balaam.

That's baal.

He has know who BAAL is.

He was one of the more popular false gods and Ashtaroth, both were pagan gods who had terrible practices that people would practice along with them and everything from, you know, all measures of debauchery and child sacrifice that would all come along with these false gods.

And so he mentions in verse 10 how they got back on track.

It wasn't that they worked hard, it wasn't that they just fought harder.

It was this.

They cried unto the Lord with humility and said, we have sinned.

That's repentance and confession because we have forsaken the Lord.

That's an admission of their faults.

It's a mission of their sin.

And they, they named their sins.

We worship baal, we worship Ashtaroth.

And then it was a plea for the Lord to deliver them out of the hand of their enemies.

And then a promise, a commitment to serve him right then I think, I think verse 10 is a great summary of how we can even teach people today how to get out of a life of pain and a life of discipline and a life of feeling like God is against them.

Because really God's not against his people.

God's allowing us to go through situations because of our poor decisions.

But it's when we humbly submit ourselves to him and confess our sins and commit ourselves to the mighty works of God and admit our failures and admit that we need his mercy and his grace and commit to serving Him.

That's when God allows us to find that renewal and that restoration.

And we often hear about revival that should happen in America, revival that should happen within the churches.

Folks, if you want to see revival, let's follow verse number 10.

Because verse number 10 really shows us that we have to admit that the problems that we are in are not because of God, but they're because of our own decisions.

Now, oftentimes we go through other physical problems that are not our fault.

I'm not.

I'm not saying that every single physical struggle that you go through is because of sin.

The Bible teaches us that that's not true.

Even though some decisions can lead to physical struggles.

I'm not talking about that, but I am talking about bad decisions that we make in rebellion to God that leads us to a place of disciplining from God.

And really, if we're Christians, we should understand that even though it doesn't sound right, that discipline is a good thing.

Because the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that God disciplines his children.

God takes care of his own.

And taking care of his children means sometimes we have to learn the hard lessons.

If.

If we're not part of the family of God, he's going to let his.

His people that are rebelling against him just keep that light.

And that's exactly what we see happening in the Old Testament and the New.

But there is that call for deliverance.

There's that call for revival.

So verse number 11, and the Lord sent Jerubaal.

So what the Bible says here, basically in verse number 11, is that when they called out to God, he did his work, but he sent individuals to lead in those times.

And so God always works.

God is always powerful.

And many times God uses individuals for his purposes.

And that's what he says here.

So there's this guy named Jale.

If you don't know who Jale is, you might know him by his other name, that is Gideon.

In the Book of Judges, Gideon was called by God to come and give them deliverance.

And you know the great story of Gideon, he started with all those men and then eventually pared it all the way down to 300 by the waterside.

And they went in and had that great victory.

Well, what Samuel is saying is this God, when you cried out to him, God gave you the type of leader that you needed.

And it was Jerabel, or in this case, Gideon, which you know him by.

There's another name that's mentioned here, Bedan, which is.

There's.

There's.

Bedan is not mentioned in the Book of Judges, but most people would believe that he was some deliverer in their history, but he was not recorded in the book of Judges.

Some people argue that that is actually a variant name of a guy named Barrick or Barack, which is in Judges chapter four.

And so we really didn't want to get hung up on that too much.

But it obviously, by way of context, was someone in their history that gave them some sort of deliverance through the power of God.

And then we, we see more names that are given here.

He says, and Samuel.

So again, that the name Samuel is familiar to you, and obviously the speaker there is reminding them of, of what God had done in his life.

And he says, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe.

And so again, this speaks just to God's deliverance into the fact that God was using individuals to get to a place where they could follow God and find deliverance.

And so another thing I will say is that he mentioned something that was very recent to them.

So he mentioned all these things that came from their past.

So maybe their fathers or their grandfathers remembered it.

But then he reminded them of something that just happened.

Verse 12.

And when ye saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Am Amnon Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, nay, but a king shall reign over us.

And the Lord your God was your king.

Now therefore, behold the king whom ye have chosen and whom ye have desired.

And behold, the Lord hath set a king over you.

So he reminds them of the most recent victory that God gave them through the Ammonites and Nahash, which we talked about last week.

And he says, hey, you know what?

You need to remember the things of the past, but you also need to remember the things that are happening right now.

And so often we forget about the things that God gives us just on a regular basis.

And so Samuel remembered the most recent example, and he.

He links together all of these things and he marks it basically as these righteous acts of God.

He says that this is God working through you and, and for you.

And that's important for the people of Israel to remember.

It's important for us to remember.

And, and so that's.

That's something that we should always remember in our own life.

And so he says in verse 14, if.

And this is great advice, this is ultimately the advice that he's given.

He says, if you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall both ye, and also the king that reigneth over you continue for following The Lord your God.

And so I couldn't summarize it any better.

Samuel tells the people, these are the things that you need to have in your life to experience the power and the work of the Lord.

And.

And so he says, you know, all these things.

He reminds them of the great works of the Lord.

And he says, if you want your life to be characterized by that fear, the Lord.

And that's often advice that we don't give anymore because we're afraid to use that term, fear.

Because in many ways, in our English language, it's hard to delineate the two fears that are mentioned, because the Bible does say in First Timothy or Second Timothy that there shouldn't be that type of fear.

There shouldn't be a spirit of fear.

So if I'm not supposed to have a spirit of fear, how am I supposed to fear God?

Well, they're really two different things.

The Bible says that that spirit of fear is the type of fear that we're fearing all the bad things in this world.

We're fearing what could happen to us.

We're.

We're fearing all the things around us to the place where we're petrified in our fear.

We're not able to serve God and trust God.

So, so basically, that bad type of fear is the fear that's faithless.

There's no.

There's no faith in that type of fear.

But on the other side of fear, that's the proper fear.

And some people will delineate this way, a healthy respect.

I would agree with that.

There is a level of awe and amazement and respect with the Lord.

I would take it just a little bit step further because oftentimes when we talk about the fear of God, we.

We just say, well, it's just a respect.

Like, just as you respect someone in your life, I would say it needs to take just a step further when it comes to fear and understanding how powerful God really is and understanding what God could do to us, understanding what God should do to us, but then also understanding that God is gracious and merciful.

And so it's an awe of the Lord.

It's in awe of his power.

And so he says we should fear the Lord.

There should be a healthy respect.

There should be some level of submission in that.

And he says, and serve him.

So really, we see that type of fear is not a fear that petrifies us to a place of not moving for the Lord, but it's a type of fear that actually has faith that will drive us to do what?

Well, it Says there and serve him.

So this type of fear brings service.

This type of fear brings commitment, because we see that tied together in that next phrase and obey his voice.

So there's fear, service, obedience.

And then we see the opposite of that.

It says, and if you do those things, you're not going to rebel and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall both ye, and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the Lord your God.

So it's a commandment, it's a challenge to the people, but it's also a challenge to Saul to do the same thing, because the temptation would be that, well, you know what?

The people are supposed to do that.

But Saul, he can do what he wants to do.

No, he says there, what?

Both ye, both you, the people, and also the king are on the same level because both of those groups, the king and the people, had to submit themselves ultimately to the Lord.

And that's really for all of us.

I have to submit to the Lord as the pastor.

We all have to submit to the Lord when it comes to our.

Our Christian life.

And so he challenges them with that really, really important advice that we see there in verse number 14, verse 15.

But if he will not obey the voice of the Lord, so he's going to tell them the other side.

And by the way, when we tell people the news, when we tell people the good news of God and the power of God, and we often call it the gospel, we have to tell them the whole story.

And that's what he does here.

He tells them the whole story.

But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you as it was against your fathers, meaning you're not exempt from making the same mistakes and finding the same problems and the same judgment that came before you.

Oftentimes people think, well, you know what?

I'm exempt from that.

My parents went through that.

I don't have to go through that.

No, he says, you're not bound by the decisions of your ancestors, but also you.

If you don't change everything about it, you will be doomed to repeat it.

And so there's a warning there.

And I think this is so important for us, as we're teaching and instructing and guiding the next generation, is that if they're not careful, they can fall into the same traps and have that cyclical sin that it's not.

I think a lot of times people teach that there's generational sins and the concept of, like, if dad did this sin, then then Son is bound to that sin.

That's.

That's not necessarily taught in Scripture.

What is taught in Scripture is that mistakes that have been made can be picked up by the environment.

And therefore, if not taught and not applied and not heeded and obeyed, there can be those generational things that get passed down.

And that's what he's warning about there.

So verse 16 again, something, something so, so important.

He reminds them that God will keep his word.

And he says that God's going to confirm his word.

Verse 16.

Now, therefore stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes, meaning this.

God's telling you these things, and he's about to show you that he's serious about it.

He's going to give a sign.

Now, I don't believe that we should always sit and ask God for signs, but when God does send confirmation and signs, we should be aware and we should be ready.

And so he says in verse 17, is it not wheat harvest today?

And so he asked them a question that they already know.

He says, is it not wheat harvest today?

And there's significance to that which we're going to talk about here in a minute.

But he says, I will call unto the Lord and he shall send thunder and rain that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you a king.

And so he says, you, you.

You're still in your rebellion, even though you might feel like you're good because God's given you a king, but you're still in your rebellion.

So this storm that's going to come, this thunder and this rain, is assigned to you to turn away from your rebellion, to turn away from your wickedness.

And so Samuel prays and asks God to send a sign of confirmation.

And God will, will reward that.

He will answer that.

And, and so why, why would Samuel and the Lord do this?

Well, obviously they needed a sign.

He, they.

They waited for this king to come.

And now at this point in time, there's going to be this thunder.

And is this such a sign?

I mean, in Florida, this wouldn't be a big sign.

Okay.

In the summertime, thunder and rain, it's going to.

I could say that every afternoon it's going to come.

That's a sign from God.

It's.

That wouldn't be that weird of a thing.

But because of the wheat harvest, it's a time of dryness, and so therefore this would be rare.

This would be evident to the people that this was something from God.

And so this was a sign from God.

And because it was the wheat harvest, the sign displayed not only God's ultimate power, but also his judgments because that, that rain during the crops could destroy their crops.

And so it shows them that not only can God do things that are beyond their power, but God can judge them at any point and take away what they have.

And again, I, I, I know that that isn't something that we take in as, as something that palatable, like God could take away something from me.

But the, the truth is, is that the power of God can judge us.

And just as much as he can bless us with gifts, he can take those gifts away.

You don't believe that you can read the book of Job and you can see evidences of that.

It doesn't mean that God's an arbitrary evil God that's sitting up there just making his own decisions, but ultimately we know that he's the righteous judge.

And then who are we to dictate to God that, hey, you know what?

I have to have this.

I've heard people even within their walk as a Christian say, you know, God can do anything, but he just can't take this, he can't take that away from me.

The truth is, is that we can never stipulate these things with God because we know that God is ultimately in control and he can give and he can take away.

And so what's the result of this?

Well, Samuel called unto the Lord and the Lord sent the thunder and rain that day, and God keeps his promise.

And all the people greatly fear the Lord and Samuel.

So there's that fear.

And all the people said unto Samuel, pray for thy servants, unto the Lord thy God, that we die not, for we have added unto all our sins this evil to ask us a king.

So really we see verse 18 and 19 is them coming to a place of the fear of the Lord and then the admission or the confession, Remember, confession is to say the same thing, to confess the Lord that what they had done was wrong.

So, so this is, this is, I think, important for us to understand as a Christian, because in, in the midst of our confession, it doesn't mean that when we confess and admit to God that we were wrong, that God is just going to keep us in that condemnation.

No, he's going to keep blessing.

And so that's exactly what we see here.

Verse 20.

And Samuel said unto the people, fear not, ye have done all this wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your hearts.

He says, remember, they're in the wrong type of fear.

He says, don't fear, don't, don't have that type of fear.

And allow yourself to serve the Lord and see what God will do.

Verse 21.

And turn ye not aside, for then should ye go after vain things.

So he says, what happens, what your problem is?

I, I love Samuel.

He talks very plainly, like many of the prophets.

He says, look, what your problem is, is you veer to the side and you go after vain things.

I mean, that could be the message of, of most American churches today.

I mean, the pastor could get up and say, you guys get distracted with things that don't matter right there.

That's what Samuel's saying.

And so things have not changed.

After thousands of years, we still have the same problems.

We get distracted, we go astray and we go after things as it says they're vain.

Things which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain.

So Samuel is preaching a message and he's preaching the message of this.

You guys are chasing after the wrong things.

You need to chase after the Lord.

You're chasing after things that don't bring you any satisfaction.

And only God can bring you complete satisfaction.

And this is great advice.

I mean, Samuel, first Samuel, chapter 12, is just jam packed full of just really, really valuable eternal advice.

Verse 22, he says this, he says, okay, so this is why you should seek after the Lord and not those vain things.

For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake.

Says here, the reason why you should commit to the Lord is because he's the one that can sustain you.

He's the one that's not going to forsake you.

I mean, there's a New Testament principle there.

Hebrews tells us that he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.

And that's the idea that he's reminding them.

He says, stop chasing the things that will forget about you.

You know, for them, they were chasing after BAAL and Ashtaroth and all the ways of the people there, all the pagans and those gods weren't caring about them.

Those people weren't caring about them.

They were using them, abusing them, and ultimately to a place where they found themselves in torture.

And that's the same thing for us today.

I mean, we don't, we don't necessarily worship baal.

I mean, even though one could argue that there's still BAAL worship in the world today, the idea would be this we turn to these things of the world that we think are going to give us satisfaction but never, never can promise us the same thing that God promises us and the fact that it'll never leave us nor forsake us.

So why does God stay faithful?

Because that's a big question.

Because I think that if we think about, well, God stays faithful to us because we're pretty great people and we're worth it.

Well, it says, because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people.

Really the reason why God is faithful to us is because it pleases him and it gives him glory.

He's not faithful to us because we're faithful.

I think that's important to note.

I think that that's oftentimes what's taught in church, depending on your background, depending on your denominational affiliations.

In the past, there have been certain teachings of, look, God will love you and be faithful to you when you're perfectly faithful to him.

That's not what this passage is saying.

This passage is saying, be faithful to him and receive the blessings of it.

Understand God's faithfulness, but God's going to stay faithful to his people regardless of their decisions, because it pleases him.

In verse 23, moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.

So he says, I have the responsibility to pray for you, but I will teach you the good in the right way.

Meaning, and I, I, I, I look at verse 23 and.

And I, I'm like, man, Samuel, you're speaking my language here.

Because he says, you know, I should be praying for my people.

I should be, you know, interceding on their needs and on their behalf.

But he says, going to be kind to you in that way and compassionate to you on that way.

But don't think that I'm going to hold back the truth from you.

And that's really what Samuel's saying.

He says, I pray for you, I care for you, but I'm going to teach you the good and right way.

And that's what every leader should preach, is that, hey, I care for you, I want the best for you when it comes to your spiritual walk, but I'm not going to compromise the good and right way to make someone feel better.

And that's what we see often happening, is that, well, I don't want to offend somebody or I don't want to get them to a place where I drive them away.

So I won't preach the good and right way.

I'll preach some good things, but not the good thing.

I might preach some right ways, but not the only way.

And we know in the New Testament the only way is Jesus, the way, the truth and the life.

And so what we see here is that a good leader, a good teacher, a good pastor, a good spiritual guide should always say, I love you, but I'm not going to sacrifice the truth for my love for you.

And actually because of my love for you, I'm going to give you the truth.

That's sometimes a hard pill to swallow for, for many people, including myself.

I want to tell you that some of the best preaching that I have heard and some of the most convicting preaching that I've heard have, have been in situations where the pastor is preaching and you know, he was hitting right, right where I didn't want him to hit.

Okay.

I was like, okay, as long as he doesn't preach on this today, because I don't really want to deal with that today.

And of course that's exactly when he preaches that.

And it's not because he knows my life, it's because the Holy Spirit knows my life.

And in that moment when that, that preaching's happening, my, I, I don't know if any of you guys have ever felt this.

Maybe you haven't.

But for me, when that is, when I'm open to hearing the word of God, my spirit is wanting that preaching, but my flesh is fighting against it.

And it's kind of like I'm in this, this battle and the question is going to be is am I going to allow the spirit to guide me or am I going to allow the flesh to guide me?

The flesh makes me put up a, you know, stiff arm.

I walk out of the service upset, mad, offended.

And you know, sometimes people have never come back because the preaching convicted.

Or it could be like, hey, I need to get this right, I need to address this, I need to repent, I need to confess, I need to have my toes stepped on a little bit.

And I heard one preacher say, okay, everyone wearing their steel toed boots today, because I'm going to step on some toes.

And, and the reality is, is that you don't want to come into like, I, I think any good leader doesn't want to come in to provoke people on purpose because there are, there, we all know there, there are preachers who revel in the provoking.

Okay?

That's just, it is what it is.

Okay?

So we see that there are people that like, they, they love conflict and there's Other people who don't love conflict.

And so I don't think it's like I should come into every sermon just looking to hurt people and offend people and beat them up.

But really, we allow the word of God to speak.

And that's what we see verse 24 or 23 say.

And then.

And then he concludes in these two verses, and I'll end with this.

Only fear the Lord.

So he.

He summarizes it.

He comes back around and he reminds them of the.

The big picture.

He says, only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all of your hearts.

For consider how great things he hath done for you.

But if you shall do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.

Foreboding words and ultimately, we know that Saul does not follow, and the people follow his leadership.

And there is great destruction, there is great loss.

And obviously God could have just let go and forgot.

But we know the rest of the story.

We know that God chose a new king David, man after God's own heart.

And so I see it's a picture of.

Even today, I think, I think you could take.

Personally, I think you could take 1 Samuel, chapter 12 and go from verse 6 to verse 25 and preach it today in the context of the church.

And it would make a lot of sense and it would apply very well and as.

As all of the sermons do.

But.

But I look at this and I say, what.

What is Samuel really telling the people?

He says this to them.

Verse 24, Fear God, serve him.

Trust him with all your heart.

Remember those good things that he's done for you.

Then he says, why?

Because if you go the opposite way, he says, you will be consumed.

And the Bible says that sin does lead to destruction.

And I think oftentimes we preach.

We preach grace, but we have to be very wise and biblical in how we preach grace.

Because, yes, grace is abundant.

God's well of grace never runs dry.

But at the same time, sometimes there was one, there's one theologian that calls it cheap grace, and he preaches it to the concept of this.

We have to be very careful about just telling everybody, God forgives your sins, so do whatever you want to do there.

It's a movement.

There's a movement out there.

It's still around today.

They just don't call it this.

It's called antinomianism, which basically means the law is dead, so you can just live however you want to live.

And God's grace just keeps winning.

So just live in an impure lifestyle, just Keep going, doing all these things.

And so we see in Scripture a balance between the idea that, yes, God's grace is abundant, and yes, when I do sin, his forgiveness, it never runs dry.

But at the same time, true grace should never drive us to want to sin and want to go after those things and deny the importance of living righteous and holy lives.

And I think Paul just does a great job addressing that in Romans 6.

And so that's a picture of this, because oftentimes people can look at the Old Testament and say, well, God obviously was all about, you know, if you're not good, I'm going to judge you.

And people are saved in the Old Testament through their obedience.

The Bible clearly teaches in Hebrews 11 that everybody, throughout all of the Bible was saved through faith.

The principles that are being taught here is that the principle of sowing and reaping, that's mentioned in the New Testament, Galatians, Chapter 6, that if I sow sin into my life, I got to expect to reap certain aspects of that sin in my life.

Now, the bigger picture is that God's grace is abundant.

But if we misunderstand God's grace, and I would argue that the Israelites in the Old Testament misunderstood God's grace, I would argue that the church today misunderstands God's grace.

If we misunderstand God's grace, we can fall off both ledges to the place of being completely legalistic and saying that you have to keep every ruler, God doesn't love you.

Or you can fall off the ledge by saying, do whatever you want to do and don't care about it, and God will just keep loving you no matter what you do.

And so what we have to do is we have to understand the picture of God's grace is that, yes, God's grace is completely, utterly infinite and abundant.

And when we become a child, there's no more condemnation.

But also at the same time, there is a decision that we must make in our life to yield to the Spirit and grow in our walk with the Lord as we understand God's grace.

And so I think he summarizes it very well, and I won't ramble on any longer.

But verse 24, he talks about following serving God in truth with all of your hearts.

If someone says, like, how am I supposed to serve God?

And I say, in truth, well, that's partially true, right?

In truth.

And that's the Pharisees, right?

The Pharisees are.

It's all about the letter of the law.

But then he says, in truth, with all of your heart.

He mentions the same thing In John chapter 4, verse, worship God in spirit and in truth.

It's the idea that God wants not only us to be by the letter of the law, but also with all of our hearts.

God wants our hearts.

The outward appearance can change.

There could be someone that says, I look the part, someone that knows all the right words to say, someone who knows how to be in their place at the right time in the right way.

And everyone can look and say, wow, look how religious and special that person is.

But we know at the end of the day that that doesn't necessarily equate following God.

Following God is the heart is in the right place and the.

If the heart's in the right place, the actions will follow.

And so that's what Samuel is getting at there, that you need to not just follow God by the law, but follow God with all of your heart.

And that's when you understand God's grace and understand his forgiveness.

And that's when you don't want to just keep going and sinning, as the Bible says in Romans 6, that grace just keeps abounding.

Paul says, God forbid.

So first Samuel, chapter 12.

It's one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible because of that good advice.

And the challenge is not only hearing it, because some of you husbands in a room, you, You've heard your wife before.

But there's a difference between hearing and heating.

So hearing, listening, heeding and applying.

That's.

Those are all different steps in the Christian life.

The first step is hearing.

Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

But we also need to heed the word.

Heeding means I take it to heart.

It's important to me, not just in one ear, out the other, but then making it important in our life is, is.

Is the great step.

But really it's applying it to live it.

And that's, that's the.

The greatest proclamation of our love for the Lord is not just agreement, but also adherence to what he has called us to do.

And so those are some thoughts there.

Hope that that's an encouragement for you.

It's really one of my favorite passages of scripture, and I hope that you can follow along with us in this study and we'll come back in 1st Samuel chapter 13.

And what we will end up seeing is, I wish I could tell you else, but it's not same.

Samuel gives the advice, Saul begins the spiral.

And really we see a digression in Saul's righteousness, but we we'll talk more about that when we come back.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.