Audio Link
(sermon starts around minute 24)
Remember
1 Samuel 12, Remsen Bible Fellowship, 11/29/2020
Introduction:
One of the great dangers for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is forgetting who we are. We can fall prey to viewing the church as merely a social organization to which we belong. Perhaps you see the church as a convenient social activity, a nice occasional add on to your consumer life. It’s a place you go to get a shot of Jesus to get you through. But is this what the church is meant to be?
Israel faced such identity crises many times in her history, perhaps none more so than in the chapters we have covered in recent weeks. The people longed to be like all the nations (8:20), and thus they demanded that Samuel the prophet anoint a king to reign over them (8:6, 20). Now we come to chapter 12, on the heels of the great military victory of chapter 11, and Samuel will give his final address as the judge of the people. He has ruled over them for decades, and though he will continue in his prophetic office, his time as a judge concludes in this chapter.
The Innocence of Samuel, v1-5
12 And Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you. 2 And now, behold, the king walks before you, and I am old and gray; and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day. 3 Here I am; testify against me before the LORD and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you.” 4 They said, “You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man’s hand.” 5 And he said to them, “The LORD is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” And they said, “He is witness.”
Samuel here draws the attention of the people to some obvious facts. First, in v1, he has obeyed their voice. They demanded a king, and here Saul is. Samuel, obeying the voice of the Lord, obeys the voice of the people. He also seems in verse 2 to contrast himself with Saul. He says I have walked before you from my youth until this day. But now it is the king who walks before you. Walking before in this context means to function as a leader, to go ahead, to be the pointman. Samuel has been that, but here he is, an old man with worthless sons, and the people have given up on him and the judgeship. They demanded a king, and so they now have one.
But Samuel wants to make clear that this is not the result of some massive moral failure or corruption on his part. Here I am, testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed. What a bold statement! Samuel is confident that they can’t land any solid punches against him. It’s as if he is saying, really? You thought you needed to replace someone who was actually honest in this position? Good luck with that one! And he is exactly right, they have nothing to say: You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man’s hand. There is no corruption present in Samuel, and the people know that full well.
Why is this important? I think it’s important because Samuel is going to be making some serious accusations later on in the text. And the people can’t be having the escape valve of but what were we supposed to do? We just had to do this. No they didn’t. It was their own willfulness and lack of faith that brought them here, and they need to know that. Samuel is innocent in their eyes, in Saul’s eyes, and in God’s.
The Guilt of the People, v6-18
6 And Samuel said to the people, “The LORD is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. 7 Now therefore 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. 8 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. 9 But they forgot the LORD their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. 10 And they cried out to the LORD and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the LORD and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.’ 11 And the LORD sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. 12 And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the LORD your God was your king. 13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the LORD has set a king over you. 14 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. 15 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. 16 Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the LORD will do before your eyes. 17 Is it not wheat harvest today? 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, in asking for yourselves a king.” 18 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.
In verses 6-11 Samuel narrates for the people a history that would have been familiar to them and is likely familiar to many of us as well. A story of God’s faithfulness to a faithless people. The people head into Egypt to escape famine, and eventually are oppressed and cry to the Lord. And he delivers by the hands of Aaron and Moses. They come into the promised land and forget God. He turns them over into the hands of their enemies, and they cry to him again. And what happens? Every time, without fail, he sends a deliverer. From Jerubbaal (Gideon), Barak, Jephtath, and now Samuel himself. Each of these, along with the many others along the way, were God’s answer to the needs of his people. When they repented of their idolatry and trusted the Lord, he delivered them. He had always been faithful. To quote Old Testament scholar Joyce Baldwin, “In order to understand their own situation in relation to their covenant God, those of Saul’s generation needed to see how they had been brought to their land, and had experienced both defeat and victory, depending on their loyalty to the Lord. Even in the times of apostasy, once they turned to the Lord in repentance, he had sent deliverers.”
But how had they responded this last time? Nahash drew near, and instead of pleading with God for mercy, the people cried out for a king. They had a desperate need for God and they grasped for a man instead.
To demonstrate just how God thought about this, Samuel calls down a sign from the Lord. 16 Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the LORD will do before your eyes. 17 Is it not wheat harvest today? 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, in asking for yourselves a king.” 18 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.
Wheat harvest would have been in May or June, after the rainy season, thus this would have been a sure sign of God responding to Samuel. Further, it would have the potential to be devastating to the people if the storm were bad enough to damage the mature wheat. The last thing a farmer wants is a storm to come destroy his crops. God has spoken. Samuel is innocent before the people. And the people are guilty before the Lord. How are they to respond?
The Response God Desires, v19-25
19 And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” 20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself. 23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. 25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”
The people gathered here at Gilgal seem to be sensitive to the word of the Lord through Samuel, or at least able to recognize a supernatural sign when they see one. We have added to all our sins the evil, they say, to ask for ourselves a king. But Samuel has encouragement for them, because the same God who had rescued Israel from Sisera and from Pharoah was present for them in their day, if they would but remember that he was their God and they his people. Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully.
Samuel’s message for the people is clear: God loves you, and pleased him to make you a people set apart for himself. For his name’s sake, for the sake of his own reputation, honor, and glory, God will not forsake you. It reminds us of Psalm 23, you lead me in paths of righteousness, for your name’s sake. But they must remember that Yahweh and Yahweh alone is their God, and not turn after the vain and worthless gods of the people around them. They must keep their focus on him.
Remember
How do we bring these lessons home to roost for ourselves today? I would contend that as we read this chapter, the fundamental issue the people of Israel suffered from was amnesia. They forgot who their God was, and thus they forgot who they were. How can we guard ourselves from the same fate? How can we remember?
The first thing to point out are a couple of personal and private habits that are important. Do you read your Bible regularly? Psalm 1:1-2 tells us, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. How can he mediate on the word? He must be consuming it, and then thinking about it. And that meditation moves beyond a mere cursory reading, it seems to imply a chewing, mulling process that would require either a slow and meditative reading style or memorizing so that he can meditate when apart from the word.
And we need to pray. I initially wrote “of course we need to pray.” I wrote of course we need to do that, because you all know the pastor is going to say pray. But I took it out of that initial sentence because we shouldn’t take prayer for granted, or as a simple matter of course. That’s how we forget it. We need to realize what is actually happening. We are coming before what Hebrews 4:16 calls, the throne of grace. We must constantly despair of our own wisdom and strength, and turn our gaze heavenward. We need to pray.
Those two simple actions will take you a long way toward remembering God, day by day. But can I be totally honest with you? I doubt if, on their own, they’ll sustain you in the long run. You’re going to need something more. And that something more is the church. You see, in the New Testament there is never such a thing imagined as an unchurched Christian, or even a Christian loosely associated with the body of Christ. To be in union with Jesus is to become part of his body, functioning together with the other members, feeling their joys and pains, happiness and sorrow, together. Worshipping together-remembering who He is, and who we are, together. To come to Christ is to become a part of his bride-not to be his bride personally (which would sound a little creepy and weird), but to be one of those for whom he laid down his life, and whom he currently washes in water with the word. We become part of the church as individuals. You must personally trust Christ. No outside person, force, or institution can make that change inside of you. But in becoming a part of his people there is a real sense in which we are called out of ourselves and into this assembly of the called out ones, the ekklesia, the church.
Being a Christian really isn’t just between you and God. It’s between you, and God, and the church, and it’s done before the world. It’s a personal decision with public implications. It might interest you to note that the word saint-or called out one-in the New Testament is virtually always a plural word, referring not to isolated individuals, but to the church. The only exception is Philippians 4:21 where Paul says to greet every saint in Christ Jesus, something that would be expected to happen as the church gathered.
So I want to spend the rest of this sermon thinking about how the church as a body, and the church meeting especially, serves to jog our collective memory, to call us toward a vision of who we are, together, as the body and bride of Christ.
I want to begin where our services start, and where we spend a lot of our time: the reading of Scripture. Turn, if you would, to 1 Timothy 4:13. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Many evangelical churches who would teach a high view of the Bible and spend a lot of time devoted to teaching forget the very foundation stone of that teaching: actually reading the Bible publicly. I know it can probably feel tedious at times to read all the way through some of these longer passages, but I am utterly convinced of this fact: the Word of God is inspired in its every detail and has the power to pierce heart and soul, and transform hearts and lives. We come together to remind ourselves of the content, of what the book teaches, and that’s where preaching can really help. But we also come to collectively sit or stand and hear the Word wash over us, and remember together that it is the Word of God that is used by the Spirit to bring new life, to waken dead hearts, and to call believers over and over to renewed repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus. No mere human words can accomplish such a task. And so we come together and collectively submit ourselves to what God’s word has to say to us. 1 Peter 1:23 tells us, you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. We gather together, week in and week out, to hear God’s word read to us as a body. To remember that his word is the source of our life.
Of course what flows naturally from a devotion to reading the word is a commitment to teach and proclaim the meaning of what has been read. This goes all the way back to the Old Testament where in Nehemiah 8:8 we read that the Levites under Ezra’s leadership, read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people could understand the reading. They read clearly, a phrase which could be translated paragraph by paragraph, and helped the people to understand what God was saying. The most solemn charge I can find anywhere in the Bible is Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-2, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. God obviously thinks that his people will need corrected, encouraged, provoked, and pastored. And the chief means he gives for accomplishing that task is the preaching of the word. And so we gather week by week, not because there is some great preacher to hear, but because God speaks through the medium of his word being proclaimed in a particular time and in a particular place to a particular gathered people. God has a word for me and for you each Sunday, and we hear it by coming together to hear the word taught. Where else in your week will you hear of Christ paying for your sins? Where else will we learn of his coming kingdom, the center of our true citizenship? Where else can we look around and see, I am not alone, other brothers and sisters are right here with me.? I love podcasts, I know several of you enjoy Christian radio. And these are good gifts from God for which we can be grateful. But they are no replacement for gathering and hearing the word preached together with other believers, and remembering that we are the people called out and created by the word of God. To continue the earlier quotation from 1 Peter, All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you (v24-25). We are people of the gospel, a gospel which was preached to us, and continues to be preached to us. We gather and remember who we are, those purchased by the precious blood of Christ, sent out with his message of reconciliation into the world.
The third practice we enter into week by week is that of corporate prayer. Acts 2:42 is paradigmatic for what mattered to the early church, And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Prayer was one of the key things that brought together those early believers, and of course if you keep reading in Acts 2 you see that this wasn’t just reserved for an occasional get together. It was day by day, attending the temple and breaking bread in their homes (v46). We are coming under God’s word together, but it won’t do anything if his Spirit doesn’t blow. If God doesn’t take the words and open the eyes of our hearts that we might see, we could read all day long and I could preach for hours and we could sing for days and it wouldn’t matter. We must go to him and ask that he would work. This is part of why we pray the Lord’s prayer together every week. I know that is the sort of thing which can become just a rote ritual, but it does not need to be. Do you ever contemplate as we’re praying that we are lifting our voices together, using the very prayer that Jesus himself taught, and asking for the very things he wants us to ask for? In that moment I can know that my heart is aligned in prayer with Scott and with Linda and with Andie and with Jim. And I can know we are praying a prayer that God will answer, because Jesus himself taught it to us. Private prayer functions partly as a place to pour our hearts to God and partly to shape our hearts to be like God’s. In public prayer that formative aspect is even more pronounced. We pray, remembering that he is a God who delights to hear and to answer the prayers of his children.
We also gather to hear testimony from God’s people about how he has worked, and is working, in their lives. We had a wonderful example of that with Dean this morning, and Scott last month. We share these testimonies publicly, but we also do so naturally in the conversations we have before and after church, and hopefully continuing through the week. We live in an age of increasing anxiety and loneliness, people feeling cut off from meaningful connection and feeling unsafe or unstable as a result. Here, in the body of Christ, we should be connecting with one another and feel free to share our burdens, and to hear over and over how God has been faithful to those with whom we worship. And if he is the kind of God who can carry others through hard times and difficulties, gathering with them and hearing those stories will help me remember that he can do the same for me. We learn that lesson by reading of God’s past faithfulness in Scripture, but we experience that lesson when we see his past and present faithfulness in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the church. We need one another to help us remember how good and how present God is in every circumstance.
Finally, I want to address what we’re about to do: singing. We often think of the singing part of a church service as “worship”. Now, in the Bible the idea of worship extends to the whole of life (cf Rom 12:1-2), although we can rightly call this corporate gathering worship in a distinct sense. But singing is only a piece of that worship. However, while that might sound like it’s making less of singing, did you know the New Testament points to a purpose besides vertical praise toward God when we sing? We are actually to sing to and for one another. In Colossians 3:16 we read, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. One way in which we teach one another is by singing together. These words sink into our hearts, our minds, even our subconscious. And we sing them here not simply as an expression (depending on the song) of praise, lament, or adoration: we sing them to point each other up. Look to him! we tell one another, every time we join in song. We sing to remember who we are, a pilgrim people in a foreign land, singing together to remember the Lord who has purchased us with his own blood. We sing to remember the One who is bringing a kingdom, the One who has redeemed us from every trial, the One whom you can trust in your present distress.
Brothers and sisters, we must never forget the Lord. He is a Father who loves to take care of us, a judge who put his own Son forward as the payment for the sins of all who will trust in him, and a kind Shepherd who will lead us home. And he has given us one another to help us remember these things. So remember this week, that the church is something you need. But also remember this: the other people in this body need you. We serve one another by gathering to remember, and in doing so, we serve God. Let us pray.