(Audio version; Music: "Sovereign Over Us" by: WorshipMob and "Saviour King" by: Hillsong Chapel)
Introduction
We added a
new member to our family last week. He has been so much fun to have around.
Everyone wants to pick him up and hold him. My daughter took him to go shopping
the other day and the saleslady asked if she could hold him while my daughter
shopped. He doesn’t sleep through the night yet so my wife has been getting up
with him a few times at night when he cries. He is so playful and he’s hungry
all the time. We all fell in love with him the very first day he came home. The
only problem we’re having at the moment is that he bites and does his business
in the house sometimes. I suppose that’s to be expected from a nine-week old
black Labrador puppy. His name is Bones and it has been an adventure chasing
him around the house over the last week. I say adventure because, as a puppy,
he has managed to get into all kinds of trouble. It’s been about five years
since we had to put our last Labrador to sleep because of a terminal illness.
You forget pretty quickly what it’s like to have a dog around. One of the
things Bones reminded me about over the last few days is what it means to be
faithful. As I said, he is having a little trouble grasping the concept that
it’s not ok for him to relieve himself in the house. He forgets sometimes and
then you can usually hear someone yell at him and then grab him and immediately
take him outside. I don’t know for sure but I’m guessing it can be a little
traumatic to do what seems like second nature for a dog only to get yelled at
and tossed out into the backyard. Nevertheless, the minute he’s paid his
penance in the backyard, you can call him and he’ll come bounding to you with
his tail waging having completely forgotten that he just got in trouble and you
were mad at him. He happily comes every time he’s called regardless of how much
trouble he’s been in to.
I obviously
know there are natural behavioral differences between dogs and humans but wouldn’t
it be great of humanity reacted to God in this way. Specifically, no matter
what trouble we get in to, we Don’t Turn
Away From God. Instead, when we do something wrong, no matter how awful we
think it is, what if we turned toward Him; drew closer to Him? Unfortunately,
that’s not humanity’s immediate impulse. Beginning with the very first people,
Adam and Eve, what did they do when they got caught doing something wrong? They
hid from God. They turned away from God because of their sin. And ever since
then, humanity has been turning away from God so that they can chase after
their sinful desires—greed, hatred, jealousy, anger, sexual immorality, etc. Like
Adam and Eve, God calls to us and is eagerly waiting for us to respond to His
call. Running away from God doesn’t change the fact that we are sinners who
need His mercy and grace. So today, when you look at yourself in the mirror and
all you see is an adulterer, or a thief, or a liar, or a cheater, or a sexual
deviant, or an addict, or an abuser, or whatever the particular ugliness and
sinfulness you see staring back at you, Don’t
Turn Away From God.
Subject Text
1 Samuel 12:14-25
14“If you fear the
LORD and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both
you and the king who reigns over you follow the LORD your God—good! 15But
if you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand
will be against you, as it was against your fathers. 16“Now then,
stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes! 17Is
it not wheat harvest now? I will call upon the LORD to send thunder and rain.
And you will realize what an evil thing you did in the eyes of the LORD when
you asked for a king.” 18Then Samuel called upon the LORD, and that
same day the LORD sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the
LORD and of Samuel. 19The people all said to Samuel, “Pray to the
LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to
all our other sins the evil of asking for a king. 20Do not be
afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away
from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. 21Do not turn
away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you,
because they are useless. 22For the sake of his great name the LORD
will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own. 23As
for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray
for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. 24But
be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider
what great things he has done for you. 25Yet if you persist in doing
evil, both you and your king will be swept away.”
Context
Samuel
brings to a close the era of Judges in Israel because the people of Israel have
decided that they want to be governed and ruled more like the nations around
them. While the nation of Israel was guided by various Judges appointed by God
to mediate governance over His chosen people, the surrounding nations were all
ruled by a king. Judges were not part of the Levitical priesthood who were
charged with leading the people in their worship to God. Instead, Judges were
charged with guiding the relationship between the twelve tribes of Israel and
how the nation as a whole related to the nations surrounding them. Keep in mind
that Israel was not separated into the sacred directed by Levites and the
secular directed by the Judges. God was at the center of both—how the people
related to God as directed by the Levitical priests and how the people related
to one another and other nations as God’s chosen representatives as directed by
God’s appointed Judges. In other words, God served as King for the nation of
Israel—the Supreme Ruler who directed every aspect of the lives of His chosen
people. However, at the particular point of time in Israel’s history
represented by our Subject Text, the
people didn’t like the arrangement of having God as their King and wanted a
human king to rule them like their neighboring nations. The importance of this
change cannot be overstated in the context of everything God attempted to
accomplish beginning when Israel first took possession of the Promised Land.
With God’s help, Israel was able to disposes all the inhabitants of the Land.
Once Israel possessed the Land, God made it clear that they were not to mingle
with the surrounding nations to avoid defiling themselves with their sinful
practices of idol worship among other things. God’s purpose behind His strict
segregationist instruction was to keep Israel pure in their faithfulness and
devotion to Him alone. He wanted to always be their Leader but in the text
immediately preceding our Subject Text
the people demand that they no longer want God as their King but instead want a
human king to rule them like the nations God always tried to shield them from.
The backdrop for our Subject Text is
that God’s people have rejected Him as their King and Samuel as God’s appointed
prophet. And God is desperately trying to stop the slide into complete
rejection and disobedience that has begun with their sinful demand to replace
Him as their King.
Text Analysis
14“If you fear the LORD and serve
and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the
king who reigns over you follow the LORD your God—good! 15But if you
do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be
against you, as it was against your fathers.
God, who
must have been wounded by the people’s demand to replace Him, nevertheless
grants their request to allow a king to rule over them. However, His consent
comes with a dire warning in vv. 14-15
that they, and their king, are not excused from being obedient to Him. I’m not
exactly sure what the people were trying to accomplish by demanding an earthly
king to rule over them other than being able to enjoy the same sinful practices
that the neighboring nations enjoyed, but God would have none of it. Regardless
of what their leadership or governmental structure looked like, God was still
sovereign over all of creation and still required their strict allegiance and
obedience. In other words, having a king, or emperor, or prince, or lord, or
prime minister, or president, in no way diminishes the sovereignty of God over
all humanity. The same faithfulness and obedience to God was expected out of
Israel and her king and the same consequences would befall the nation if either
or both failed in their commitment to God.
“To prove
that this is no omnipotent monarchy, Samuel outlines the conditions for its
success. Reminiscent of the old-covenant blessings and curses, Samuel offers
Israel two ways. They and their new king can be faithful to Yahweh and be
blessed, or they can fail to obey Yahweh and be no better off than their
ancestors, king or no king. In other words, everything has changed—and nothing
has changed. They have a new political structure, but they must continue to
serve Yahweh. Even the king who reigns over them must follow Yahweh.”[1]
16“Now then, stand still and see
this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes! 17Is it
not wheat harvest now? I will call upon the LORD to send thunder and rain. And
you will realize what an evil thing you did in the eyes of the LORD when you asked
for a king.” 18Then Samuel called upon the LORD, and that same day
the LORD sent thunder and rain. So all the people stood in awe of the LORD and
of Samuel.
Nothing
says “you just made a huge mistake demanding an earthly king” like having the
King of the earth put on a show to prove who is ultimately King not just over
Israel but over all of creation. In vv.
16-18 God, through Samuel as His mediator, sends thunder and rain on demand
during a time of year, “the wheat harvest,” which would have been at the end of
the dry season. Normally, rain during the dry season would be welcome but rain
in this case was not helpful because rain would damage the wheat crop and cause
it to rot quickly. God’s act did four things—(1) It was a miraculous
demonstration of God’s complete sovereignty over all of creation; (2) It
demonstrated his disapproval of Israel’s request by sending rain that would
damage their crops; (3) It reminded them that they wanted to be ruled by
someone who had no power to do any of those things; and (4) It validated God’s
prophet as His earthly representative to act as mediator between God and His
people. Ultimately, Israel exchanged an effective prophet hand-picked by God
and an authentic King for a cheap knock-off king and this miracle beats them
over the head with their childish and sinful demand.
“Samuel,
having contrasted his own righteousness as leader of the people to the selfish
cruelty they have been told to expect from the king, goes on to demonstrate
anew his ability to communicate with Yahweh and Yahweh’s willingness to
respond...
The
thunderstorm here sent by Yahweh at Samuel’s behest cannot be misinterpreted by
the people as a natural occurrence: it is so extraordinary as to be unambiguously
supernatural in origin. The point of the incident is not so much that Yahweh
thunders at the people to express his displeasure (although that is an
important element) as that he exhibits his willingness to respond to Samuel,
his prophet…the point of the narrator is clear: a prophet is the proper and
divinely sanctioned channel between man and God, and in this respect the
request for a king is a great evil.”[2]
19The people all said to Samuel,
“Pray to the LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we
have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.
What do you
notice about v. 19? At first, you
might say that the people acknowledge that they made a mistake, right? They ask
Samuel to pray to God for them so they don’t die. They even acknowledge Samuel
as having authority over them when they refer to themselves as “your servants”
in relation to Samuel. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that
they were sincerely concerned about the affect of their sins on their
beneficial relationship with God. But do you notice anything that is
conspicuously absent from the peoples’ lament? Anything? How about repentance!
Sure they’re afraid because of what might happen to them but nowhere in anything
they said would indicate that they have changed their minds or hearts in any way.
You see, repentance is a two-step process and one without the other is
meaningless. Repentance is an active turning toward God and turning away from sin. I didn’t notice anywhere in their
response that they changed their hearts and didn’t want a king. They just
didn’t want God to punish them for their sin. There’s a term for that in our
modern Christian vernacular: cheap grace. Cheap grace seeks God’s grace for the
forgiveness of our sins while we continue to sin. If you think Israel’s heart
was truly in their confession of wrong-doing then why did they later do exactly
what God warned them not to do in rejecting Him—adopt the cultic practices of
idol worship of the surrounding nations as well as their sex and religion
shrines? Israel didn’t want God to be mad at them but they still wanted to be
ruled by a king rather than God and His prophet Samuel.
The beauty
of God is His ability to extend endless mercy and grace. Whether or not the
people were sincere in their contrition, God incorporated their sinful desire
into a long-term monarchical structure that would eventually lead to the
incarnation of the King of Kings. One aspect of “God’s unmerited grace in 1
Samuel 12 is his grace to reconfigure and redeem. We often speak of God’s
grace, but we do so in too limited a fashion. We think of the grace of God to
forgive, restore, empower or even transform our lives into what they should be.
These are obviously worthy topics, and in fact, they are features of what God’s
grace accomplishes in our lives. But this passage illustrates something beyond
these. Here the sin of Israel, the very act of rejecting God’s authority and
demanding a new and worldly form of human rulership, is not only forgiven by
God but is actually transformed by God into a new instrument of his grace. The
very existence of a human king in national Israel—a result of Israel’s sinful
demands—is reconfigured into a savior. The institution of kingship paves the way
for David, and his greater Son, Jesus. In the hands of God, even our failures
and tragically sinful choices can be completely remade into something new and
redemptive.”[3]
20Do not be afraid,” Samuel
replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but
serve the LORD with all your heart. 21Do not turn away after useless
idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are
useless. 22For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject
his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own.
The
corporate sin of Israel has created a breach that separates them from God, and
Samuel, like all the prophets before him, prepares to step into that breach in vv. 20-22 in an attempt to keep the
breach from widening and guide the people in the right direction going forward.
It is bad enough that they have rejected God’s rule over them, it would be tragic
if they magnified their sin by adopting any of the sinful practices of the
surrounding nations. Samuel reminds them that even though they may sinfully
reject God, God is prepared to forgive their sin and move forward provide they
and their new king prove to be faithful. The most important thing Samuel wants
them to remember going forward is Don’t
Turn Away From God. This would be the exact opposite of repentance, which
is an important element between God and humanity. Sin is an inevitability in
the lives of all people. What Samuel is telling the people is that they should
never get comfortable with sin; friendly with sin. And the specific sin Samuel
has in view here is adopting the practice of idol worship from the neighboring
nations. Many in Israel would come to believe they could do both—idol worship
and worship Yahweh. Samuel wanted them to know that turning to the idols of the
surrounding nations meant turning away from God and that would ultimately lead
to their destruction.
I’d like to
take a moment to issue my own warning to followers of Christ. We read this text
and think we are safe from committing the same sin of idol worship as did the
Israelites. That might be a risk in some parts of the world but it’s not
generally a temptation faced by Christians in developed countries. So does that
mean that Christians are safe from the sin of idol worship? Not hardly! In
fact, idol worship might just be the prominent sin in the lives of people in
developed countries and especially highly developed countries. Let me explain.
Idol worship, in essence, is putting anything into a place of prominence that
only God should hold. That means that just about anything can become an
idol—money, sex, power, possessions, relationships, etc. anything that we value
equally or more than God becomes an idol and anytime we pursue those things
with the same passion as we pursue God then God is no longer first in our
lives. If God is not first in our lives then we have by default turned away
from God and are in grave danger of suffering disastrous consequences for that
sin. If that describes you then turn away from your idolatry before it’s too
late. Don’t Turn Away From God.
23As for me, far be it from me
that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach
you the way that is good and right. 24But be sure to fear the LORD
and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has
done for you. 25Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your
king will be swept away.”
Samuel is
such an amazing pastor and provides a tremendous example in vv. 23-25 for all people but especially
for ministers of God’s Word. Samuel had to be smarting at the peoples’
rejection of his position as God’s divinely appointed prophet. But Samuel
illustrates a very important principle everyone should model in their
particular calling—our first duty is to be faithful and obedient to God regardless
of what people think of us and the people we are called to serve will be the
beneficiaries of that faithful obedience. Samuel was God’s mediator to His
people and as such had a duty to intercede for the people before God. So with
his eyes fixed on his solemn calling and his faithful obedience to God, Samuel
commits to praying and caring for Israel right in the midst of their
sinfulness. Samuel’s attitude demonstrates something else important: Our
faithfulness is not dependent on the receptivity or faithfulness of others. Vv. 23-25 seem to illustrate that
Israel has been forgiven for their sin and everyone is moving forward under a
new leadership dynamic that is still bound to the old covenant relationship
between God and His chosen people. As long as the people and their new king
remain faithful and obedient to God, they can expect God’s blessing. However,
if they fail to remain faithful and obedient, their blessings of divine
provision and protection will be withdrawn and they along with their king will
be “swept away.”
“The final
sentence Samuel spoke to an all-Israel assembly is perhaps the most ominous of
his career. In eight words (Hebrew) it summarizes the judgments of the Torah
and foresees the ultimate futility of Israel’s experiment with kingship…The
verbal phrase translated in the NIV as ‘persist in doing evil’ (lit. ‘if
bringing about evil you should do evil’) is an emphatic one, meant to heighten
the emotional intensity of the prophet’s warning. The message is a pointed one,
and strikes at the heart of Israel’s problem. The nation’s real threat was not
external, that is, one that could be faced and defeated by a king who would go
out and lead Israel in battle. Rather it was internal and spiritual. The malignant
faith condition that caused Israel to demand a king in preference to restoring
a relationship with God was what would ultimately cause the nation to ‘be swept
away.’ No king, however mighty, could stop the tide of divine judgment that
would roll against Israel in the day of the Lord’s wrath.”[4]
Application
There’s a
beautiful synergy between the events during Samuel’s ministry in relation to
the events of the New Testament. And I’d like show you how I believe it all
grows out of one verse from the second chapter of 1 Samuel: “If a man sins
against another man, God may mediate for him; but if a man sins against the
Lord, who will intercede for him (1 Sam 2:25)?” That would seem to be the
million-dollar question wouldn’t it? Who can intercede for us when we sin
against God? The answer wasn’t nearly as clear during the Old Testament era as
it is for us today, although many today refuse to see it. Let me try and draw
you a map from something I wrote earlier and then answer the question with
something Paul wrote in one of his letters.
“God’s
unmerited grace in 1 Samuel 12 is his grace to reconfigure and redeem. We often
speak of God’s grace, but we do so in too limited a fashion. We think of the
grace of God to forgive, restore, empower or even transform our lives into what
they should be. These are obviously worthy topics, and in fact, they are
features of what God’s grace accomplishes in our lives. But this passage
illustrates something beyond these. Here the sin of Israel, the very act of
rejecting God’s authority and demanding a new and worldly form of human
rulership, is not only forgiven by God but is actually transformed by God into
a new instrument of his grace. The very existence of a human king in national
Israel—a result of Israel’s sinful demands—is reconfigured into a savior. The
institution of kingship paves the way for David, and his greater Son, Jesus. In
the hands of God, even our failures and tragically sinful choices can be
completely remade into something new and redemptive.”
That still doesn’t explain who intercedes for us if we sin
against God but it adds a little more detail to the bigger picture of God’s
redemptive plan—a picture that Paul adds finer detail to for us in his letter
to the Church in Rome: “Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus
who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and
is also interceding for us (Rom 8:34).”
And there it is, the answer to the question in First Samuel. When humanity sins
against God, it is Jesus who intercedes for us. And just as Samuel’s message to
Israel was Don’t Turn Away From God,
the writer of the Book of Hebrews says essentially the same thing when he
writes, “As has just been said: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden
your hearts as you did in the rebellion (Heb 3:15).’” The “rebellion” is a reference
to a time when Israel turned from God and it was being used by the writer of
Hebrews to warn people not to turn away from Jesus in the same way. We suffer
from the same malignant faith condition that beset the Israelites—we ignore
Jesus’ calling to be in relationship with him. We want a different king; a king
who will let us keep living our sinful lives. So Samuel’s message to the
Israelites is the same for us today when Jesus offers to be in relationship
with us and offers to intercede on our behalf before God—don’t turn away from
Jesus; Don’t Turn Away From God.
[1] Bill T.
Arnold, 1 & 2 Samuel—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), p. 189.
[2] P. Kyle
McCarter, Jr., I Samuel—The Anchor
Bible, (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1980), p. 216.
[3] Arnold, 1 & 2 Samuel, p. 194.
[4] Robert
D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel—The New
American Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 1996), p. 145.
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