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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then Samuel said to the people, "It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your forefathers up out of Egypt. Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the Lord as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord for you and your fathers.
"After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the Lord for help, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your forefathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place. But they forgot the Lord their God; so He sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines, and the king of Moab, who fought against them. They cried out to the Lord and said, 'We have sinned; we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.' Then the Lord sent Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel, and He delivered you from the hands of your enemies on every side, so that you lived securely."
"But when you saw that Nahash, king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, 'No, we want a king to rule over us' - even though the Lord your God was your King. Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you. 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! But 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."
"Now then, stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes! Is 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."
Then 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. The 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."
"Do 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. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of His great name the Lord will not reject His people, because the Lord was pleased to make you His own. As 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. But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things He has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away."
1 Samuel 12:6-25
This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
How often do we forget about all the good things God has done for us in life?
You know, we’re human at our core and so sometimes we allow our life’s circumstances to overwhelm us to the point when we feel helpless and hopeless, too often forgetting how much God has blessed and delivered us through prior difficulties. And with this, it never hurts to be reminded by someone about how great the Lord has really been…so we can refocus and reassure ourselves on His power to deliver us in the present and future.
In our scripture passage for today as we continue studying the twelfth chapter of 1 Samuel, we’re reminded how Israel forgot that God had displayed His greatness through their lives and in the lives of their ancestors. Indeed, the Lord had ruled and reigned over mankind as the King of Kings since the dawn of creation and throughout that time, we see in the Old Testament where He had especially cared for the Israelites, His chosen people, during their history. And yet despite this, the people of Israel demanded that a human king would lead them…even though they already had the greatest King they could ever hope for. The bottom line is that the Israelites turned their backs on God’s leadership to be led by a mere man…and Samuel wasn't about to allow them to forget it.
And so as we see in our verses for today, Samuel spends a lot of time reminding the people of Israel just how much God had done for their forefathers and them as He performed many mighty, righteous acts.
But the people of God quickly became disobedient and turned away from Him, just as the people were doing in the latter days of Samuel’s life. Beginning with the deliverance of the Israelites from Pharaoh and Egypt's oppression and their subsequent arrival in the Promised Land, Samuel underscores how the ancient people of Israel had turned away from God, conveying essentially that nothing had changed in present times. He reminds the Israelites that their relatives "forgot the Lord their God" and, as a result, suffered the consequences for it as "He sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them". It was while in the grips of that enslavement that the people "cried out to the Lord” saying:
“We have sinned; we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.”
And with that, with the people of Israel now turned back toward God in faith, He delivered them from the hands of their enemies, sending Jerub-Baal, Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel” – all who were appointed judges over Israel – “to their rescue."
At that point, you would have thought Israel would have learned their lesson but they didn't.
For as "Nahash, king of the Ammonites was moving against" Israel, they went to Samuel and requested a king to rule over them, "even though the Lord…was (their) King.” And so a king they received as God chose Saul and placed him in rule over Israel, something that didn’t change His (the Lord’s) expectations for His people for their were still required to "fear the Lord and serve and obey Him", not rebelling "against his commands". Basically, all would be fine for Israel if the people and their king followed God in every way but if the reverted back to the past sins of disobedience, especially as it regarded the worship of false gods and idols, then God's hand would be against them "as it was against (their) fathers."
Now, Samuel could have just stopped there in making his point but he didn’t because God had more to say, words that would place an exclamation mark on what was already said.
For the scriptures show us how Samuel informed Israel that the Lord was about to do a great thing before their eyes. And after reminding everyone that it was the wheat harvest, Samuel called on the Lord to "send thunder and rain" so that the people would "realize what an evil thing (they) did in the eyes of the Lord when (they) asked for a king."
So Samuel did as he said he would do, calling upon the Lord and we read where "that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain".
What was the end result of this miraculous display?
We find it in our passage where we read this:
All the people stood in awe of the Lord and of Samuel and said, “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."
Here we see where the Israelites literally feared for their lives and they should have over the sinful way they had conducted themselves, finally coming to the understanding of their position before a God who hates sin and doesn't take lightly to being placed second in life, especially since He and He alone created it.
Before we close, we need to make sure we don’t miss what happens at the end of chapter 12 for it’s there that we learn much more about the almighty, powerful God of Israel…the Lord God Almighty. For in the midst of the people's fear, we find Samuel reassuring them with these words:
"Do not be afraid…You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of His great name the Lord will not reject His people, because the Lord was pleased to make you His own...But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things He has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away."
Do not be afraid.
We have heard these very words spoken before by God Himself when He was seeking to comfort His people, especially in the first chapter of Joshua as he and the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan to capture Canaan, the land He had promised them. Here, we find Samuel using the words for the same purpose, not glossing over Israel's wrongs by any means, but telling them that redemption could be gained because they served a loving, caring, merciful God…the God who would not reject them…the God who was pleased to make them His own. All the people of Israel had to do was turn from their wicked ways…to not turn from the Lord but instead to serve Him with all their heart. In order to do this, they had to refuse worshipping the useless idols of the Canaanites for God had commanded and demanded that there would be no other gods before Him.
So as long as Israel feared the Lord, served Him faithfully with all their heart, and ever kept in mind all He had done for them, the people of Israel would find themselves in His favor. However, if they refused to abandon their evil ways, then they would be swept away…and unfortunately, as we go through the Old Testament from here, we’ll see where this indeed does happen as the nation of Israel fails and falls. This is because they persisted in doing evil and as a result were “swept away”, the Northern Kingdom to Assyria and the Southern to Babylon.
Through it all, one thing they could never say is that they weren’t given a chance to change and be the people God wanted them to be.
As we seek to apply this scripture to our own lives, we’re reminded how we were created in God's own image on the sixth day, a day that He saw was good. (Genesis 1:27) In other words, the Lord was pleased to make us His own and after the great fall in Eden’s garden, he was unwilling to see us perish in our sin and so He, out of the depths of His great mercy and grace, made the way to redemption by sacrificing His only Son Jesus for us to pay the price for our sins. Thus, anyone who would simply believe in Jesus would gain the promise of life everlasting where they would be able to abide with God forever…all because He was pleased to make us His own.
Friends, let us never take this amazing gift for granted as Christian believers today, intentionally choosing to live our lives with an attitude of gratitude, ever showing God our appreciation for all that He has done, all He is doing, and all He is yet to do. We should be always ready to testify to His goodness and share the good news of the Gospel, fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission calling. For if we truly commit ourselves to doing this, we will show the Lord that we are pleased to be His own, not just for now but forever more.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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