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.

1 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

First Samuel, Chapter 12.

1 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

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.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

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

1 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

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

1 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

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,

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

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

John 4 · chapter mention

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.

1 Samuel 12 · chapter mention

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

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You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro middletownbaptistChurch.com

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.