How to Avoid Destructive Habits and Harmful Patterns: 1 Samuel 12:1-25

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Well, Wesley, good morning, good.

Morning, we talk good morning to you.

Actually I think I was off key there, so hey,

good morning everybody, or good evening if you're listening in

the evening.

My name is Chris.

This is Wesley. He's filling in for Jeff, and today

we are the Bible Guys.

Yes, so that is our title improved.

That's it, younger, handsomer, right, more charming.

Jeff's not listening, so we can say we can.

Just go on the line, right, Gee. Is that's so funny?

So hey, we're gonna start out with a segment that

Desiree has given to us. And I'm telling you it's

only because, as Jeff always says, we are committed to

give the best news.

Yes, just the only yes.

And of course, if you don't know, Babylon b is

a satire site, So this article that's posted here is

actually the title of.

It is so funny.

I love these, by the way, sophisticated humor because it

reads like it's supposed to be, you.

Know, I think it's so good.

So the title is Facebook renamed more accurate Keeping Track

of People's Birthdays book?

Okay, so it says this US. Facebook is currently undergoing

a change a name change.

To bring its brand more in line with.

Its sole purpose remaining use reminding people of upcoming birthdays.

The new name, Keeping Track of People's Birthdays Book was

announced by Meta during a quarterly earnings call. People use

Facebook because they all they've always used it, But no

one's interacting with friends and loved ones on our horrible, clunky,

ad infested app. They're just checking birthdays. Founder, Facebook founder

and Meta CEO Mark Zuerberg explained, just call a spade

a spade. Okay, oh hey, it's my mom's birth that

he added, before abruptly ending the call. Short and a

survey of its users, Meta determined that everyone thought Facebook

was a built in calendar app on their phone and

didn't know that you could post pictures in common on

your day with it. Wait, this is a social media network,

said one user, who had been using social media network

for over ten years. At publishing time, Meta announced it

was renaming Instagram.

To Facebook with extra steps. Graham, that's hilarious, is it?

Yeah? I was going to say, birthdays and.

Cats birthdays and cats that's it.

And puppy videos.

Well, you know what's so funny is that, you know,

it's definitely a generational thing, right, so those who grew

up with Facebook like me, where Facebook was actually sort

of the only thing, right.

Do you remember my Space?

So I remember MySpace. I wasn't on MySpace, so that

would have been I'm trying to think, would I have

been in high school. I might have been in college

when my Space came up, but yeah, I was never

on it, never on that one.

So that would have been my kids kind of thing.

So, like, I remember I was never on MySpace, but

my kids actually you know, had a MySpace and I

was like, I was like, what is happening?

This? This is crazy?

And then and then Facebook, you know obviously you know,

skyrocketed and and it you know, and still by the way,

the most popular, uh downloaded that. But I think people today, uh,

anybody my age and younger. Yeah, I honestly think that

people just have Facebook because they feel like they have to, don't.

You Sometimes people send out like invites to the events, yes,

via Facebook and things like that.

Yeah, and so people you can always tell by the

photos yeah.

Right, so if they don't have a lot of photos,

they don't really care about Facebook.

Yeah, I just want to let you know about this

rs VP, right right.

So yeah, but that's pretty funny though. So how many

friends do you have on Facebook?

I'm not on Facebook as much as I used to be.

If I had to guess, like seven hundred, seven hundred

a lot of prints, yeah, I've got you probably have

two jillion.

Yeah, well it is. It's maxed out on Facebook.

But it's only because I was a part of a

large church, right, so you know, you know when you

have when you have a church of four thousand people

on a Sunday morning, uh, you know, eventually you're just

gonna fill that suckle up, right. And then our church

was much bigger at the time. And then I came

over to Heritage, and I thought about canceling my old

Facebook and opening up like a corporate account because it's

unlimited like a business account. But I thought, nah, because

it won't grow like that again. Right, So anyway, so.

But surely I had to go in because your limits

five thousand.

Yeah, so you have to go in and you sort

of have to delete people, and so you know, I'm

sort of slowly adding new church people.

And so were you're going through. Yeah, I never liked

that person.

To be honest. It's not that, it's more like, I

don't know who this is.

I have no idea what ninety percent of who these

people are, right, So I always say five thousand of

my closest friends. Yeah, it's our nobody, right.

Yeah, So anyway, that's great.

Well, hey, listen, if you were here last time, then

you heard Wesley Reid from First Samuel and we talked

about how excuse me, how God anointed or God, you know,

asked Samuel to anoint Saul as the first king of Israel.

And today we're going to see that Samuel, as the

last judge of Israel, is going to give his farewell

speech and he's going to say goodbye. He was old,

he's retiring. You know, God had judges for over three

hundred plus years, and Samuel is the last of those.

And there's like eight or nine of them.

I can't remember how many, but but you know some

of them were very significant.

Yea.

And so Samuel is going to basically bow out, and

then we're going to start the reign of kings, and

then we all know that after kings, well some of

us know that after the Ring, the reign of King

Saul is going to be King David, and so God's

going to use this and so, you know, an overall

sort of thing that we'll eventually get to is, even

though that it wasn't God's idea to have a king

of Israel.

At least, you know, an earthly king, we're going to

see that.

God takes even our worst ideas and somehow still uses

them for something good.

Yeah. Well, how that scripture talks about how God will

work out things for your good. He doesn't cause the

bad things, but he can take the mess sometimes that

we create and work something out for our good out

of that thing.

Yeah that's great. Yeah, yeah, it's an old song that

I was saying. He brings beauty from ashes, right, grace

from fear.

Anyway.

So, first Samuel, chapter twelve, verses one through twenty five.

For those of you who have been with us week

after week, we're reading out of the New Living Translation,

and it says, then Samuel addressed, all Israel, I have

done as you have asked and given you a king.

Your king is now your leader. I stand here before

you an old gray haired man, and my sons serve you.

I have served as your leader from the time I

was a boy to this very day. Now testify against

me in the presence of the Lord and before his

anointed One. Whose ox or donkey have I stolen? Have

I ever cheated any of you? Have I ever oppressed you?

Have I ever taken a bribe in perverted justice? Tell me,

and I will make right whatever I have done wrong

verse four. No, they replied, you have never cheated or

oppressed us, and you have never taken even a single bride.

The Lord and his anointed One are my witnesses today.

Samuel declared that my hands are clean. Yes, he is

a witness. They replied. It was the Lord who appointed

Moses and Aaron. Samuel continued, he brought his ancestors out

of the land of Egypt. Now stand here quietly before

the Lord. Is I remind you of all the great

things the Lord has done for you and your ancestors.

When the Israelites were in Egypt and cried out to

the Lord, he sent Moses and Aaron to rescue them

from Egypt and to bring them into this land. But

the people soon forgot about the Lord. Their God. So

he handed them over to Cicera, the commander of Hazor's army,

and also to the Philistines, and to the king of Moab,

who fought against them Verse ten. Then they cried to

the Lord again and confessed, we have sinned by turning

away from the Lord and worshiping the images of bel

and Ash death. But we will worship you and you alone,

and you will rescue us from our enemies. Then the

Lord sent and Gideon bedon Jephthah and Samuel to save you,

and you lived in safety. But when you were afraid

of Nahash, the king of Amen, you came to me

and said that you wanted a king to reign over you.

And even though the Lord, your God, was already your king.

All right, here is the king you have chosen. You

asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request.

I actually love that line right there, you asked for

it verse fourteen. Now, if you fear and worship the

Lord and listen to his voice, and if you do

not rebel against the Lord's commands, then both you and

your king will show that you recognize the Lord as

your god. But if you rebel against the Lord's commands,

and refuse to listen to him. Then his hand will

be as heavy upon you as it was upon your

ancestors verse sixteen. Now stand here and see the great

thing the Lord is about to do. You know that

it does not reign at this time of the year,

during the wheat harvest. I will ask the Lord to

sin thunder and reign today. Then you will realize how

wicked you have been in asking the Lord for a king.

So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent

thunder and reign that day. All the people were terrified

of the Lord and of Samuel. Pray to the Lord,

your God for us, or we will die, they all

said to Samuel, for now we have added to our

sins by asking for a king Verse twenty. Don't be

a free Samuel. Reassure them you have certainly done wrong.

But make sure now that you worship the Lord with

all your heart, and don't turn your back on him.

Don't go back to worshiping worthless idols that cannot help

or rescue you. They are totally useless. The Lord will

not abandon his people, because that will dishonor his great name.

For it has pleased the Lord to make you his

very own people Verse twenty three. As for me, I

will certainly not sin against the Lord by ending my

prayers for you, and I will continue to teach you

what is good and right. But be sure to fear

the Lord and faithfully serve him. Think of all the

wonderful things he has done for you. But if you

continue to sin, you and your king will be swept away.

Woo.

There is a lot there.

Hey, So Samuel's farewell address comes with it a lot

of things.

Yep.

I love how at the very beginning he tries to

sort of remind people. At first glance, it may seem

like he's tooting his own horn, right, He's like, Hey,

at the end of my career, check me out.

I'm faithful, I've not done a single thing. I am awesome.

But that is not what he's doing.

I believe what he's doing is he's establishing credibility for

what's about to happen. Right, He's reminding the people that, like, Hey,

I have something really important to tell you. This is

my last speech, this is my last farewell address, and

I'm going to prove to you that you have sinned

by calling you know, announcing that you know. Here comes rain,

here comes thunder that you already know is impossible during

this time of the year. But I'm going to tell

you just to prove to you that what I'm telling

you is true. I've told you all along you've sinned

by asking for a king. So I think what he's

doing is at the very beginning, he's probably doing multiple things,

but I think he's establishing credibility of saying, can I

remind you who's talking to you? Can I remind you that,

even though you're enamored with what you're about to get,

that I want to remind you who I am and

who you've had, right, because he's like, hey, listen, He's like,

don't you remember that when you when you did well,

everything was great when you did when you when you sinned.

Your ancestors have sin your you know, your mothers, your fathers,

your grandfathers.

You remember those guys and.

When they sinned and they were worshiping bail, don't you

remember what happened?

Right? And then they sent for you.

All these people, including myself get in and those other

guys and myself were the ones that that that God

used to rescue you. And so you understand that I've

been faithful, and so they said, yes, you've been faithful.

He said, Okay, now now that you recognize just who

it is that's talking to you, let me tell you

something about yourselves. I think that's what's happening here.

I think, Chris, there's something to be said about reflecting

back on what God has done for us. I think

oftentimes as we move forward in life and we're facing

different issues, the enemy will try to make us think

that God won't do what he said he would do.

The enemy will try to wear us down and make

us think that God is and faithful. God won't answer

that prayer. And I think it's in times like that

that we have to reach back and remember, yeah, God

did bring me out last time. Yeah God did bless

my family. Yeah God did answer that prayer. So I

think that's a really important thing to do for us

to not forget, because I think it's easy to just

look forward and you can sometimes forget all the things

that God did for you.

Right right.

Yeah, Well, it's no different than you know, being confident

and just about anything. You know, when something is faithful

in the past, you know, and something always comes through that,

it gives us more confidence in the future, you know,

in that same scenario. And that could be true for

a personality, it could be true for quite honestly anything, right.

But but yeah, when God continues to be faithful, it

hopefully will propel us to trust them for greater things.

Yeah, right, and so and.

So there will be seasons when things look bleak. But

that's why the Bible says we walk by faith. So

we walk by our confidence and belief in God's word,

not what we see. So there will be seasons where

things are going to look rough, things are going to

look bad, and you've got to reach back to some

of those old things to sustain you.

Right.

Another thing that it sticks out to me in this

passage in this speech is there's probably not too many uh,

you know, leaders that could be able to make the

claim that Samuel made.

He's like, he's like, name me one time.

Yeah, right. It's basically like he's saying, call me out once, yes,

just throw it out there.

He's like, I dare anybody to come up with a

single incident, and by the way, if you do, then

I'll make it right, right, because you know, he definitely

wants to be humble about what he's saying. So he's like, hey,

if you if you can find one, I'll make it right.

So he's not you know, that's how you can see

his humility. But what he's really doing here is he's

saying like, hey, I've been faithful, and so think.

About it when we get to the end of our lives.

This is one of the greatest things that can ever

be said at our funerals, right, think about this did

every day at the time that I went to the

Promise Keepers conference. So you know, remember Promise Keepers. Yeah,

so Promise Keepers was a pretty big movement.

You know.

It was the men's conference, you know, focusing on you know,

the promise that we keep and all these kinds of things.

And so anyway, I was in Atlanta, Georgia in the

Georgia Dome and it was sixty thousand people. So just

like I mean, think about Ford Field, right, just being

completely filled up. And anyway, so the coach was the leader,

you know, of the Promise Keepers. He's up on the

stage and he says, I want you to exercise. I

want everybody to stand up and get in groups of

you know, three or four whatever, and he goes, I

want you to share with people at the end of

your life, what do you want to be known for?

And I was with my little tiny church staff at

the time, and we all stood up and we were talking,

and we went around the room, and my pastor that

I worked for said, you know what, at the end

of my life, I want to be known as an evangelist.

And I was like, well, that's that's great, that's a

good thing, you know, but it didn't just seem it

didn't seem big enough. He was like, you know, I mean,

being evangelist is great, but we're talking about the thing

that you want to be known for for your entire life,

you know how, And that's a pretty hard thing to choose.

And then the worship leader says, well, I want to

be known as a guy who worships, you know, has

a great worship. And I was like, well, that's good too,

you know, but it just didn't seem big enough. And

I was trying to think, God, give me a word

that's that's encapsulating. And then and then I said, I

got it. I said, I want to be known as

somebody who's faithful, because faithfulness encapsulates everything. I want to

be faithful in my marriage right because I grew up

in a household where nobody practically was faithful in their marriage. Right,

I want to be I want to be a guy

that gets to the end of my marriage and says,

you know, I've been faithful to my wife. Right, that's

a that's a goal. I want to be faithful to God.

I want to be faithful in ministry. I want to

be faithful. You know, faithfulness encapsulates everything. And so I

was I was really happy with that answer, and they

were like huh. They shook their head, you know, they

were like, yeah, that's good. And then we all did

our exercise, get done, and then we looked up and

then coach says, hey, I want to let you know

that we got a hold of Billy Graham because the

back then he was still alive. And we said, we're

going to listen to what Billy's answer was. And then

they played the video and Billy says, you know, at

the end of my.

Life, I want to be faithful. Y'all want to be

found faithful. And I was like, yes, I was like,

I did it. I think the same answer as Billy Graham.

You know.

I was like, that's it.

And honestly, I think that has stuck with me for

thirty years because I think it's one of the best

things that could ever be said at anybody's funeral. And

if you think about it, that is exactly what Samuel's saying.

He's saying, name me a time where I've broken my faithfulness,

and they're saying, Nope, you've done it. You know, I

think that's just an incredible goal for all.

Of us to drill down even a little further. Verse four.

This is related to what you're talking about. It says no,

they replied, you have never cheated or oppressed us, and

you have never taken even a single bribe. Yes, I

think about our own lives. You know. Maybe there are

some listeners who work in a corporate environment. Maybe you

do real estate, maybe you work in a factory. You

can work in lots of different areas. Can it be

said in your workplace that you never cheated or oppressed

others or have never taken a single bride yea, even

when let's say it's culturally acceptable. You know, let's say

that you work in an environment where it's okay. I

won't say okay, but people will look the other direction

if you kind of shave off the edges a little bit.

You know, as long as we meet our sales quota,

as long as we you know, we're profitable, and yeah,

we'll kind of look the other way. Are you still faithful?

Are you still honest? Are you still all of those truthful?

Even when culturally it might be acceptable. I think that's

something for us to think about.

Yeah, it reminds me of that movie Family Man where

Nicholas Cage. It's almost like it's a Wonderful life type

scenario where the angel disguises himself as a clerk and

he and lady gives him a couple of dollars, like

a five, and he gives her change for a ten. Yeah,

and and and uh and uh and then she just

drabs it and runs out and he goes, man, he goes,

look at that, and she sold her soul for like

eight dollars.

You know, He's like, come on, rit eight bucks, you know.

Uh.

And you know there's another good sermon that's hidden in here,

is uh. Samuel goes through great lengths to let them

know that they have done sin. And it's almost like

it's almost like it's almost like you feel like the

only reason why he would do that is because they

don't really realize it, right.

She goes through great lengths and he says, I'm going

to even prove to you that God's on my side

by creating thunder and rain.

And then and then all of.

A sudden they said, oh, my goodness, pray for us

or we're gonna die because apparently you've proven to us

that God is angry right with under loud thunder everything

about security that is, and you know, on demand.

Thunder on demand, right, Yeah.

And so then they finally get to the point where

they're like, we have sinned. We're fearful. You know, we

have right sized our perspective. We understand who God is

and who we're not. We've done this wicked thing, so

please pray for us. For us, we're going to die.

And they finally get it, and then here comes the mercy.

Yeah.

And then and then Samuel says, don't be afraid. He

reassured them, yes, you have certainly done wrong, but make

sure now that you worship the Lord with God without

your heart.

Don't turn your back on him.

And what he's really saying is, as long as you

realize that you sinned, just worship him and God will

take care of you.

God will never abandon you.

Yeah. I love that line in verse twenty two, the

Lord will not abandon his Yes. I love that. Yes,

no matter what you've done, he will not abandon you. Yes,

Because I know there's someone listening who may feel that way,

like Chris Wesley. You don't know my past, you don't

know what I've done, you don't know what I did yesterday.

And I'm the exception. Yeah, And I have everybody listening online.

I'm the listener that probably is the most disqualified.

Yeah.

Right.

And the Bible says, I don't care who you are,

where you're from. The Lord will not abandon his people.

And I just love that. So then in verse twenty one,

really quick, I know we're running short on time, but

that one line where it says, don't go back to

worshiping worthless idols. But I just want to go back

to the beginning of that where it says, don't go back.

I love that. I don't know who needs to hear

that today. I don't know what you're dealing with, what

you're in, don't go back.

That's right.

Maybe it's a bad relationship in that person keeps calling

you and saying, hey, you know we should get back together.

Don't go back. Maybe it's a habit, right, maybe it's

a habit. You know, you need to quit don't go.

Back, right, Yeah, that one drink will lead you down

to a place that you've already been.

Yeah, and you don't want to go again, you know

where it leads.

Yeah, and don't go back.

That's great, man, that's that's what. It's really good. That's

a sermon in there. Right, we can call it don't

go back. Yeah, we do a series on don't go.

Back, so we got to do a fiery series.

That's right, that's right exactly, don't go back. Well, i'll

tell you what this is.

This is a great lesson for us, it's certainly a

great lesson for Israel. And we're about to find out

this big journey that Saul takes and eventually it ends

up with David.

So hopefully we'll see you next time on the Bible guys.

Mhm h m