Now, if you take your Bibles
and turn with me to 1 Samuel. 1 Samuel, chapter 12. 1 Samuel, chapter 12. We're looking
at several verses throughout this text from verse 16 to verse
25. The title of the message this
morning is, Fear the Lord, for great things He hath done for
you. Fear the Lord, for great things
He hath done for you. In verse 16, Samuel says this,
What is this great thing? What is this great thing? Well, after Samuel had anointed
Saul to be king over Israel, he reminded the people of Israel that he was a just judge. Samuel
was a judge over Israel. He was the last judge of Israel. And they had rejected Samuel
to be their judge, and they desired to have a king. And so God anointed
Saul to be the king over Israel. And Samuel was reminding them
that he was a just judge, that he'd appointed them to God, and
yet Israel, according to the hardness of their hearts, desired
an earthly king. If you remember, God told Samuel,
He said, They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me
to be king over them. In their desire to have a king,
they forgot God. They neglected to see that God
was their king. And to desire an earthly king
is to reject God as their heavenly king. And this was a great sin. This was a great sin for the
nation of Israel. And therefore He had spoken to
them to rebuke them and to give them a sign of God's anger. He sent an unnatural storm. If you'll see that now, therefore,
stand and see this great thing that the Lord will do before
your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? In other words, He's saying
that it is June. From this month of June on up
over to October. That land is not to see rain.
It is not a usual occasion. It's very unusual for them to
see any rain. And yet he says, I will call
unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain. That you may
perceive and see your wickedness is great that you have done in
the sight of the Lord, asking you a king. It was very unusual. And so Samuel asked the Lord
to send this great sign of his displeasure. And so a furious
and sudden storm came upon the people. This was not a natural
storm like we... I didn't know it was raining
outside, Eric, until you came in. So that wasn't something
I'm really greatly fearing. You know, if the weather says
it's going to rain, then usually we've prepared for it. But this
storm was so unnatural, it came in so fast that Samuel, as soon
as he asked for it, the clouds rolled over the sky. darkening
the sun. And this was so sudden and fearful
that the scripture says they feared the Lord. The people feared
the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said when
this storm came, they said, We've sinned. Pray for us that we die
not. That must have been a storm. When Joanne and Nancy were in
the tub, I imagine they were probably praying the same thing.
Lord, don't kill us. Not today. Don't kill us. Why? It was a great storm. It was
furious. The Lord showed His displeasure,
His anger with His people. And this storm came on quick.
What was the purpose of this great thing? This purpose was
to reveal the sin of His people. Was to show them their sin. To show them that they had neglected
to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord. They did not
reverence the Lord as their King. They said, we would not have
God be our King, we would have this man be our King. And that's
disrespectful, that is not reverential to God who is King. We see Samuel
clearly commanding the people of this in verse 24. Only fear
the Lord. This was not only to expose their
sin, but it also was to chasten them so that they should fear
the Lord. Fear the Lord. We know the scripture
says the fear, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The beginning of wisdom. What
is it to fear the Lord? We live in a time, much like
Israel, the church in this last couple of centuries had not known
such peace and prosperity at any other time. In this nation,
we have known peace and prosperity for over 200 years. The church
in this nation has known peace and prosperity, yet because of
prosperity, I tell you, in our day, the church has neglected
to fear the Lord. To reverence Him. To reverence
Him. We, like Israel, have sinned
in that we have set our affections too much on the things of this
world. We have desired our families,
we have desired our work, and especially our own selves over
serving God. Serving God. Reverencing God. Believer in Christ, this morning, may God move us to fear Him. May God move our hearts to reverence
Him. Let us repent of our sins, let
us forsake all, and set our affections on the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is our first love. I don't imagine that there was
ever a greater church than the church of Ephesus. You read that
book of Ephesians and you can't find another book to compare
to it. How that he starts out with such wonderful things. Deep
things of God. This church was a very strong
doctrinal church. Matter of fact, the Lord Jesus
Christ, when He came to the church of Ephesus, He said, I know thy
works. Does that not cause us to fear
the Lord that He knows our works? He said, I know thy works. He
said, I know you've got perfect doctrine. I know you hate all
false doctrine. I tell you that is true of Redeemer
Baptist Church. We have strong, sound doctrine. And I tell you we hate all false
teachers But I pray that this is so that
we have not left our first love. It was because of this the light
was put out in that place. Because they neglected to fear
and reverence God as their first love. The church of Galatia had this
problem when they had those false teachers come in. The apostle
said, there is no other doctrine. He said, there is no other gospel.
If any man preach another gospel to you, which we have not preached,
you let him go to hell. You don't listen to him. There is no other gospel but
the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. There's
no other gospel. We adhere to that. We know that to be true. We affirm
that, that there's only one gospel. There's only one way to come
to God, and that's through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Any
church that preaches any other thing, such as free will, works,
religion, is not the church of God, and we recognize that. We
know there's only one Jesus, too. We affirm that there's only
one Christ, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
God manifest in the flesh, who came into this world to accomplish
salvation for His people. We affirm that Jesus Christ came
by grace and love to save His people from their sins and He
did not fail. He was not discouraged. He died
for our sins and rose again for our justification and is seated
on the throne of God victorious. We hold that to be true. And anyone who preaches anything
else, we affirm as false. We affirm that the Spirit of
God is now sent by Jesus Christ to quicken whomsoever He will. We affirm that the Spirit of
God is the irresistible power of God unto salvation, that everyone
the Spirit touches, everyone He quickens will come to faith
in Christ, He will be raised from the dead
and believe, and Christ should lose nothing. We affirm this.
Anyone who doesn't is not the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we hate all those that will not affirm this. We will not
fellowship with them. We will have no communion with
them. But at the same time that we are to hold these doctrines
so dear, we are also to hold them in love for Christ. Not because of the doctrine,
but because of the one the doctrine speaks of. Because of Christ. We should set our affections,
our love, our heart, our whole life around Him. Believer, this
world puts Christ wherever they can fit Him in. That's not to
be for His church. If we fear the Lord, if we reverence
Him, we will work our lives around Him. I'll tell you, He'll be
the center of our lives. If we are fearing the Lord, He'll
be it. And everything else, if it interferes with Him, we need
to let it go. Whatever it is. Whatever, whoever
it is. If it's my children, I should
let them go to serve Christ. To fear the Lord, to reverence
Him, is to have Him as our first love. To set Him above all else. Believer, remember that we are
still prone to sin. prone to wonder. Lord, I feel
it. Do you not feel prone to wonder?
Believer in Christ, let us continue to find great comfort in the
truth of God's forgiveness. Find comfort in the truth that
Christ has punished for our sins and has removed them from our
charge and blotted them out as a thick cloud by His blood. And
yet, in this life, we have not fully experienced that because
we still have this old man of sin. And if we are neglectful
to see that, we are prone to wonder. We'll be prone to wonder
if we neglect to see it. Believer in Christ, we have a
new nature, a new heart created after God in true holiness that
cannot sin. We believe on Christ and we are
saved by Him and we desire to serve Him. But there's another
man in us. The man that was shapen in iniquity. The man we were born with. The man of sin. And that old man can do nothing
but sin. Go over to Romans 7. I know that you know this, but
May God open our hearts to see if this is our experience. Romans 7 and verse 18. For I know that in me, that is
in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present
with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For
the good that I would do, I do not, and the evil that I would
not, that I do. Now if I do that which I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, bringing me into captivity to the law
of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Is that not to
the letter what we feel? If you have a new heart, that's
exactly what you feel. This is exactly how we feel.
Oh, wretched man that I am. This is our own struggle. And
the conclusion that He comes with is the same conclusion we
come to every time He says, In verse 25, I thank God through
Jesus Christ. Who's going to deliver me from
the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ. I know
this. I'm not what He's going to make
me. One day this robe of flesh will drop off into the grave
and I'll rise in an incorruptible body like His. But until then, we must understand
who we are, so that we know we are prone to wonder. Through Jesus Christ, we are
forgiven, pardoned, and redeemed, but we must not forget the pit
from whence we were digged. In Isaiah chapter 51 in verse
1, God says, Hearken to me, you that follow after righteousness,
you that seek the Lord. This is you who believe on Christ. God is speaking to us. We follow
after His righteousness. We follow Him. We seek His salvation. And what does He say to us? Look
unto the rock whence you were hewn and to the hole of the pit
whence you were digged. Look to the rock and look to
the pit. You want to fear the Lord, you
have to see both. You have to see Christ. And you have to see the pit of
sin that He has taken you out of. Believer in Jesus Christ, behold
what great things God has done for us. Look at the horrible
pit of our sin from which we were delivered. We were shapen
in iniquity. We were dead in sins, blind to
our condition, guilty before the holy justice of God, chained
to our sin and nature, and could by no means free ourselves. This is the pit from whence we
were dug. The pit of sin. Too deep. The pit of sin was too deep and
the justice of God was too steep that we could not escape. But God, but God, who is rich in mercy. Our God wretched down into the
pit and delivered us out of the pit and set our feet on a solid
rock, which is Christ, and established our goings. He hath brought us
out of an horrible pit. Horrible pit. Are you in that pit today? Are you sinking down in the mire
of your sin and guilt? Then behold the rock, behold
the rock from which you were hewn. Behold, the Son of God
has come to seek and to save that which was lost. He came
to deliver sinners. He said, I come not to call the
righteous. I came to call the ones in the
pit. I came to deliver the ones who could not deliver themselves.
That's me. That's me. He came to free us when we could
not free ourselves, and by this, by this view, the heart is made
to reverence God. If you neglect these two things,
to look at the rock by faith and to look at the pit from which
you were digged, we will neglect to fear We must fear God by looking
at His salvation. Fear is reverence. It is to set
our affections on Christ and let us, because of His mercy,
offer our bodies a living sacrifice. Don't wait till you die to be
a living sacrifice. It's just reasonable then for
us to give ourselves to the service of Christ. Isn't it reasonable?
Seeing how far He came to dig us out of that pit and how far
He has exalted us into glory, is it not just reasonable to
fear and reverence Him? Tis done. The great transaction's done.
I am my Lord's, and He is mine. Behold Jesus our King, our Savior,
who bore the vengeance of God in our place. Behold Jesus, who
is all our righteousness, and whose blood cleanseth us from
all our sins. Don't forget Him. Don't forget. When you leave, how much of this
will you remember? One thing I want you to hold
on to, don't forget Him. Wherever you go, whatever you
do, don't forget Him. Don't forget to serve Christ. Don't forget to set your affection
on Him and Him alone. Let everything else go and cling
to Christ. Hang on. Hold fast. Give up everything. Isn't that
what He demands of His disciples? If any man come after me, and
hate not his father, and his mother, and his sister, and his
brother, and yea, himself, he cannot be my disciple. To follow Christ is to let go
of everything and gladly cling to the Son of God. Now there will be some of you
who fear the Lord like these people did. These people of Israel,
when they saw that storm of God's vengeance, they began to fear.
And their fear was a terror, a terror. And they said to Samuel,
pray for us that we die not. That's kind of like Simon Magus. You remember that sorcerer whose
faith was false. He said to Peter when his sin
was found out, he said, Peter, pray for me. When a sinner is made known,
when his sin is exposed, he'll pray for himself. Isn't that
what the publican did? Did he go up to the Pharisee
and say, Pharisee, would you please pray for me? No. He screamed
out for mercy. And God said He went home justified. And when a man's sin is exposed,
he cries, have mercy on me, O God, for I am the sinner. And you
know what? God has mercy on such people.
God has mercy. God has mercy. Sinners will cry
out for themselves. Why? Because when God works a
work of grace in a man and fear comes into his heart, it's not
just a terror. It may begin that way, but I'll
tell you, it becomes very reverential when he sees Christ as his Savior. And lastly, fear the Lord without
fear. Fear the Lord without fear. Isn't
that what happened? They were afraid. Look at your
text. I'll show it to you. It's simply amazing what the
Lord says. Samuel, these people were afraid. They feared the Lord and Samuel.
And all the people said, verse 20, And Samuel said unto the
people, Fear not. You have done all this wickedness.
That's right, you're a wretched, horrible sinner. That's true. And we say, Amen. We confess. Yet, turn not aside
from following the Lord. Even though you're a great sinner,
don't turn from Christ. Don't turn from Him. but serve
the Lord with all your heart. Turn ye, not aside, for then
you should go after vain things which cannot profit. Let the
things of the world go. They're empty. They're vain.
They can't help you. They can't give you the peace
that you think they can. They're not going to sustain
you in the flood. Only Christ will sustain you. Don't go after
those things. You serve the Lord with all your
heart, and don't you go after those things. For the Lord will
not forsake His people for His great name's sake, because it
hath pleased the Lord to make you His people. Does that not
turn your heart to Him? Does that not make you want to
serve Him that He has desired to make you His people? He's
not going to forsake you. He's not going to leave you.
Why would you leave Him? Why would you leave Him? Fear
not. It's God's pleasure to be with
you. Moreover, as for me, God forbid
that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,
but I will teach you the good in the right way. Here's the
good in the right way. Only fear the Lord. Only reverence
Him above everything else. And serve Him in truth with all
your heart. I know that every believer here
would confess that we have not served Him with all our heart. That makes me sad. He gave Himself to die for me
and I have not served Him as I should have. That only makes me want to desire
it more to serve Him. For consider how great things
He hath done for you. To only fear the Lord is to consider
Christ. Consider the great offering of
His blood. And because of that, not for
your salvation, but because of it, serve Him with all that you
have. This is where happiness is truly
found. It won't be found anywhere else.
Not for God's people. Serve the Lord with what? Gladness. Gladness. May God ever make us more His
servants. seeing that he's already made
us his sons. You're already his son. And I move you to reverence him. May God show us both the rock
and the pit so that we keep our affection set on things above. I pray that God would bless this.
I pray that he'd give us this fear, this reverence. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed
in prayer.