1 Samuel chapter 3. Go with me to 1 Samuel chapter
3. The situation necessitates a
change of the text. The truth doesn't change, but
the text may. And may the Word of God be our comfort. this morning, may John's comfort,
all our comfort. David said in Psalm 119, unless
thy word had been my comfort, I would have perished in my affliction. We couldn't make it, could we?
He said, this is all my comfort and my affliction, all the worry.
He says, remember the word unto thy servant upon which you've
caused me to hope. And so this message will be your
dad's funeral, okay, and our funeral. all of us. You just don't know what a day
will bring forth, what the Lord will bring forth in a day. You
just don't know what the Lord is going to do because it is
the Lord. 1 Samuel chapter 3 is the story
of Eli. He had two sons that he loved
as you love your children no matter what, good or bad, you
love them. And the Lord told Samuel that
he was going to take, he was going to kill both of Elias'
sons. And look at verse 15, Samuel
lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house of the
Lord. Samuel was a doorkeeper. That's a good thing to do. Samuel didn't want to show Eli.
He feared to show Eli the vision, and Eli called Samuel. Samuel,
my son, he said, here am I. Eli said, what is the thing the
Lord has said unto thee? I pray thee, hide it not from
me. God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from
me, and all the things that he said unto thee. Samuel was a
true preacher, wasn't he? Call of God. And God's man, in
this case, he was a boy. Don't hide the truth. Samuel told him every whip. He
told him what the Lord was going to do. It was bad news. And Eli said, it is the Lord. Do you think his heart smote
him? Do you think he was shocked?
Do you think he was in trouble? Do you think... You know what
all went through his mind, because we've been through it to some
degree. Were tears running down his face? What did he say? It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth good
to him. And he has, and he does, and
he shall do whatsoever he please. Pleasing doesn't mean that it
gives him great pleasure to do such. Just whatever he was pleased
to do, his purpose, that's what he hath done, does, and shall
ever do. In the armies of heaven and the
habitants of the earth, he does whatsoever he pleases. And whatever
he does, whatever he's pleased to do, is right. He cannot do wrong. And it's not
evil for God's people. He said that. No evil shall befall
you, no matter how bad the news. Somehow it works together for
our good. Look at 1 Samuel 2. This is what,
this is, remember Hannah's prayer. Oh, don't you love Hannah's prayer?
She was barren for some time. Her sister-in-law, or whatever
she was, was not. She had many children. And that's
a trial, you know, for a woman. Women are made to have children. Well, some, the Lord gives. Whoever has children doesn't
mean you're fertile. It means the Lord gave you children.
If you don't, The Lord was not pleased to give you children. There's going to come a time
when it didn't matter whether you had them or not. Right? And some, he said, are going
to wish they hadn't had them. Because of the sorrow that they
got. But Anna didn't have any, and
she was very sorry. Well, finally the Lord gave her
a son, Samuel. And when she's praying, you know,
she does not mention Him. She does not mention having a
child. She doesn't mention that as being the blessing. She doesn't
mention that. She doesn't mention things. She
doesn't mention that boy, that baby boy. She just talks about
the Lord's sovereign mercy and grace. Verse 1, Hannah prayed,
said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the
Lord. My mouth is enlarged over mine
enemies, because I rejoice in thy salvation. She said, The thing, never mind
anything else, whether I have children or don't have children,
here's the thing. Whatever happens, He hath revealed
unto me His great salvation. David said, although it be not
so with my house, yet He hath made with me concerning me an
everlasting covenant, and everything about me is ordered. And it's sure. You can't change
it. You can't alter it. And when it's all said and done,
you'll be glad you couldn't. Because He's too wise to do wrong
and too good to do evil. That's why there's going to be
silence for 30 minutes. No weeping, just thankful hearts. Thankful hearts. And then we're
all going to erupt. We're all going to say the same
thing. Isn't the Lord good? Hasn't it been good? He said
it would be and it has been. Good. It's the Lord. Look at verse 6. Hannah said,
The Lord killeth and maketh the life, long before Isaiah wrote
that. The Lord killeth. He bringeth
down to the grave. He bringeth up. He maketh poor.
He maketh rich. He does all these things. The
Lord does all these things. Go with me to the book of Job,
Job chapter 1. This is the oldest book in God's
Word, Job chapter 1, the oldest book. And Job was loved by God. God had made a covenant concerning
Job. Job was in his everlasting covenant,
and everything about Job was ordered and sure, could not be
altered, could not be changed. And God did it all. Everything
that happened to Job, God did it. Okay? What happened to Job? Anything that could happen to
a human being happened to Job. And it didn't happen. It is the
Lord. You understand? That's, you know,
people, we want to look at this. It is the Lord. But Job chapter
1, look at verse 6. You know the story. There was
a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came also among them. We know that that's
when God's people meet together. Satan, he is attempting to disrupt
our gathering. Because one thing he wants more
than anything is for us to not hear the gospel. Not hear the
truth. Not trust the Lord. to fill us
with fear. That's why we come. Our strength
is to come here and sit still and be still and know that He
is God, no matter what. This is our strength. This is
where we come from. And returning in rest thou shalt
be saved, he said. Quietness and confidence shall
be your strength. But some, he said, they don't
do it and run off and take off after the other thing. Well,
you've forsaken your own mercy, you know. Your strength, your
peace, your comforts, come here and sit still. And here thus
saith the Lord, it is the Lord. He maketh rich, he maketh poor.
You're not going to make yourself rich. You don't want to be rich. You want to be rich in faith,
because everything's going to be taken away from you. Everyone. Right? But the Lord. Everyone but Him will be taken
from you. It's a fact. It's true. I'm telling
you the truth. Like Samuel told Eli, I'm telling
you the truth, it's going to be taken from you. When? I don't
know. The Lord's going to do it. All
right. His sons and his daughters were
together eating and drinking and carrying on. A man came running, in verse
13, verse 14, came a messenger to Job and said the oxen were
plowing, the asses feeding inside them, and the sabians, the enemy,
the sabians, came down, fell on them, took them away, and
they slew all the servants. They slew all your workers, took
all your oxen, asses, took them all. And while he was speaking,
And the other came running, and the fire of God is falling from
heaven. It burned up all the sheep. All
the sheep are gone, and all of those shepherds are dead. And I'm the only one alive to
tell this. And while he was yet speaking,
the Chaldeans, another group of men, three bands, came down. and carried away the camels and
servants. They killed them, those shepherds,
and I'm the only one. While he was speaking, another
one came and said, your sons and your daughters, a whirlwind,
a tornado came. A tornado. You know, Scripture
says, he hath his way and the whirlwind. Tornadoes don't strike random
places. Should you fear a tornado, fear
God. Right? How could you have any comfort?
Where would you turn? Where would you run? Where do
you hide? In Him. You don't have to run to hide
in Him. You don't have to have a bomb
shelter to hide in him. I used to have, my friend had
a bomb shelter back, he and I grew up together in the 50s and 60s. His parents built a bomb shelter
behind their house, and that was very common back then. Do
you remember anybody had a bomb shelter? We'd play in that, we'd
play, and we'd pretend, you know, we had an air, a big thing, you'd
turn and get air down in all that. They never had to use it. A horse is a vain thing for safety.
A bomb shelter is a vain place for safety. Why? Because it's
the Lord. Where are you going to run? David said, where shall I run,
hide from His presence? Where shall I flee? I tell you,
where you flee, you flee to Him. You flee to Him. The one that
smites us is the one we need to flee to. Remember, I used
to chase my dog, and he needed it. And what he would do, he
feared me, but yet he loved me, and I loved him. What he would
do is he'd run up right next to me. Get close to me. He would run from me, run to
me. That's what we needed to do. Run to the one that's doing
all this. Now, that's our only comfort. Job didn't blame the Chaldeans. He didn't mention them. He said,
I hate those Chaldeans. We've got to do something about
them. Job didn't blame the Sabeans. I hate those Sabeans. We need
to kill them all. He didn't blame the tornado.
He didn't blame the fire. He didn't blame anybody. He said,
it's the Lord. He said, the Lord gave. The Lord
take it away. Now here's the root of the matter.
If you've got the root of the matter, what's the root of the
matter? What's the root? Faith. Christ. The root of David. He's the Lord. He's the Lord. That's who that we're talking
about. Jesus Christ. He's not a bystander in the affairs
of man. He's running the affairs of man.
Every hair on everyone's head. Jesus Christ, reigning over Rome. And not one hair will fall off
your head. A hair. It won't fall. A bird won't fall
to the ground in the forest unless he ordained it. Now the world
says that's ridiculous. Ridiculous? No, all this coming
from soup is ridiculous. This is God, and this is our
comfort. We don't fully understand, but
we know that what He does is right. And we bow to it. Someday we're going to know.
We're going to know as we've been known. He's going to show
us. And we've got an eternity for Him to do so. He's going
to show us what all He has done in the exceeding riches of His
grace, His kindness toward us through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we're going to see it all. We're going to see the front
side of this tapestry. Right now, we look at the backside.
It all looks like a jumbled mess, all these disjointed things that
are happening. No, no, no, no. It all works
together. You turn it over, you'll see
the whole picture. It's all intertwined to break
one thread to mess up the whole picture, the purpose of it. And so, you know what we'll see?
A face. The face of Christ is all about
Him and those in Him for His glory. Blessed be the name of
the Lord. Go with Job 14. Job 14. Job chapter 14. Job, now here
in this chapter, talks about death. Death and life. Verse 1, man
that is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. So,
you know, Moses wrote in Psalm 90, teach us, so teach us to
number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. And Job went on to say he's full
of trouble. There's troubles coming. I mean,
we've either had troubles or in trouble or getting ready to
have more troubles. It's just so. Why? Because man's
in trouble with God. It is, our Lord said, there'll
be no rest, no peace for the wicked. As long as man rejects
God, has no interest in God's Son, there's not going to be,
he's going to sin all these things. Now, it's the wrath of God. It's
the judgment of God against unbelieving world, but not God's people.
It's not judgment. It's not wrath. It's mercy. It's
goodness. All things work together for
good to them that love God. They're in His purpose for good. And we're going to see, maybe
in this life. It's full of trouble. And we,
God's people, we need to see that these troubles are God's
goodness. Listen to Psalm 90, I just quoted
part of it for you. Here's what Moses wrote, one
of the oldest psalms. He said, Make us glad according
to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us. Make us see that this was your
goodness to us. Let thy work appear unto thy
servants and thy glory unto their children. Let us see glory in
them. Job 14, he says, verse 2, he
comes forth like a flower and is cut down and fleeth as a shadow
and continueth not. Well, that's Psalm 90 again.
Moses, you see, there's nothing new. Moses is writing what Job
said. Isn't it? A thousand years and
his sight was yesterday. There's a watch in the night,
a flood, like a sleep, like a flower. Flourishes and grows up and the
evening is cut down. I'm consumed by that anger of
thy wrath. He talks about fear, fear of
the Lord. Oh, Lord, teach us. What is this
all about? Verse 3 of Job 14, "...thou open
not eyes with such a one, bring me into judgment with thee."
What is man that God would think upon him? Why would God have
anything to do with this despicable creature called mankind, a worm? Man was created in the image
of God, Adam and Eve, upright. and in the image of Christ and
with God, and God enjoyed them, they enjoyed Him. But, quickly,
they stuck their fist in God's face. And then it went downhill fast
until the whole earth, God said, had corrupted His way. He said,
it's filthy. All of them, didn't he? Why? And so Job asked this question,
and David wrote it in the psalm. What is man that thou art mindful
of him, or visit him? Why would he come down? I'll
tell you why. Because he's God and he's not a man. Because he's
merciful. Because he set his love on some
of these creatures. And those he loves, he shows
them these things. If you're here and you're loving
what you hear, you want to be here, you want to hear the truth
no matter how bad it talks about you. Let me just tell you this, the
worse you can feel about yourself, the better you ought to feel.
You know that? Why? Because all that sin is
going to show the glory of God. And I hear, I heard that Franklin
Graham, Billy Graham's son, quoting that and going through his little
spiel, you know, trying to get people to accept Jesus and all
that. And he's quoting it like, just like a parrot would words,
you know, sin. To sin in that... My dad used to say, men aren't
going to hell for stealing a watermelon. That's about all you could steal
in lower Alabama back then. But that's not why people are
going to hell. They're going to hell because
they say, I will be God. And I don't care about God's
son. I don't care if he came or not. I don't care. I did all this, not God. I got
everything I got. Not God. There is no God. I'm God. That's sin. Does that make you
angry to think about that? How much more, God? God sent
his son to this hell hole. Would you send your beloved child
into a cesspool? Would you send your son down
into a cesspool to rescue a convict? The one that killed him? Would
you? No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't
either. But God. See, these are the only ones
God's going to spare. Those that He shows what He did
for them in Christ. And they're grateful right now,
and they'll be forever grateful then. And they're completely
taken up with that work right now, and they would be completely
taken up with it then. And the rest of these things
to them are just toys. And Christ is all. Because God
has shown them. Now all the fullness of God is
in His Son. All the mercy of God, all the
love of God, all the wisdom of God, all the power of God, all
the goodness of God, all things that they get, everything in
this world is concerning God's Son. And God shows that to His
people. And He hides it from the wise
and the prudent. Verse 4, how can you bring a
clean thing out of an unclean? You see that? You can't. And another thing that makes
God angry is what people try to do to commend themselves to
God, you know, religion and all that. And Paul said, if righteousness
come by you doing anything, Christ didn't need to die on that cross,
you know. And religion across the board said Jesus died for
you. Now, straighten up. Well, yeah, you should straighten
that, but that's not the reason you're going to get in glory.
It's going to be because Jesus Christ died for you. You don't
add that to what He did. That's an abomination to God. It's Jesus Christ alone. Who
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Jesus Christ. God made Jesus Christ unclean.
To make us clean. You understand that? Sure you
do. Not many do. 2 Corinthians 5.21. He made him to be sin for us
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Laid on him the iniquity of us all. Laid on us the righteousness
of him. Why would he do that? to the praise of the glory of
His presence, because it pleased God to make you His people. It
pleased the Lord to bruise Him. It pleased the Lord not to kill
you. Isn't that wonderful? Verse 5,
A man's days are determined, and the number of his months
are with the Lord. He's appointed his bounds, he
cannot pass. Death is of the Lord. Death is
the Lord. Life is the Lord. He said, I
kill, I make a life. Death is real. Man tries to ignore it. Man tries
to shun it. I just read yesterday that science
has proved now people can live 170 some years. We'd better hurry. Death is real. There are no accidents. There are no accidents. You need
to get that word out of your vocabulary. You know that? There
are no accidents. There are appointments. Everything
is appointed. Isn't that what it says there?
That's not fatalism. It's not Calvinism. It's Job
14.5. It's God's Word. Days are determined. Who determined
them? God did. Can you increase them? No. Can you decrease them? No. When
you do this, you live longer. No, you won't. If you don't do
this, if you do this, you'll die sooner. No. No. It's the Lord. To determine the
number of his months with thee. Thou hast appointed his bounds,
he cannot pass. And the means. God has appointed
the means of your death, of my death. Man is taken up with means. Man
is blinded by means. Man is afraid of means. If we
can just get rid of this, this is killing us. No, God is. No,
we can stop this. We can stop cancer. We'll all
quit dying. No, He'll send something else. See, it's blinds people
then. The means, in my opinion. People
are taken up with means. People fear the means. Fear God. You don't have to fear the means.
He's the one who sent the means. You can use this means. You can
use that means. Right? And he sends strong delusions
so that men think, if we can just stop these means from killing
us, we won't die. No, you can't. God says, I kill. Whatever the means is, God sent
it. Can you believe that? How could you have any comfort
in that? What are you trusting? What would
you trust? The means. You know, six people die every
minute in the United States. 30 minutes. 180 people have died
since I've been preaching in the United States alone. In 2020, 3.3 million people died
in the United States alone. 696,000 from heart disease. 602,000
from cancer. 350,000 from COVID, supposedly. Supposedly. So what should you
fear? Which one are you going to fear
the most? God. Accidents. 200,000 people died
from accidents. They didn't see it coming. Suicide. 45,000 people a year
commit suicide in the United States alone. That's 9,000 people a day die,
326 an hour, 6 people a minute die from something. It is the Lord. Whatever it is,
the Lord sent it. Don't fear the means, fear the
Lord. It is the Lord. See, He's our
fear. If we fear Him, we don't need
to fear anyone, anything else. He's our comfort. He's our hope.
Look at verse 10. Man dies, he wastes away. Man
giveth up the ghost. Where is he? Where is he? The world's in darkness. Sister
Margaret, we are not in darkness, as I was telling you. Where is
Matt? He's not here. He's risen. What are you talking about? Christ
said so. He that believeth on the Son
shall not perish. He said, I'll raise him up. He
that seeth the Son, this is the Father's will. Whoever sees the
Son, sees Him, sees their need of Him, sees His glory, sees
His beauty, loves to sit in this house and inquire of Him. No
place am I could rather be with Him. You hear about His Lord,
well, He's risen. I can say that with the utmost
confidence from the Word of the Lord. The absent from the body, where
is He? The man died, where is He? Well, if He's in Christ,
He's with the Lord. The Lord came for Him. Isn't
that wonderful? You fear death? I don't fear
going home. I want to go home and be with
my wife. Don't fear her. Well, sometimes
I do. But the point is, you want to
go and be with the One you love, don't you? Do you really love
Him, Lord? Do you really love Him? Do you love what you're
hearing? Do you love what He is, Lord? Do you love to see
any beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ? You just wait. Have you
heard anything of His blessed voice? Have you felt anything
of His blessed presence and comfort of it? You just wait. And you're going to have to say,
why did I want to stay there when I could have been here?
Why did I fear anything? I should have said, let me get
COVID. But it's the Lord. Whoever He
takes, it's the Lord. He said it to whomever, whatever
it was. He did it. Right? Blessed be the name of the Lord.
We would not choose to die. We would not choose the means
of death. Our Lord does. All right, you can choose the
date of your death and the means of your death. When? Well, not
tomorrow. Not next week. My granddaughter's
got a track meter. When? How? Well, I don't want to die
in pain. I want to die in my sleep. The Lord Jesus Christ lived. He chose to live on this earth.
For Him to leave glory and come here. Oh, people. It's like us
choosing to live in a hog pen for 33 years. That's right. He came down here and He chose
to live on this earth and He chose how many years? How long
would you live if you could choose? He chose 33 years. That's it. That's all he could take of living
here. Ever thought about that? Our Lord lives in a year more
than we'll live in a lifetime. Abundant life. Real life. Because he was always with God.
Thinking about God. Thinking about other people.
His people. In the will of God. Always content
in whatever state he was in. But for 33 years, that's it.
How did he die? He chose his own death. Pain. He died alone. He chose for everybody
to leave him. Chose his friends. What kind
of people were they? Harlots and publicans. So we don't choose, and you better
be glad you don't choose, because you'd never choose. You would
choose to die the way you're going to die. You'll do it. And
you did it. And it's good. You're going to
see it's good. Look down. I've got to quit.
Down in verse 12, So man lieth down, and riseth not, till the
heavens be no more. They shall not awake, nor be
raised out of their sleep. All those bodies. How many bodies? How many people have died? Trillions
upon trillions of bodies. Some of them, there's no body
left anymore. There's not even any dust anymore. And Job says, Oh, put me in the
grave. Hide me in the grave. Verse 13, he says, Hide me, keep
me in secret till the wrath be past, and appoint me a set time,
and remember me. Come back for me. You're coming
back. I know you are. Will you remember me when you
come into your kingdom and get your people? Verse 14, if a man
dies, shall he live again? Well, all the days of my appointed
time, my bounds are set, the means are set, my appointed time,
I'm going to wait. This is what God's people are
waiting on. To die? Well, no, to live. Because It
says the day of death is better than birth. And little Isaac,
just born, just born, got his whole life ahead of him. Ron,
next week he's going to be your age isn't he? Isn't he? That little dash between that
2022, the dash, 2000, whatever. The Lord is appointed at that,
the day, the mean, everything. He's appointed. But our life
consists of that dash, a tale, a short story that's
told by the Lord, written. He said, I'm awake, Job said,
till my change come. Verse 15, oh, I love this. Thou
shalt call and I will answer. Thou wilt have a desire to the
work of thine hands. You're going to call. Whoever
He calls the first time, He's going to call again from the
grave. Whoever He calls out of sin,
whoever He calls out of darkness into His marvelous light, whoever
He calls that were dead and trespassed in sin and quickened sin by His
grace, by His gospel, their bodies are going to lie in that grave
and someday He's going to call. And it's a mystery. They're with
Him now, and yet body and soul are going to join together. Come,
O my blessed children, into the kingdom I prepared for you before
the foundation of the world. Come, enjoy. Enter thou into
the joy of the Lord. Forever. Fantasy? Fable, fiction, truth. Truth. How do we know this? Because
Jesus Christ died. He went into that grave. He put
his body in that grave. Mack Lazarus, he was there three
days, Lazarus four. Three days later, he walked out
of that grave. And this corruption must put
on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality.
And when that happens, when the Lord calls, we're going to say,
O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? So this is all my hope, Job said,
all my peace, all my comfort. I was going to turn to 1 Thessalonians
4 where he said, comfort one another with these words. Comfort
one another. The root of the matter was in
Job. You see, he said in chapter 19, I know, this is what I know,
this is why I know these things. He's going to call, because I
know my Redeemer liveth. And he said, he's going to stand
on this earth at the latter day. Job, he did. He did, Job. He knows now. And he said, this
is all my hope, all my plight, all my salvation, and my Redeemer.
He bought me. So that's why we sing songs like
I will sing of my Redeemer. That's why we sing of our Redeemer
and his wondrous love to us. We sing, when he shall come with
trumpet sound. Paul wrote that in 1 Thessalonians,
the trumpet shall sound. And like Rahab, we're all going
to woo. He's here. When he shall come
with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found, dressed in his
righteousness alone, hopeless to stand before the throne. He's
the only one that can present you like that. On Christ the
solid rock I stand. Do you? All other ground is sinking
sand. This world is quick sand. Oh, and Christ is solid rock.
You're smiling, John. You're laughing. That's it. You rejoice in God your Savior,
don't you? It is the Lord. Whatever it is,
it is the Lord. Bless His Holy Name. Okay.