1 Samuel 12, and I title my message
this evening, Following Christ. Following Christ. For as we read
here, we'll see what Samuel charged Israel to do, and all that he
charged him to do is what believers are in following the Lord Jesus
Christ. You remember Samuel gave his
farewell to Israel. Then he charges these people
to examine his word and his office. He asked them, he said, if what
have I ever taken from any of you? Have I taken any one of
your ox? Have I defrauded any of you? Have I received any bribe
in any of your hand? So he asked them to do that.
And then he comes down here and he says in verse seven, Now therefore
stand still. Be quiet here. Stand still. I
got some things to say to you. That I may reason with you before
the Lord. Reason with you before the Lord.
The Lord's the one listening here. The Lord is doing this
before the Lord. Of all the righteous acts of the Lord which he did
to you and your fathers. So he begins to rehearse these
things to him. But in spite of that, in spite
of that, down in verse 9, look what happens. And when they forget
the Lord their God. He forget that when they forget
the Lord their God. When God had brought them up
out of Egypt, they forgot God. When God took them through the
Red Sea, they forgot God. When he had the Passover land,
he forgot God. That's what they said. And he
sold them into the hand of Caesarea. And oh my! And so to add to their
condemnation, they rejected God and asked for a king. Asked for
a king. In verse 13 he says, Therefore
now behold the king whom you have chosen. You have chosen. God didn't choose him. You chose
him. And whom you had desired. And behold the Lord has set a
king over you. Now listen to what he charges
them to do now. And this is the illustration
of us following Christ. If you will fill the Lord, and
serve Him, and obey His voice, and not rebel against the commandment
in the margin that says mouth, against that commandment or the
mouth of the Lord, then shall both ye also and the King that
reigneth over you continue the following Continue following
the Lord thy God and if you don't then the hand of God's going
to be against you And I tell you what in asking for a king
and asking for a king here's one thing that didn't happen
God never ceased to be God and he still required them Even though
they chose a king and rejected him That he still required them
and did not relinquish his authority or power over them. God still
demanded that they follow Him and Him exclusively. Exclusively. And that's why He's saying, declare
your allegiance to God. Fear God. Obey His voice. Follow Him. Follow hard after
Him. And if you don't, then the hand
of God is going to be against you. Now, beloved, in having
a king, That didn't relieve them of their responsibility before
God. And because they had a king, it didn't give them any more
liberty as in worship. God still has to be worshiped.
God still has to have sacrifices. God still has to have blood.
God still has to be honored. God still has to be obeyed. His
word has to be read and believed. And I tell you what, it didn't
relieve him of the weightier matters of the law of justice
and mercy and truth. They thought, well, we got us
a king, so now the king will tell us what to do. And they
said, well, God said, no, that's not the way it's going to be.
You got the king, but you didn't give me up and I didn't give
you up. And that's not going to happen. God's never going
to lessen his demands on anybody in this world. He's never going
to do it. God's demands upon his people
is not changed even under the gospel. That's why I say this
is an illustration. This is an illustration of us
as believers following Christ. They said you follow on the path
of no God. You follow on God, fear God.
We follow on. Following God is following Christ. And that's what he says. And
God demands the same on his people. It's not changed. Our Lord Jesus
said it like this. He said if any man will come
after me, any man will come after me. First thing he has to do,
you know what the first thing he has to do? He's got to deny
himself. Deny himself. Now that's the
hardest thing a human being has ever done. He's got to deny himself. Deny everything he's ever done. Everything he's ever thought.
Everything he's ever accomplished. All the thoughts he's had of
God. All the thoughts he's had of himself. He's got to deny
himself. I have got nothing to contribute
here. I've got nothing to bring to
the table. What have I got? I read something to sugar this
morning. It says a young believer thinks
much of himself. a believer as he grows a little
bit, he realizes he's nothing. And then when he gets old, he
realizes that he's less than nothing. And that's the way it
is. You start out thinking you're
somebody, then you realize you're nothing, then you get a little
age on you and you say, I'm less than nothing. And that's what
our Lord Jesus meant. And if any man will come after
me and let him deny himself, and then listen, take up his
cross. What cross? Christ. His crucifixion. Identify with His death. Identify
with His blood. Identify with everything that
He accomplished at Calvary. Identify with that. Yes, that
cross is where Christ died. That cross is where my sins was
put away. That cross is where God was satisfied
with His blessed Son. So we take up our cross and we
follow Him. That's what He said. And so He
said here in verse 14, He said, if you will fear the Lord, fear
the Lord, serve Him and obey His voice. I want to give three
things that define what it means to follow God. And following
God is like, you know, if you follow God, you're following
Christ. It's one and the same. It's one and the same. Our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself said, He said, He that has seen the Father
has seen Me. And here's the first thing about
following Christ. Everyone who follows Christ fears
the Lord. And that's what he says. If you will, fear the Lord. If
you will. We do fear the Lord. What does
it mean to fear the Lord? It means to fear God. It means
having a holy reverence for God Himself. You see, when we think
about God, And we think about Him, we think of Him in the most
holy, the most reverential ways. I mean, we can't think of Him
high enough, but we look upon Him and we consider Him. and
regard Him as He is, not as we think Him, but as He describes
Himself in His Word. We see Him in His perfection.
We sing that song, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. And that's what we say, He is
holy, infinitely holy, gloriously holy. And the Scriptures tell
us that He dwells dwells in the light that no man can approach
unto. And our Lord Jesus Christ said
it this way. He says, no man has seen God. No man has seen God at any time. Well, how in the world do we
know Him? The Son has told Him that. The Son has revealed Him.
The Son has made Him known. So if we know God, this is to
know the true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. And I tell
you, beloved, if you follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and we do,
it ain't if we don't fear the Lord, we do fear the Lord. God's people fear the Lord. And
I tell you what, you know, God, people talk about this universe
and all the planets out there and all the galaxies out there
and they landed something on Mars the other day and it took
them months and months and a million miles to get there. Oh my goodness,
just go over there. But listen, instead of the universe
being in God, God has a universe in him. I mean, he'd have his
eternity. Oh, God don't fill up the universe.
God filled up the universe and He's greater than the universe. God is so far above this world
and everything that the greatest mind ever thought of. They talk
about going 300 million miles. God goes into eternity. Started in eternity and finishes
in eternity. And God he's in this and he's
infinite I want to show you something over in 1st Timothy 6 look at
this look at this together Excuse me 1st Timothy 6 16, you
know But if you follow if you follow if
you fear the Lord when we do fear God I We have a holy reverence
for God. We would never think of calling
God the old man. We'd never talk about calling
him the one great being. We'd never, ever think about
calling him one of God's. Listen, and here's the thing
about it. God, God and when he inhabits
eternity, Now you and I, when we think about God and we consider
God and we hear Him preach, we're like Moses when he said, Oh God,
I can't, I gotta cover my face. Job said, I gotta abhor myself. And Isaiah cried, woe is me. You cannot see God and stay the
same. You cannot have a vision of God
and stay the same. You cannot have a view of God,
biblical view of God, and it not change you dramatically.
That's why people don't have, they have no reverence. One of
the greatest things that God says in the scriptures against
man is that there's no fear of God before their eyes. There's
no fear of God before the eyes of these people. I've seen some
things the other day that they're planning on having at some of
these so-called churches. They're going to have ten cross
and they're going to have the dredge. At the same time. And then they're going to feed
your children some good cookies. And that's what I'm telling you.
There's no fear of God in front of a man that'll do stuff like
that. None. And I tell you what, when we
hear God describe any other way than what God himself describes
himself. I am God and beside me there
is none other. He calls the nations as a drop
in the bucket and as dust on the balance. And he said I am
the wild lofty one that inhabits eternity. We're afraid. I tell you how
we fear God and the reverence we have for God. It hurts us
deep when we think that our thoughts gives him anything less than
what's due him. Just our thoughts. And look what
he said here in 1 Timothy 6.15. Talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. which in his times he shall show who is the blessed
and only potentate. That word potentate means got
all power. He rules absolutely. The king
of kings and lord of lords, listen to this, who only have immortality. He's the only one that's got
immortality. If you and I gave him immortality, he's got to
give it to us. This mortal shall put on immortality. This corruption shall put on
incorruption. He's always been immortal. And
if we have immortality and we spend eternity with Him, He's
the only one giving it to us. And He only has immortality dwelling
in the light, now listen to it, which no man can approach unto,
who no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power
everlasting. as God. So how do we approach Him? The
way He told us to. Through His blessed Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. No man can come unto the Father
but by me. I'm the way. And if He's the way, that means
there's no other way. And if God's all got all power,
that means nobody else has got it. And oh look here, also the fear
of God speaks of how we approach Him. You know the fear of God
has a great effect on how we approach Him? Oh my! Too many have an unholy
familiarity with God. Oh, listen, the good Lord. Oh, the Father, He loves all
of you. The brotherhood of man. And I tell you, they have an
unholy familiarity with God. They can talk about God in the
most flippant terms, glib terms. You ought to stand up and give
God a great big hand clap. Let's stand up and shout for
God. Let's march around the building
and like we took down Jericho, let's march around the building
and we'll tear down all the strongholds of the devil. But I tell you, it's an awful
thing to fail to apprehend the weightiness of God. I remember
Scott preaching one time from Ephesians 1. On what the word
glory means. God has the praise of the glory
of his grace. And what that word glory means.
And he started preaching on that and he said it means weight.
It means weight, the glory, the weight. And he said, oh the weightiness
of God's glory. The awesomeness of it, the weightiness
of it. It's so heavy, it's so weighty.
That if He don't give us a view of Himself, we won't see it?
And I tell you, we're interested in seeing, we're like Moses,
Lord, show me Your glory! Oh my! The Scriptures tells us
in Hebrews 12, 28, He said, See that we have a kingdom that cannot
be moved. Let us, let us fear God, and
come to God with grace and godly reverence and godly fear because
our God is a consuming fire. And I tell you, you know when
we approach God, we don't tell Him what to do,
we ask Him what He wants us to do. People approach God and start
telling Him what they want Him to do. David said, Lord, if it
pleases you. And here it talked about it pleased
the Lord to make his people. It pleased the Lord to bruise
them. It pleased God by the foolishness
of the preaching. It's what pleases God that we're interested in.
Not what pleases the flesh. Not what pleases our mind. What
pleases God. And we approach Him, we approach
Him because of the fear that we have of Him. We don't waltz
into His presence. As I heard one old preacher say,
walking up there flipping your bow gun from one side of your
mouth to the other. That's not the way you talk to
God. That's not the way you approach God. Father, God, Holy. And when we pray, we pray in
scriptural terms. We don't address God any other
way than He tells us to address Him. He's our Father. And the
first thing He says about our Father is, He's in Heaven. And
the second thing it says about Him is, how would be thy name?
How holy is your name? When we approach God, when we
even talk about God, we talk about Him in terms of the highest
reverence that we can possibly think of. We don't joke about
Him. We don't make jokes about Him.
We don't speak, we don't like the people speak any other way
other than the way it's supposed to be. And when Samuel, you seen
there where Samuel called this? He said, it's harvest day. Barley
harvest. He said, I'm going to call on
God. And He's going to send thunder and He's going to send rain.
And the reason He's going to do this is to show you how wicked
you are and ask Him for a king. And he prayed and God sent thunder
and He sent rain. And the first thing those folks
said was, they feared the Lord. God's got to do something to
get people's fear. But I tell you what, people think
you know that God sends tornadoes to wake people up. Nope. Sends earthquakes to wake people
up. Nope. He sends fires to wake people
up. Nope. He sends famines to wake
people up. Nope. None of those things has brought
any done person to Christ. It may make them call on God. It may make them say, Lord, I'll
make a promise to you. If you'll save me from this,
I'll do something else. But the only thing that God uses
to stir His people up and save people is His Word. He don't
use catastrophes, he uses his word. Ain't that right? This time you
see an earthquake and see how many people's called on the Lord. Listen, I'm not making light
of it. All those folks burnt out of their houses out there
in California. It wasn't nobody, nobody under the sun said anything
about God, anything about Christ. And God help us, God have mercy
on us, and God provide for us. Not one of them did I hear say
that. And that's sad, ain't it? That's
what I'm talking about. He said, if you will fear the
Lord. We do fear the Lord. And because of that fear we have
of Him, we approach Him, we approach Him. But we approach Him as sons. We approach Him as His children.
We approach Him as His elect. And we still reverence Him. Reverence
Him. And I'll tell you something else
now. Over and over in the Scriptures. Over and over in the Scriptures. We're told to be not afraid.
To be not afraid. God told Joshua, be not afraid. Our Lord Jesus Christ told His
disciples when He was walking on the sea that, be not afraid
as I. And I tell you, here's what Samuel
tells them. It says, be not afraid. But look what he says here in
verse 19. Look what Samuel says here now.
And all the people said unto Samuel, pray for thy servants. Listen to this. Unto the Lord
thy God, that we die not. You pray unto your God. You pray
unto Him. You pray to Him. This is what
happened now. You pray to Him that we don't die. For we have
added unto all our sins this evil to ask us to keep. Condemnation
upon condemnation. And listen to what Samuel said.
And Samuel said unto the people, fear not. Oh, fear not. Fear not. Why not, Samuel? Why
not? And he says, yet turn not, turn
not aside from following the Lord with all your heart. And
look what he says in verse 22, because if you go after anything
else, follow the Lord with all your heart. And if you follow
after anything else, it'll just be vain, it can't profit you,
it can't save you, it can't do nothing for you. But here's the
reason he says not to fear in verse 22. For the Lord will not
forsake his people. Oh my. Oh my goodness. You know what God would have
to do? I thought of this this evening. For one for whom Christ
died and believes the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is and what
he did. God would have to deny himself
to deny one for whom Christ died. And that's what he's saying here.
The Lord will not forsake his people. He can't forsake them.
Why can't He forsake them? He's bought them. He's paid for
them. He's chosen them. There He is. He won't forsake
His people. Have you ever been forsaken?
Oh, we've had people that we thought were great friends cease
to be friends. We've had folks that attended
the gospel for a while and go on somewhere else. But the Lord,
He won't forsake His people. It's impossible for Him to forsake
His people. And the reason being is because they're His people.
He can forsake everybody, but He won't forsake His people.
And why won't He forsake His people? Well, listen to what
it says. For His great namesake. Oh, His namesake. God Himself
and His blessed Son. That's His namesake. When you name somebody after
yourself, that's your namesake. And God's namesake is His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He honors God's name. I come
down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him that
sent me. My need is to do the will of Him that sent me. Father,
I finish the work that You gave me to do. Glorify Thou with me
with the glory I had with You before the world was. And so
God came to forsake us because of Christ and His great namesake. Oh my, he said it like this,
if you hear my voice, you know whose voice you're hearing? My
father's. My father's. And oh my, then
look what it says here. Because it hath pleased the Lord. to make you His people. I just love that. I just love that. It pleased
the Lord. What? What? It just pleased Him
to do it. He chose us according to the
good pleasure of His will. Why did He do it? According to
the good pleasure of His will. Why are you His people? It pleased
the Lord to make you that way. That's why. You say, well, they
saw something in you. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
That wouldn't be grace. If anything has any works in
it, it can't be grace. It has to be exclusively grace,
exclusively Christ, exclusively God, and anything else does not
matter. Now that's right. When our Lord
Jesus Christ talked about being the only Savior, that excludes
every other Savior. When He says salvation is by
grace, that excludes every other way of being saved. When he says he's the only one
with all the power, that means nobody else got any. And that's what he's saying here,
fear not. You're mine. You just don't believe, you just
don't know what I've done. You just don't know how many
times I've failed. You just don't know what went
through my mind, the words that I've said, the things that I've
done. No, but he does. And he says, fear not. You're
mine. I hold all power. I control all
things. And I'll provide for you. I'll
provide for you. And oh, to follow God. To follow God means to follow
no other. That's what he says. Follow on
to the Lord. Follow God. Follow on. Following the Lord. You're God.
And that means that you can't follow any other God. You can't
follow any other. God is alone. God is alone. He was alone in eternity. Just Him and His Son. And we
can't conceive of eternity. That's why we wear watches. That's
why we have calendars. You know why we have watches
and calendars? to tell us how brief our days is and how time
just ticks away. God don't use calendars and God
don't use watches. We do. He lets us have watches
and calendars to tell us days. Listen here, we're coming up
on December. That's the last month of the year. And it was
just the other day we started after issue. Get out a calendar. Tear off
a month, tear off a month, tear off a month. God gives us this
day for us to show us how frail we are. What little time we have
for us to redeem that time and use that time. Because He's alone. Oh my, the
beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. And I'll tell you
what, God gives us, gives us grace and puts His fear in us,
enables us to think of Him rightly. And bless His holy name. I'm
thankful for that. And then to follow Christ is
to have a heart to obey. Ain't that what He said here
in verse 14? If you will fear the Lord, serve
Him and obey His voice. Do you know where we hear the
voice of Christ? All of us people all the time say, the Lord spoke
to me. The Lord spoke to me. And they talk about Him hearing
Him in an audible voice. And seeing Him with angels and
visions and things. But if we ever hear the voice
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we'll be right through this right here. And all to follow Christ is have
a heart to obey. Obey His voice. You know how
we know we obey His voice. You know how much we reverence
God's Word. You know how much we reference
it? We hold the Word of God above it. The Word of God. And I've told you this before.
If God... These are the books that man's going to be judged.
The books shall be opened and every man will be judged according
to his works. This is the books that's going
to be opened. These are the books. And I tell you what. And we reverence
the word of God. God said, I am, this is the man
that I dwell with. This is the man that I dwell
with. He that reverences my word, that
trembles in my word, and keeps my word. Israel rejected the
word of the Lord. And we have a heart to obey.
Lord, speak. Speak, thy servant, and to honor
and serve our Lord is to obey him. I want to show you some
things over here in John chapter 14. John 14. You know, our Lord, while you're turning there, let
me quote a verse of scripture to you. John 14. You know, he said in 1 John 5,
3, this is the love of God, that we could keep His commandments
and His commandments are not grievous. They're not hard, they're
not grievous. You know what is? He said a new
commandment I give unto you. You know what that new commandment
was? That you love one another as I loved you. That's the new
commandment I give. That's the new commandment. But
look what our master said here in verse 15 of John chapter 14. John 14, 15. If you love me,
if you love me, keep my commandment. Keep my commandment. Now, he's
not got one commandment that's grievous. Did Christ ever put
any burden on us or tell us, ask us to do anything and call
on us to do anything? Is to love one another, is that
grievous? To have gentleness, goodness,
faith, meekness, temperance, is that grievous? To stand fast in the liberty
where Christ has made you free, is that grievous? To be in the kingdom of God to
be is the kingdom of God's righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost
All right, and then look what he says down here in verse 24.
Oh He makes a distinction now he that loveth me not and keepeth
not my sayings and The word which you hear is not mine, but the
father's which sent me if you don't love me you won't keep
my sayings And oh my, we keep these things. And I'm going to
say this. Now back over here in Samuel. I'm going to close
with this right here. To let anything come between
following the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything come between having
a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And following God
and following Christ. That's the most absurd, foolish
thing that anybody could do. To leave Christ? To not fear God? So I encourage us, I encourage
me, I encourage all of us. Hear the gospel over and over
and over and over again. It never ever gets old. It never
ever gets stale. I may not preach it very well,
and you may have something wrong with you sometimes when you come,
you don't get much out of a service. There may be something wrong
with us, but there's never anything wrong with the gospel. And look
what Samuel says, right here in verse 24. Only fear the Lord,
Serve Him in truth with all your heart. Now listen to this. For
consider how great things He hath done for you. That's why
we do it. Because of all the great things
He hath done for us. Oh Father, Father, Father, Father,
in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Oh, Lord, I stand
overwhelmed in your presence. The grace that you give in such
the hour of need, when the body's so frail and so weak and the
mind, and yet, Lord, you never fail, never fail. And Lord, bless the word to these
dear saints' hearts tonight. And help us to remember to pray
for those who are sick, weakly and frail. So many not with us
tonight because of the sickness of the body. God help them. And help us to always, always
hold you in the utmost and highest reverence. You're everything. And we're nothing except what
you make us to be, by your grace. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Bless
your name. Amen. Amen.