1st Samuel 7, Israel had been mixing the worship
of God, we saw that last week, the worship of Jehovah with the
gods of the Philistines, Ashtaroth and Baal. And they compromised
the worship of God. They compromised the worship
of God. They mixed things with it. And compromise can be a good
thing in some things, but not in the worship of God. Not in
the worship of God. Our Lord Jesus said, they that
worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Holy Spirit has to do it,
and we in our spirit. It's a spiritual act. And you
can't worship without truth. And the truth will also make
you to worship. If you know the truth, the truth
will make you worship God by the Spirit and in the Spirit.
And they were oppressed of the Philistines, but God put it in
their heart. Look back down here in verse
2. God put it in their hearts to
lament after. Remember it's what I preached last week. Israel,
they lamented after the Lord. And last part of the verse, and
all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. lamented after
Him, wailed after Him, sought Him and mourned over their condition. And He said, put away your gods
from you. Church, seek the Lord with all
your hearts. But now here in verse 13 through
17, it's what I want to deal with tonight if God would enable
me. Now our Lord gained the victory for Israel. Our Lord gained the
victory. The Philistines came out to heard
that the children of Israel was gathered up and they said this
is a good time for us to attack. This is a good time for us. They're
all in one spot. We'll all go down there and we'll
attack them. Well they started down there to do that and God
intervened. And you know all He had to do
was thunder a great thunder. And he won the victory for Israel. Thunder to great thunder
and won the victory for Israel. And I want to look at 70 things. And you know here's the thing
about it. They did nothing. They were standing there and
the Philistines was coming. And they would have been utterly
destroyed had not God thundered a great thunder. They just stood
there and heard God thunder a great thunder. And the Philistines
got discomfited and away they went. And Israel began to slay
them. You know, they didn't have to
hardly run after them at all. So they did nothing. God thundered
and won the battle for them. And that's what Isaiah means
when he says, Comfort you, comfort you, my people, saith the Lord.
And this is what you need to comfort my people with. Tell
them, tell them that they've received double for their sins. And her warfare is accomplished.
What does it mean that our warfare is accomplished? The victory
has been won. But what does it mean to receive double for your
sins? Let His blood be of sin the double
cure. Free from wrath and make me pure.
He sets us free from the wrath of God. That's one payment. And
He sets us free with the next one. So we receive double for
our sins. Not only did we take them away
and gone with them, but He turns around and rewards us and gives
us freedom as if we had something to do. It's an amazing thing
how God does. Alright, so I'm going to show you seven things,
if I can, because God gave Israel this victory this victory when
he discomforted the Philistines and Israel defeat them. Here's
the first thing here in verse 13. So the Philistines were subdued. The Philistines were subdued.
Their enemies were subdued. Their enemies were defeated.
That never happened before. Their enemies were defeated.
Their enemies were subdued. And who is our greatest enemy?
What's my greatest enemy? My sin. That's the greatest enemy
I've got. And I'll tell you something,
my sin has been subdued. My sin has been defeated. My
sin has been put away. This is the reason Christ came
into this world Born of a virgin before he got here thou shalt
call it. It's what he said Joseph. That's what you gonna name him
thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall Save His people
from their sins. So what did I have to do with
my sins being subdued? My sins being defeated? My sins
being vanquished? My sins being put away? What
did I do? No more than Israel did. Our
Lord Jesus Christ, He did it. He did it. He put my sins down. He subdued my sins and defeated
them. And I tell you what, He saved us from the penalty of
sin, from the power of sin. Sin no longer has dominion over
us. And bless His holy name, He will soon, soon save us from
the presence of sin. And we'll never have to deal
with it again. But here's the thing, the Philistines were still
alive, but they were defeated. They were defeated. And I still
have sin and I know it. But my sin, as far as God is
concerned, is gone. Put away. And I'm still alive. And then it says there, you know,
that they came no more into the coast of Israel. And I tell you,
this is what that means to me and what I hope it means to you.
As they came no more into the coast of Israel, my sin, Will
never be brought up again. They ain't coming into the coast
again. They ain't coming back into the coast. My sin will never
be brought up again. They're vanquished. They're gone.
They're not coming back. They're not coming back to bother
me. They're not coming back to torment me. They're not coming
back to judge me. Or to condemn me. They're gone. They're gone. It's a dude. And then look what the second
thing. Here's the second thing. And then it says there, and the
hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days
of Samuel. Because of this victory that
God gave them, we have the hand of providence and we have the
hand of protection. The hand of the Lord was against
them. The hand of the Lord was against
them. And let me say this, If God be for us, and God was for
them, if God be for us, who can be against us? When God puts
His hand on you, and stretches forth His hand for you, and He's
for you, tell me, if God be for us, who can possibly be against
us? Huh? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's Christ that died. Who is
He that condemneth? It's God that justified us. And
oh my, and he freely, freely, here he had his hands against
the Philistines. They're not going to bother Israel
anymore. And sin's not going to bother us anymore. And then
he put his hand there to keep them and protect them. And to
provide for them. And He'll freely, freely, He
freely gives us all the protection we could ever possibly need. He gives us all the provision
that we need in this world. And then on top of that, He gives
us grace. And we know that His providence,
here's the thing about God's providence, there's one verse
of scripture that will tell you everything you need to know about
God's purpose for you and me. You know what it is? For we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God and are the call according
to His promise. That's God's providence in our
lives. You say, that don't seem like
that's very good. God said it's good. And if God says something
good, listen, He can only do what is good. The Lord is good, a stronghold
in the time of trouble. Oh my, and He freely gives us
that. I tell you, everything that happens
in our lives, and that's what we're just talking about here,
the hand of the Lord was against His enemies, so if it's against
His enemies, that means the hand of the Lord is for us. And I tell you, those who are
your enemies are His enemies. The Philistines was his people's
enemies and they became God's enemies. And if you got any enemies,
I'll tell you something, your enemies is God's enemies. That's
how much God's for us. There's a hymn, I shouldn't have
looked for it today, that says this, mortals are immortal here
until their work is done. Absolutely nothing, nothing can
harm a child of God until it's time. Nothing. And oh, when God
puts His hand against Philistines, they're His enemies, because
they're Israel's enemies. And what our enemies is, is God's
enemies. And I tell you, I wouldn't... I'll tell you something the Lord
said, and this is serious, this is serious. Our Lord says that
if a man was to offend one of these little ones for whom Christ
died, offend them. And I mean in a deliberate way. We all offend one another one
way or another during our lives. We've all hurt one another's
feelings. We've all upset one another. We've all said something
we wish we hadn't said. Done something we wish we hadn't
done. Try to make it right as much as we can. Say please forgive
me. I'm sorry. But I tell you, if a person deliberately,
deliberately does it, over and over again and offends one of
them little ones for whom Christ died. Do you know what God said?
He said it'd be better. It'd be better for a millstone
to be put on her neck and dropped into the depth of the sea. Now
that's not going to happen. But he said it'd be better for
that for him to happen. Be over done with it now. And
that's what he said. He said Our enemies are God's
enemies. And God's enemies are our enemies.
Alright, so let me give you a third one. Third one. Oh, enemies subdued. God's hand of providence and
protections for us. And then look what it says there
in verse 14. And the cities which the Philistines
had taken from Israel were restored. Restored. There's restoration. Enemies subdued. God's hand of
providence and protection and then restored. I'm going to say
something. I'll speak for me. I won't put
you in the same boat as I am. We need to continually be restored. Continually need restored. Because
we so readily go astray. The service will be over and
our minds will go, whew. All the service is over and done
with and we're over and done with. How quick we are. I mean,
we so quickly go astray. David said in Psalm 119, he said,
I'm like a lost sheep that's gone astray. And then he turned
around and said, Lord, seek thy servant. I went astray like a lost sheep.
Now, so Lord, since I'm out there, please come and seek thy servant. And oh, beloved, and that's what
we do. We go astray. And it's so easy
for us to go astray. We so easily, easily develop
wrong ways of thinking. Oh my, our minds will go a million
miles and we'll think the wrong thing, think the wrong way, figure
this out, that out. Oh, we readily and so easily
develop wrong ways of thinking. And we're so easily, easily tempted
by the world and so easily tempted to sin. But you know what David
said? He restores my soul. Oh my, you may not be that way. You may never think the wrong
way. You may never get tempted to
sin. You may never get tempted by the world. But oh, that's why we're here
tonight. You know why we're here tonight? To have our souls restored.
To have God restore our souls. We've been out there in the world.
We've been having to deal with things around the house and the
church and things that we have to deal with and the things and
things of our own heart and attitudes and things that we have to deal
with. We got all these things to deal with. And we come here. Oh God. Seek thy servant. Seek thy servant. And why does
he restore us? Why does he restore our soul?
Because, I'll tell you why, because He's already won the victory
for us. Our place in glory is secure. Oh, as if it was already there. Our place in glory is reserved,
already reserved. And we're already there in Him. And when He says we're restored,
our Lord Jesus said in Psalm 69, for one of the men up there
used it. He said, I restored that which I took not away. I
restored that which I took not away. And we were restored. We are restored. Our souls are
restored. We are brought to God. We are
trusted in God. And our place in glory is already
reserved. But I'll tell you something else
about this restoration. This restoration is not partial
restoration. It's full restoration. We're
like the prodigal. When the prodigal comes home,
you know what his father said? Bring forth the best robe and
put it on him. And leave it there. Don't ever
find him saying take it back off. He put it on him. We put it on him. So listen. Restored. Restored. Here's another
one. Here's a fourth one. Let me show
you this. And you go down there and Israel
restored. We had restoration. We're restored.
We need restoration. We need restoring. and Israel Israel from Echronid
to Gath and the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the
hands of the Philistines and that tells us that we actually
are used of God God used his people right there to go back
and take cities that had been taken from them and to be used
of God Do you know what it is to be actually used of God? In
the smallest, minutest way. What an honor it is. What a blessing
it is. What a privilege it is for God
to use you or use me in any way. I mean, use us to be an encouragement.
Use us for a kind word. Use us to pray. Use us to help
a fellow believer. Use us to help somebody. Oh,
myself. To be used of God. Israel said
it took the coast out of the hands of the Philistines. But
what a blessing that God would honor a man or a woman to be
used of Him. When we absolutely positively
don't deserve to be used at any given time. We don't deserve
to be used. And I don't know this. I know
this because experience. I know this because I know it
so. I know this because this is the
way it is. If God uses a man ever, it'll
be in spite of him. If he ever uses me, it's in spite
of me. And after all these years, one
of these days, I'm still going to enter the ministry. I certainly
don't feel like I have. But I do know this, that if God
uses a man, He's got to use him in spite of him. In spite of
his self-righteousness, his pride, his slothfulness, his flesh,
his weariness of flesh, his weariness of mind. We all get so weak in our minds,
in our bodies, and in our spirits. How in the world could God possibly
use a man like that? And here He's using people that
have false gods and mixed the worship of Israel and Jehovah
with these false gods. And God used them. Actually restored
them. Oh my. I know this. I told Shirley on the way up
here, I said, if God uses me tonight, if there's anything
said or done tonight, God's got to do it. I tell you what, every
once in a while, I get so... I need a vacation. That's what
I need. I need a vacation. But if God uses a man, It'll
be in spite of Him. In spite of Him. And I know this, that a man that thinks God ought
to use him, should use him, I'd be afraid to be that person.
I'd be afraid to think God's got to use me. No, He don't.
He don't have to use anybody. Did He use anybody to create
the world? Did Christ use anybody to help put away our sins? Did
He use anybody to help Him put away our sins? Did God save us or somebody else
save us? So God can do His work. When I'm gone, you're gone, everybody
else is gone, God's still going to do His work. And that's the thing about it. I know he could send a fella
down, he could just send me down and say, now listen, I've had
all year I can stand. But if he uses us, it's in spite
of us. Every single one of us. Ain't
that right? All right, here's another thing.
Here's the fifth thing that we're talking about. Here's the fifth
thing. And look what it says down in
the last sentence of chapter 14, or verse 14, excuse me. And there was peace. There was
peace. Peace with Amorites. Oh, peace,
peace, wonderful peace coming down from the Father above. Sweep
over my spirit in fathomless billows of love. Peace. Peace with the Amorites. And
oh my. Peace with God. Peace with God. And I have, you know, peace with
God. God's at peace with me. There was a time I wasn't at
peace with God. I wasn't interested in peace
with God. But now I have peace with God.
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
And here's the thing, God's at peace with us and He's at peace
with me. I'll never forget, I think I've
told some of you before, I'll never forget the day we still
lived in that trailer before we ever built our house. And
I've got a picture of me sitting in that chair two or three times,
but had a flowery I weaned back chair, and I sat
in that chair and read. And I'll never forget, I sat
there in that chair reading, and I was reading Hallowed Romans,
and I found out that God was not bad at me anymore. I've been trying to appease Him
every way I possibly could, and everything failed. I never did
have peace with Him, or peace with Him. But oh, I sat and read,
and oh, I read through Romans there, and it talked about how
that Christ, there's no condemnation to them that are in Christ, that
Christ fulfilled the law for us, and that they had peace with
God. And I tell you what, beloved,
when I saw that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ,
God made him to be sin. God made him to be a sacrifice
for sin. For us that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. And then right then and
there I said, oh my, God's not mad at me. And I quit trying
to satisfy him. After that I never tried again.
Oh my God wasn't mad at me. I have peace with God. God has
peace with me. God has no reason to be angry
with me. He had no reason to be angry
with me. There's no reason whatsoever. No reason for Him to be angry
with me. You know why? Colossians 1.20 says this, that
we were enemies alienated from the life of God through the flesh. Yet now hath He reconciled, brought
us into relationship with God, brought peace between us and
God. Reconciled us, how? Through the blood of His cross. We're reconciled. If God had
took the blood of Christ and took that blood and that blood
put my sins away, then God has no reason to be angry with me
ever again. He's completely and perfectly
satisfied with Christ. And I have peace in my heart.
And let me tell you this, I have peace and the ground of my peace
is the same ground as God's ground for peace. And you know what
it is? The Lord Jesus Christ. God has peace because of Christ,
and we have peace because of Christ. We're standing on the
same ground, on God's same ground, and God's satisfied. Oh, Ephesians
2.14 says this, He is our peace. Not gonna be, He is! Right now. And this is something else I
love. This is something I love. And I love this, we have peace
with our brethren. Peace with our brethren. Oh my. He said, let's look at Ephesians
4. Just look at this. Let's look
at this. Let's look at this together.
Ephesians 4. Verse 1. You know, peace with the brethren. Lord, peace is so wonderful.
Our Lord Jesus says, My peace I give unto you. Look what he
said here in chapter 4 and verse 1. I therefore the prisoner of
the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation or
the calling that you have, the ministry that you have. We're
with your called. with all lowliness and meekness,
with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. That's not
the way the world does. Oh, they just get angry at one
another, and holler at one another, scream at one another, and ridicule
one another, and try to make themselves look better than everybody
else. But here, Christ says, you do just the opposite. Lowliness,
lowliness. and meekness with long-suffering
for bearing one another in love. Endeavoring to keep the unity. Endeavor to do it. Endeavor to
do it. It takes an endeavoring. Why?
Because of our flesh. Endeavoring to keep the unity
of the Spirit and the bond of peace. You know the only reason
anybody has contentions, why we have it, I have it, you, anybody
has contentions? The wise men said it like this,
by pride only comes contention. By pride only comes contention. Ain't that right? Do you know why husbands and wives
have conflicts between them? One of them's prouder than the
other and afraid to admit that they was wrong. I'd say, I'm
sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that.
Well, you shouldn't have done this. You know, it's always the
blame game. But we should have no blame game. No. If anybody should take the
blame for making something not right, it would be, we ought
to always take the lowest position and say, yeah, you're right.
You're right. Our Lord did that and that's why it says follow
peace with all men. There's another place we have
peace, peace in the world. Now what do I mean by that? Well
the Hebrews 13 verse 5 said let your life, let your life, your
manner of life be without covetousness. Be without covetousness. You
know why He said that? Because He, God, He, Christ,
has said, I'll never leave you and I'll never forsake you. I'll
never, no never, no never. Now the world will forsake us.
The world will, listen, bosses don't care to fire you. People
don't care to cuss you. I went through a lot today and
I had every right to go through that life but a guy decided he's
going to turn. And he just laid on the horn for me because I
had every right to go through that light. But it made him mad
because I was going through the light and he didn't turn left.
But he had to wait until I got through so he had to honk his
horn. That's the way they just... But
oh, listen. Peace in the world. The world...
You know, years ago, Years ago, when I came back from Vietnam,
I worked in public works, had a good job, really had a good
job. And they was really good to me. I mean, really, I really
had a good job. And I had lots of friends. Oh,
we got together on the weekends and stuff and done a lot of things
together, a bunch of us get together and do things together. But when
I got sick and got put in the hospitals, Not one friend came,
not one person came to see me. Not one. They're fine to go have a big
time with, but not one of them came to see me. Being there for three months
one time, three months another time, six weeks this time, last
time was almost six months. Not one of them come see me. Ain't that something? Now that's
the world. But right now, if something happens
to you, we go see Ruby, we go see one another, we pray for
one another, we care for one another. And that's why, and
listen, when we get in trouble, we just jump right on it. Oh
my. And I tell you, and here's the
thing about it. We don't know what tomorrow holds. We do not know. We don't know
whether we're going to stay healthy. Or we don't know whether we're
going to get sick. But I do know this. That the world can't help
you. Only God can. The world don't give me peace.
Christ does. The world don't hold me. Christ
does. I got to live. I got to make
a living. You know, I know we got to do that. But I tell you
what, I have it, it don't have a. That's the difference. The
same way you all do. Here's the sixth thing, I've
got to hurry, I'm taking too long. And then Samuel, look down
here in verse 15 and 16. And Samuel judged Israel all
the days of his life, and he went from year to year, and circled
to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpah, and judged Israel, and all those
places. You know what the word Samuel
means? His name means heard of God. That's what his name means. Heard of God. God hears him. That's what his name means. Samuel,
heard of God. Now remember when Samuel was
just a boy, the Lord said that the word of the Lord was precious
in those days, rare in those days. But God called Samuel. and kept calling and calling
until he realized that God was speaking to him. And he was called
to be a prophet and he was established to be a prophet and he had a
call of God. He had a call of God. And oh,
I tell you what, he was a real prophet. God used him mightily. And he traveled in a circuit.
You know they used to have old circuit riding preachers. But
he traveled in a circle. Circuit. Going around. And Israel. And when they said, that means,
beloved, he went everywhere. Judging Israel and when he got
there they continually heard God's word from him Heard what
God had to say and heard the gospel through him and that's
what this man done He he was one called of God to talk to
Israel judge Israel and judge him how by God's blessed word
And he was a he that they heard the gospel. They heard it from
that man. I And what a great blessing to be called of God
to preach the gospel. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Now here's the best
for the last. Here's the best for the last.
And look what it says now in verse 17. And his return was
to Ramah, for there was his house. And there he judged Israel. Now
listen to this. And there he built an altar unto
the Lord. What's an altar for? What do
you have an altar for? To offer sacrifices. That's what
I have an altar for. To offer sacrifices. He offered
a sucking lamb. And all the sacrifice, always
the sacrifice was of an innocent victim. And the blood was shed
for somebody else's sin. The animal didn't sin. There
was no sin in the animal. The sin was in the person. So
the blood was shed. It was the sacrifice of an innocent
victim. And every blessing, every blessing
we have is given to us for one reason. the sacrifice of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only reason that we
have it. Every blessing is given to us
because of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. He made his
soul an offering for sin. He was a lamb without spot. And
he offered himself to God. And you know the first thing
they did when they left the ark? They built him an altar and offered
sacrifice. That's why they had seven of
the clean animals. They had all the clean animals
because the clean animals was what was going to be offered
for sacrifice. And the first thing they did, they got off
the ark, they built an altar and offered a sacrifice. When
Abraham took Isaac up on Mount Moriah, when he got there, he
built an altar. He built an altar. And his son Isaac, he built him
an altar. His grandson Jacob, he built
him an altar for sacrifice. And I tell you what, God provided
us an altar. And you know what that altar
is and who that altar is? Hebrews 13, 9 says, we have an
altar. We have an altar. Who is that
altar? The Lord Jesus Christ. And the
sacrifice has already been put on it. We don't bring no sacrifices. He Himself is the sacrifice.
But He's the place where we go and approach God. He's the place
where the blood's been shed. He's that mercy seat where He
stands in the presence of God. And everything's there. Christ
Himself. By new and a living way, we go
into the presence of God. Oh, blessed, blessed Father,
in the blessed, precious, glorious, holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
thank you for allowing us to meet here tonight. Thank you
for giving us your word. And I pray it was a blessing
I wanted. I pray that the Holy Spirit would
take it and use it, use it for our good and edification and
for your glory. And Lord, protect and preserve
this congregation of believers. Bless the preachers, David and
Gene, when they come. Brother Gary next Wednesday.
Lord, use these men. And our Father, the saints that
will be traveling, I ask that you give them traveling mercies.
See them safely there and see them safely back. Please have
mercy upon Your saints that's weak, that's frail, that's sick.
Lord, meet their needs. You can and you trust you will. Lord, we need you. We acknowledge
our need of you. And Lord, as we go, go with us
and go before us. And let goodness and mercy follow
us all the days of our life. Oh Lord, guide us and lead us
and leave us not to ourselves, no matter where we are. and do
it for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen.