to know what the Lord is getting
ready to do in this hour, any time or place, but I have a very
strong suspicion that the Lord is going to bless us this morning.
And I'll tell you why I say that. If I didn't know any better,
I would have thought Dan had read my notes before he prayed
this morning. And if the Spirit is leading
two men in the same direction at the same time, laid the same
thought on their hearts, I think he's getting ready to bless us.
I hope he will. It's in my prayer all week long.
This is a wonderful chapter, so I hope he blesses it to us.
Now, this 1 Samuel 12 is Samuel's benediction to Israel. Sometime
when you have a chance, if you care to read Joshua chapter 24,
it sounds a whole lot like Joshua's benediction to Israel. And what
I want us to consider this morning, consider this whole chapter in
light of a phrase in verse 24 of this chapter, where Samuel
says, Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your
heart. For consider how great things
he hath done for you. That's the title, the lesson.
That's what I want us to leave here this morning, considering
in our heart how great things he hath done for you. You know,
it's good for us to consider how great things God has done
for us, how to consider His mercy and grace to us in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Because otherwise, you know what
we'll consider? Just by nature, otherwise what we'll consider
is this life. The trials, the heartache, the
pain, even the things of this life that we enjoy, we'll consider
those things by nature when we're not considering how great things
the Lord has done for us. And the first thing, and there's
so many things, we'll spend a lifetime, eternity, talking about how great
things God has done for us. I'm going to try to confine myself,
restrict myself to the things that Samuel talks about in this
chapter, so we can fit it in the time we have allotted. But
the first thing for us to consider is the pastors and teachers,
leaders that God has given us. In verse 1, Samuel said unto
all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice, and all that
you said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now behold,
the king walketh before you, and I am old and gray-headed.
And behold, my sons are with you, and I have walked before
you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am, witness
against me before the Lord, and before his anointed. Whose ox
have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or
whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or whose
hand have I received any bribe to blind my eyes therewith? And
I will restore it to you. And they said, Thou hast not
defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken aught
of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The Lord
is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day,
that ye have not found aught in my hand. And they answered,
He is witness. And Samuel said unto the people,
It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and brought
your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now first we need to
consider how the Lord, in his mercy to us, has given us pastors
and teachers who over the course of years have been faithful.
They've been faithful to the Lord, they've been faithful to
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These are men whom we
have known. who have refused to compromise
the gospel, they refused to compromise the truth, and they've done it
for God's glory, and they've done it for our good. We have
benefited from the faithfulness of these men. The prophets of
old, the Lord made those men faithful, and Israel, the nation
Israel, benefited from that. And these are just ordinary men
that God used to bless Israel. Moses was just a shepherd. He'd
been on the backside of that mountain so long, he forgot how
to talk. He'd just been with sheep and he'd been around people.
He's just a shepherd. Aaron was a slave. I mean, how much lower in this
life can you get than being a slave? Samuel is just a child. I mean,
just a boy. And the Lord used these men.
He raised them up and Israel benefited. And those of us here
in this room this morning can say the exact same thing. Many
of us, most of us here, had Henry Mahan as our pastor for many
years. For most of us, that was the
only pastor we knew until just a few years ago. We had many
different elders over the years who were such a blessing to us.
And now John's our pastor. And I just, I'm so thankful.
I thank God for him every day, that even in the midst of horrible
trials, the Lord's enabled him to powerfully and faithfully
preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And brethren, we're
beneficiaries. I mean, God's blessed us. Don't
take that blessing for granted. This is a privilege. The Lord
sent Moses and Aaron. He used those two brothers to
set Israel free from Egypt. The same way He used the preaching
of the gospel. God sent His servant, whoever
that man may have been, to preach the gospel to us. And that gospel
set us free. from bondage to sin and to the
law. The Lord used Samuel to lead
the people. He said there at the end of verse
2, he said, I've walked before you from my childhood unto this
day. I've led you. I've walked before
you as the shepherd, just like the shepherd walks before the
sheep, leading and guiding. The same way the Lord has used
pastors and elders over the courses of our lifetimes to lead us.
Now you consider what a blessing that is. You can't find that
everywhere. And these men are not doing this
for filthy lucre, for material gain, or fame, or anything like
that. Samuel never did, one time, take
a bribe from anyone to influence a decision as he was acting as
judge. And Samuel tells them, now here
I am, and here are my sons. We're here as ordinary citizens.
He's not hiding behind the cloak of the authority that he used
to have before there was a king. He says, you charge us, you charge
us before God and you charge us before the king for any wrongdoing
that we've done and he'll punish us for it. Now Samuel's sons
are, you know, another matter altogether. But the people had
to confess Samuel was innocent. He never did take anything that
didn't belong to him from anybody. He didn't try to take something,
extort something from somebody. They had to confess this is a
faithful man. And we have been blessed to have
had pastors and elders who refused to change their message for money. They refused to change their
message to try to placate somebody that might be giving more money
or try to draw more people in. And here's the reason that they
did. They know Christ is more valuable than any material possession
you lay your hands on. Oh, he's so precious. And I want
you to consider how rare that is, both in judges that sit in
the judicial arm of the government and men who are so-called preachers
today. But they're all in it for money.
I mean, it's a political game of the judicial system and men
who preach, that's not, they act like preachers or false preachers.
They're doing it for money. Scripture says they're gods of
their belly. And Samuel was innocent of that, wasn't he? Sounds a
lot like Paul's benediction to the Ephesian elders. He told
them, I've coveted no man's silver, gold, or apparel. All I've done
is faithfully preach Christ to you. And now I'm leaving and
I commit you to his care. This very same attitude. And I'll tell you more than anything,
personally, what I want is to be found in Christ and to be
found faithful. to him, a servant ought to be
found faithful. So you consider, first of all,
the pastors, the elders, the leaders that God has given us.
Second, you consider all the righteous acts of our Lord. You
consider that everything our Lord has done has been done in
righteousness. Look at verse 7. Now, therefore,
stand still. Would you just be still for a
minute and listen to me, that I may reason with you before
the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did
to you and to your fathers." You know, everything God's done,
everything he's done with his people in particular, has been
done in righteousness. The salvation of God's elect
is a righteous, just salvation. God has never overlooked even
one sin of anyone that he saved, not one. God never has and He never will
allow an unrighteous man into His presence. And how can God
not overlook even one of our sins, but let someone like you
and me into His presence? It's through substitution. Salvation
is done in righteousness because God imputed the sins of His people. He charged the sins of His people
to His Son. And Christ, our substitute, suffered
the full penalty of the law. every drop of God's wrath against
our sin. Now, remember, I just said God
has never let an unrighteous man into his presence. You know,
the father didn't even let his son into his presence when our
sin was laid on him. He turned his back on his son
and he did that so his people could be made righteous and could
be accepted into the very presence of God. Now you consider how
great things he has done for you. That God has made it to
be that a sinful man and woman like you and me is made righteous
and accepted before his throne. That's a great blessing. Only
God could do something so great. Third, you consider how the Lord's
delivered you from bondage to sin. Look at verse 8. When Jacob
was coming to Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the Lord,
then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your
fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place." Now
the children of Israel from the time Jacob went down to Egypt
to the time Moses and Aaron led them out was 430 years. And for most of that time, Israel
was a slave in Egypt. For most of that time, I bet
you over 400 years, they didn't hear a word from God. Not a word. They're the people of God. That's
the nation God made his people. Were they forgotten? No, sir. When they cried in the fullness
of time, the Lord sent the deliverer. He sent Moses and Aaron and they
delivered the people with a mighty hand and brought those people
into the land God promised Abraham, made them dwell there. Now you
know in scripture that Egypt is a picture of sin. And every
last one of God's elect, every son of Adam, we're born into
this world, we're born into this world as a sinner, a sinner,
just sold under sin and bondage to sin. And for thousands of
years, the Gentiles never did receive a word from God, not
one. Now we know God has a people
of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, doesn't he? But for
thousands of years, those Gentiles never heard a word from God.
Now the Jews, that little nation, they had the word of God, they
had the ceremonies, but the Savior had not appeared to them. Would
God forget his people all that time? What was God doing? Was
he doing something else that he forgot his people? No, sir. in the fullness of time. At the
exact moment appointed by God, God sent His Son into this world
to deliver His people with a mighty hand, to deliver His people from
the bondage of sin. And I'm here to tell you the
Lord Jesus Christ did exactly that. He delivered His people
from their sin. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. We serve the Lord Jesus Christ
as sons. We don't serve the law as slaves.
We serve Christ as sons because he set us free. And right now,
this world keeps spinning. There's events going on in this
world that are so far beyond what our puny minds can comprehend.
We don't know what in this world is going on. But the Lord is
working all those things together, bringing his people through the
wilderness of sin. through the wilderness of the
sinful world, and he's bringing them to his presence. And all
of God's elect, every last one of them are going to be with
him in paradise just as surely as the children of Israel enter
that promised land. Now you consider how great salvation
that God has provided for his people. It's full and it's free
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Fourth, consider the goodness
and the mercy of God to the undeserving like we are. Look at verse 9.
And after they had been brought into the promised land, made
to dwell in that place, when they forgot the Lord their God,
he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host of
Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand
of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. And they
cried unto the Lord, and said, We have sinned, because we have
forsaken the Lord, and served Balaam and Ashtoreth. But now
deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve
thee. And the Lord sent Jeroboam, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and
Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on
every side, and ye dwelt safe." God brought Israel, his people,
into the Promised Land. He blessed them so greatly. He
drove out all of their enemies. He gave them the land flowing
with milk and honey. And what did they do? They turned their back on God
to serve idols. My soul. Would the Lord wipe
them out? He would have been just to do
it, wouldn't He? That's not what He did. That's His people. That's
the people He promised to save. He showed them mercy. He chastised
them. sold them into slavery to their
various enemies, but he didn't wipe them out. And when they
cried to the Lord, when these people who had turned their back
on God, when they cried to him, he heard them and he delivered
them from their enemies on every side and they dwelled safely. And the Lord didn't just do that
once. Many times Israel did. Many times they fell into idolatry.
The Lord sold them into slavery. They cried unto the Lord, and
he sent a deliverer. Samuel mentions four times here,
but he could have gone on and on and on and mentioned many
of them. One time, God sent drubble. Now, the writers tend to think
that that's Gideon. It could have been somebody that's
not recorded in the scripture. I don't know, but whoever it
was, it wasn't the last time. Israel fell into idolatry. They
were taken as slaves, and God sent a deliverer. Another time
he had to send a man named Bedan. Most writers think that's Samson. His mightiest deliverance is
Samson provided Israel. It wasn't the last time God had
to send a deliverer. Another time he sent a man named
Jephthah, and you can read about him in Judges 11 and 12. Jephthah
was the son of a harlot God raised up to deliver Israel from the
Ammonites, and that was a great deliverance One last time. Last, Samuel mentions himself,
who delivered Israel through the power of prayer. His intercession
for Israel. Now you consider how great sinners
we are. I'm not talking about Israel
of all. I'm talking about you and me. How great sinners we are,
even after the Lord saved us. We don't have to look back at
ancient Israel to see examples of unfaithfulness, depravity,
and departing from the way of God. We only have to look as
far as our own heart. And it's disgusting. It's shameful. It's disgusting. Yet, as disgusting
as we are by nature, our salvation is secure. We are safe on every
side because of the blood and the righteousness and the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ. His mercy to the undeserving. His continued mercy to the undeserving. We're so sinful, it's impossible
for us to quit sinning. Honestly, isn't your desire today
not to sin today? I mean, you got this morning
thinking, boy, I'm going to sin. No, your desire was not to. Has it worked? I mean, even up
to 1025 this morning, has it worked? No. It's impossible for
us to quit sinning. It's impossible. for us to quit
doubting God. Oh, ye of little faith. I read
that scripture and it's talking to me. Oh, ye of little faith.
After the Lord delivered Israel so many times, God sent them
Samuel, they did it again. Look at verse 12. And when you
saw Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, came against you, you
said unto me, no, but a king shall reign over us. When the
Lord your God was your king. The people were scared to death
of the power of this peon Nahash. Now maybe they were afraid. The
Lord is finally going to get tired of them. His long suffering
is finally going to run out and he's not going to deliver them.
So they wanted a king. They thought if they had a king,
a man that they could touch and see and lay their hands on, that
they could compel him to fight for them instead of the Lord. They didn't doubt the power of
God to deliver them. Surely they didn't doubt that.
But either way, what they did was they insulted the character
of God. They either doubted His power
or they doubted His long-suffering and would rather rely on the
arm of the flesh than rely on the power and mercy of God. Well,
we'd think, now surely the Lord likes them at that time. I mean,
you know, after a hundred strikes, you've got to be out. I mean,
okay, I'll, you know, I'm going to be generous and give you more
than three strikes for you. Come on, that's enough. No. Our God's long-suffering. Oh,
He's long-suffering. After everything they did, they
refused the kingship of Christ. God gave them a king who delivered
them from Nahash anyway. Now, if that's not mercy to the
undeserving, I do not know what is. Look at verse 13. Behold the king whom you have
chosen, and whom you desired. Behold, the Lord has set a king
over you." Now consider how sinful we are. We are undeserving of
the least of God's mercies, yet the Lord is continually merciful
to his people. After all the times God had been
rejected by Israel, he still tells them, if you fear me, and
you worship me, and you serve me, I will bless you. Look at
verse 14. If you will fear the Lord, and
serve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment
of the Lord, then shall both ye, and also the king that reigneth
over you, continue following the Lord your God. But if you
will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment
of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you, as
it was against your fathers. Now fear the Lord, reverence
him, worship him, and you will be blessed. Serve him and you'll
be blessed. Men were not put on this earth. God didn't create Adam and put
him in the garden for us to serve ourselves. He put man in the
garden to serve him. And certainly that applies to
the new man that God's created in righteousness. That new man
is made to serve God, to serve his people. And you do that and
you'll be blessed. And don't quit. Do not quit. Don't be weary in well-doing.
Paul told the Colossians, continue in the faith, rooted and grounded,
settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel,
which you've heard. You continue following him and
you'll be blessed. Fifth, consider how great things
God's done for you. He delivered you from the wrath
of God. He delivered you from the hand
of God that was against your sin. Look at verse 16. and see this great thing which
the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest
today? I will call unto the Lord, and
he shall send thunder and rain, that ye may perceive and see
that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight
of the Lord, and asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord,
and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people
greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto
Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we
die not, for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask
us a king." Now at this time of the year, in this part of
the world, it practically never rains. That's why they knew they'd
go out and harvest the wheat. Undoubtedly, this is a cloudless,
bright blue sky. And when Samuel prays, suddenly
this fierce storm comes out of nowhere, lightning and thunder
and hail. Much like the thunder that they
saw destroy the Philistines just not so awful long ago. And the
people were afraid when they got just a glimpse, that was
the word Dan used in his prayer, just a glimpse of God's power
that could be used against our sin. Now consider how the Lord
has only given us a glimpse of what our sins deserve. And most
of what we've seen of what our sins deserve, we've seen at Calvary.
When we see what Christ suffered when he was made sin for us,
we've seen a glimpse of what our substitute suffered, what
it took, the suffering it took to redeem our souls. But we've
never had a taste of it because Christ took the cup of God's
wrath and drank it dry. So there's not a taste of it
left for us to even get a taste of. We've just seen a glimpse
of what our sins deserve. And we've just had a glimpse
of who and what we are by nature. And that glimpse of our sinfulness
is enough to make us beg for mercy like Israel did here. So sixth, you consider that every
sinner who's seeking mercy from God is going to hear these words
from God's word, from God's prophet. Fear not. Look at verse 20. And
Samuel said unto the people, Fear not. You have done all this
wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but
serve the Lord with all your heart. And turn ye not aside,
for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor
deliver, for they are vain." Now, fear not. We are great sinners. wicked
and vile. I can't paint the picture as
it ought to be painted how wicked we are. But to God's people,
I tell you, Christ is born. You're punished. Put it away. Now, follow him. Follow him. It's pure vanity and emptiness
to follow anyone or anything else other than Christ. It's
complete and utter vanity to seek salvation anywhere. other than in the Lord Jesus
Christ. So follow him out of thanksgiving. Seventh, consider
him. Consider him. Consider his character. Consider the character of God
who has done all these great things for you. How can you not
follow him? Look at verse 22. For the Lord will not forsake
his people for his great namesake, because it hath pleased the Lord
to make you his people. Now we've sinned against God,
but he's not forsaken us. We have forsaken God, but he
has never forsaken his people. And it's not because we don't
deserve to be forsaken. We deserve to be forsaken. God
hasn't forsaken his people because of the name of the Lord, for
the sake of his reputation, the reputation of his name. The Lord
will not allow even one sheep for whom Christ died to perish. The glory of God himself, the
glory of his name is at stake. He's not going to let one of
them perish. God will never allow his name to be tarnished because
he failed to do what he promised to do. And he's promised to save
his people from their sins. And here's comfort for the believer.
Now you consider this and you take it home and it'll comfort
you. It hath pleased the Lord to make you his people." I heard Tom Harding say one time,
if it pleased the Lord, it pleased me right well. It hath pleased
the Lord to make you his people. We did not make ourselves the
people of God. God did that. He made us his
people through his sovereign choice and through his power
to cause us to be born again, to make us his people. Now, you
did not do something, you didn't do anything to make yourself
a child of God. Then that means you can't do
something to make God kick you to the curb. Can't do it. Salvation
is all of grace. Now you consider what great things
God has done for you and give thanks. Look here at verse 23. Samuel says, moreover, as for
me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord and ceasing
to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and the right way. Now here we're back to the pastors
that God's given us. Their attitude and their faithfulness
comes from God. Israel rejected Samuel. I know
God told Samuel, they didn't reject you. They rejected me.
But now we know in Samuel's heart, he's a man. He felt rejected. His feelings were hurt. He felt
rejected. But he didn't write a mark. You
know, I'm not going to quit preaching to somebody. I'm not going to
quit pointing you to Christ just because somebody disappointed
me one time. Samuel says, I'm going to pray for you and I'm
going to teach you the good and the right way. which is none
other than the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, that's the same thing
the Apostle Paul said, I determined not to know anything among you,
save Jesus Christ and him crucified. He said that to people that rejected
him, that believed all these lies about him, that started
questioning his apostleship and his preaching and his gospel.
And regardless of all that, Paul said, I'm determined not to know
anything about that. What I'm determined to do is to preach
Christ to you. Because I love you. I love you. And Samuel, we've seen this throughout
his life as a man of prayer. It is so important for us to
pray for one another. It's so important that Scripture
calls it a sin to cease to pray for God's people. It's so important. This is one of the great God
forbids in Scripture. We don't have time to go read
them. You look that phrase up when you get home this afternoon.
God forbid. Look at the different things
Paul brings up as a hypothetical, and then he says, God forbid.
Ceasing to pray for God's people is just as big a deal. God forbid
that I cease to pray for you. God forbid. God deliver us from
selfish prayer, but to pray for our brethren. If anybody needs it, we do. In verse 24 and 25, this is a
summary of the good and the right way that Samuel is going to teach
him. I don't know how much time he's got left. He don't either.
But at what time he has left, this is the good and the right
way that he's going to teach. Only fear the Lord and serve
him in truth with all your heart. Don't get in this thing halfway.
Serve him with all your heart. For consider how great things
he hath done for you. If ye shall still do wickedly,
ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king." God's merciful. Oh, how merciful. But the Lord's just, too. Now,
today is still the day of grace. But one day, the Lord's going
to wrap this thing up and it's going to be a day of judgment
and justice. He's going to punish sin. He's
going to put it away forever. So the good and the right way.
Come to Him, follow Him, serve Him with all your heart, and
He'll bless you. And the reason that you consider
Him, the reason that you follow Him, is not out of a mercenary
attitude. It's not, well, I'm going to
serve Him because He'll bless me more than, you know, somebody else.
Follow Him, serve Him with all your heart, because you've considered
how great things He hath done. for the undeserving like you
and me.