I'll say to you tonight, as Samuel
did to the children of Israel, Stand thou still a while, that
I may show thee the word of God. The children of Israel had been
under the direct government of God Almighty himself throughout
their history. The Lord God himself was king
in Jeshurun. For almost 300 years the Lord
had administered his rule as their king through his servants,
the Judges, whom he raised up to deliver them from the hands
of their oppressors and their enemies. But all the nations
around them had kings, kings with beautiful, lavish thrones
and royal apparel with magnificent crowns splendorous names and
courtyards. When Samuel was an old man, after
faithfully serving that nation as God's prophet, as their judge,
faithfully delivering them continually, the men of Israel came to him
and said, We want to be like these other nations. Give us
a king to judge us. Make us a king to judge us like
all the nations. Samuel, of course, was heartbroken.
Who wouldn't be? After faithfully serving their
souls his entire life, they turned on him and rejected him. That's
enough to break any man's heart. But that wasn't really what they'd
done. They had in fact turned on God and rejected him. Look
in 1 Samuel 8, verse 7. We'll begin there. The Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken
unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee.
That is, they said they want a king, give them a king. For
they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that
I should not reign over them. It's not that they didn't want
you to be a judge over them, they didn't want me to reign
over them. According to all the works which they have done, Since
the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this
day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and have served other gods,
so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their
voice, howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them." Let them know this
is evil. Do what they want you to do,
but let them know this is evil, this is horrid. and show them the manner of the
king that shall reign over them.' And Samuel told them all the
words of the Lord, told all the words of the Lord unto the people
that asked him a king. And then Samuel told them exactly
the kind of king their king would be, a self-serving, cruel, abusive,
destructive tyrant, taking their sons, their daughters, their
cattle, their horses, their chariots to himself. Nevertheless, the people refused
to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will
have a king over us, that we also may be like the nations,
and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and fight
our battles." How often have you, how often
have I, wanted something tangible or something to happen right
now, so bad we just thought we couldn't live without it. And
you pray, and you pray, and you pray, and you pray. And then
God gives you exactly what you asked for, exactly what you asked
for. And no sooner do you get it than
you wish you had never heard tell of it. How much wiser we
would be rather than calling upon our God to do what we think
he ought to do, what we in our flesh want him to do. How much
wiser we would be simply to pour out our hearts before him with
groanings and sighs and cast our care on him and ask him to
do his will. We don't know. We don't know
what to pray for as we are. Let me relate a true story to
you, sad but true, that illustrates what I'm saying. Many years ago,
a man by the name of William Evans, I have a book adopted
by him back in my office. He was a Presbyterian preacher. He told this story about his
daughter. One day when this little girl,
she was about eight years old, came home from school, she said,
I want to get some ball-bearing skates. All the children have
ball-bearing skates, and that's what I want. He said, Honey,
you have a pair of skates. She said, Yes, Daddy, but mine
are roller-bearing skates. All the children now have ball-bearing
skates, and I want ball-bearing skates. And Mr. Evans, being a preacher, his
income was limited. And he said, well, honey, I'm
afraid you'll just have to make do with roller bearing skates.
We can't afford to buy you new skates right now. But she wouldn't
let it die. The next night when he came home
from his office, there was a little note placed at his dinner table.
She said, Dear Daddy, I still want ball bearing skates. When
he went to bed that night, there was a note pinned on his pillow.
Dear Daddy, would you please buy me ball bearing skates? And
you know what he did? Same thing you and I would probably
do. He scraped up the money, went to town and bought her some
ball bearing skates. When he gave them to her, she
was elated. She jumped up in his arms and
hugged him and kissed him. Oh, thank you daddy, thank you,
thank you. This is just what I wanted. And
she put on her skates and took out the gate down the sidewalk
and around the curve. And that was the last time they
ever saw her well. They brought her home in a coma.
She went around the curve. The scapes were too much for
her to handle. She ran out of the road, hit her head on the
curve of the road, and died in the hospital. This is what Miss
Trevin said about that. When I want something from God,
and it seems as though He's not willing that I should have it,
but I keep crying out for it, The Spirit of God reminds me,
are you asking for ball bearing skates? We don't know what's best, ever. I don't know of a tougher lesson,
Bobby, for me to learn. We don't know what's best, ever. Our Father does. But he often
gives us what we think we want. and then makes us live with it
for a long, long time. That's what happened to Israel.
How often we've experienced it in our lives, and I suspect I've
got your attention, so I'll say it again. Stand thou still that
I may show thee the word of God. This book of 1 Samuel covers
a period of about 115 years. It takes us from the birth of
Samuel, the last of the judges, to the death of their first king
Saul. Now there are three primary characters in the book, of course
Samuel being number one. This piece of Israel's history
begins with Samuel's birth and gives us a pretty detailed description
of his life and ministry through chapter one down through chapter
ten. He was born in a house where
God was worshipped. He was born as a result of his
mother's prayer, her crying unto God, asking God to remember her. And the Lord God remembered her
and gave her this son. As soon as he was weaned, she
brought Samuel to the house of God. And soon the Lord revealed
himself to Samuel and made him a prophet, a faithful, faithful
prophet he was. The second character who takes
up almost the whole book is Saul. Chapters 11 through 31 describe
the sad, sad life and rule of this man Saul. He was a man in
all outward appearance that, you'd say, man, that's the kind
of boy I want. He was head and shoulders above
everybody. Striking, handsome, strong, knowledgeable, respected,
the kind of boy you want. But inside he was nothing, just
nothing. Saul was God's gift to Israel. They said, give us a king. God
said, all right, here he is. Live with him. And live with
him they did. They wanted a king like other
nations, so God gave them what they demanded. He gave them Saul. And then David comes on the scene
in chapter 16. And from chapter 16 to the end
of the chapter, there's this intermingling of the life of
David and the life of Saul. David was a man of noble character
and greatness. He's set before us in this book
in a remarkable way. David was a man after God's own
heart, whom the Lord God had chose to make king. And he brought
him to his throne in a most roundabout way. If I had been planning to
make David King, I suspect I would have done it almost any other
way. But this is God's way, and God's way is best. Now those
facts are easily traced through this first of the historic books
in the Old Testament. But what does the Holy Spirit
intend for us to learn from these 31 chapters? I cannot and I won't
try to give you everything that God would have us to learn. I
don't even pretend to know that. But there are some very important
spiritual lessons to be gleaned from 1 Samuel. Lessons, if God
will be pleased to teach them to us, that will help us as we
seek to serve our God and his people, his cause, and his honor
in this world. So you follow with me through
the book of 1 Samuel. We'll look at several passages.
The first lesson is about worship. 1 Samuel begins with a man whose
name is Elkanah. And this man teaches us something
about the worship of our God. Look at verse 1. Now there was
a certain man of Ramoth-Zothim, I presume it's close, of Mount
Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of
Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zut, an Epithet. And he had
two wives, the name of one was Hannah, the name of the other
was Penah. And Phineh had children, but
Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of the
city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord, the
Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni
and Phinehas, the priests of the Lord, were there. And when
the time was that Elkanah offered, he gave to Phineh his wife and
to all her sons and her daughters portions. And then he gave Hannah
a portion. This man's name, Elkanah, is
significant. It means possession of God. Possession of God. Learn this. God make me to learn
this. Worship is at its core the acknowledgement
that we are God's possession. I can't say this often enough,
strongly enough, firmly enough, forcefully enough. Faith in Christ
involves giving up ourselves willingly to his dominion. Oh, let my name be Alcana, possession
of God. Hold your hands here and turn
to the book of Mark. Mark chapter 8. The Lord Jesus calls his disciples
to himself in verse 34. And he calls the people with
him. And he says in verse 34, Whosoever will come after me,
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now self-denial involves many,
many things. You know that. What our Lord
is talking about here is not, you know, deny yourself. having this or having that or
doing this or doing that, though it may involve those things.
What our Lord is talking about is denying yourself. Don Fortner, I don't exist as
an individual. I'm Christ. I belong to him. Lock, stock and barrel. Everything. Deny himself. and take up his
cross and follow me. That is for the glory of Christ. You willingly take on yourself
that which is painful and hurts, and you follow him. Now watch
this. For whosoever will save his life
shall lose it. But whosoever will lose his life
for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall find it. Paul
reads it this way. What? No you're not. Your body
is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, and you're not
your own, for you're bought with a price. Therefore glorify God
in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Now, that person
who is possessed of God possesses God. Oh, what a reasonable swap
we've made when we give up ourselves for Christ and to Christ. I sometimes
hear folks in religion talk about what they gave up to serve the
Lord. I'll tell you what I gave up. I gave up death for his life.
I gave up sin for his righteousness. I gave up misery for his peace.
I gave up bondage for his liberty. I gave up guilt for perfect atonement.
I gave up my way of cursedness and destruction, for his way
of blessedness and glory." I gave up for Christ. I gave up nothing
when I gave him myself. I was nothing. I would make nothing
of myself. I would come to no good end.
And that's what I gave up to him. And he took me and made
me his own by his blood and his righteousness. When Elkanah went
to worship God, he brought a sacrifice with him. And if we would worship
God, we must come to him with the sacrifice that he requires,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, our substitute, his blood
and righteousness. And Elkanah brought a sacrifice
that involved personal cost. He came and brought that which
cost him. And I want to tell you something. We will never worship God without
cost. We will never do anything for
God without cost. It's not going to happen. It's
not going to happen. The cost is insignificant. But we will
not worship our God without cause. You folks who came here tonight,
you did something making plans to be here to hear God. You arranged
your life around Him. We come here and worship God,
giving to Him what we can that we might worship Him. But in
every aspect of worship, in every aspect of service, worshiping
Him is giving ourselves to Him. And then in this first and second
chapter we learn something about prayer. Alcina's wife, Hannah,
gives us instruction in this matter of prayer. Again, I don't
pretend to know much about prayer. I'm always embarrassed, honestly
embarrassed, when people come to me and seek help about prayer,
ask me how to pray. I had to answer a letter earlier
this morning. I had to. Someone wrote and wanted some
help. I tried to help what I could about this matter of prayer.
This much I know. You will not find a richer, more
spiritual piece of instruction about prayer than you'll read
in these first two chapters of 1 Samuel. Listen to this saintly
lady and learn what prayer is. Chapter 1, verse 10. As Hannah was driven to the throne
of grace by the persecution of her adversary, her husband's
other wife, We are often sluggish in prayer. God forgive me. Until God graciously puts us
in desperation. In desperation. Let me talk about Don Fortner.
You jump in where you can. Or where you have to. Most of what I call prayer is but the repeated exercise
of naming out to God what I want from him. And there's little earnestness
about it, little fervor about it, and it's not prayer. It's
religious exercise, it's not prayer. It's exercising duty,
it's not prayer. But when the Lord God puts you
where you can't do anything, where you're flat on your face,
where you're just utterly helpless, where your hands are absolutely,
not just tied, but absolutely paralyzed, you can't do anything,
in desperation, you do like Hannah did. We're told here that her
prayer arose from her bitterness of soul, which caused her to
weep sore before the Lord. Prayer is the cry of a child
in need to be remembered by his or her father who seems to have
forgotten. Hannah said, Lord, remember me. Remember me. Remember me. Elkanah loves me, but he can't
help me. I've got friends, but they can't help me. Oh, God,
you alone can help. Remember me. And prayer is a
matter of the heart. It doesn't have much at all to
do with the Eli came and saw her and thought she was drunk
because he saw her lips moving, but he didn't hear any words
from her, and she said, oh no, I'm not drunk. I just poured
out my heart to God. We're told in verse 13, she spake
in her heart. Verse 15, I poured out my soul
before the Lord. Now we're getting close to what
it is to pray. When your heart is heavy and
burdened, and you can't even put into words the burden of
your soul, and you groan in your spirit before God and cast your
care on him, I promise you, prayer obtains God's blessing. Look
at verse 17. Hannah came to the throne of
grace in time of need. She cast her burden on the Lord
and she left it there. She didn't go home pacing the
floor. She left her burden with him
because she had obtained what she needed. She knew now the
Lord remembered her. Look at verse 17. Then Eli answered
and said, Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thee thy
petition that thou hast asked of him. And she said, Let thine
handmaid find grace in thy sight. So the woman went her way and
did eat, and to the countenance was no more sad. I've got nothing else to be sad
about. I poured out my heart to God. Well, you've still got
a barren womb. Wait nine months and see. You still have no son to nurse.
Just hang on a little while and you'll see. I poured out my heart
to God. And she says, her soul was no
more sad. And they rose up early in the
morning and worshipped before the Lord and returned and came
to their house and to Ramah. And Elkada knew Hannah, his wife,
and the Lord remembered her. And he gave her a son. She called
him Samuel, because I have asked him of the Lord. And that's what
the word Samuel means. God heard me. God heard me. And then prayer gives thanks,
praise, adoration, glory, and honor to the Lord God alone. Look at chapter 2. We read this
earlier. Hannah came and she brought Samuel,
and now she bows down in the house of God. She says, O Lord,
who is a God like you? None as holy as the Lord our
God. Let God be praised! That's what
chapter 2 is all about, these first 10 verses. Let us therefore
come boldly with confidence to the throne of grace, that we
may attain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The
Lord God, listen to me, you can read it in chapter 2, verse 30.
The Lord God always honors those who honor him. always, never
an exception. He always honors those who honor
him. Hannah honored God, casting her
care on him and believing in him. And God honored Hannah,
giving her a son whose name was famous in Israel. And then we
come to Eli. Eli stands out, at least to me. I have to say, I've never seen
any sermon or commentary that suggests this, but to me, this
man Eli stands out as a marvelous example of and lesson about a
believer's consecration to God. In chapters 3 and 4, Eli was
priest in Israel, and he was a man of remarkable faith, remarkable
But Brother Don, he had his faults. His two sons, Hockney and Phineas,
they were priests in Israel, but they were greedy, self-serving,
covetous men, and they took the sacrifices of God for themselves.
And they committed fornication at the very door of the tabernacle,
and caused the children of Israel to commit fornication at the
very door of the tabernacle. And Eli did not exercise the
authority God had given him to prevent them from doing it. Oh,
he came and told them, said, the boys don't do this. This is a bad report I hear from
you. But they hearkened not to their father. And Samuel came
to Eli, and he said, Eli, God's going to kill your boys, Hophni
and Phinehas, and he's going to take the kingdom from you
and from your house forever and give it to another house. And
Eli responded this way. It is the Lord. Let him do what
seemeth him good. I don't know many who match up
to that. Eli, acknowledging his own guilt
acknowledging his own evil, acknowledging every word God said to him by
Samuel, bows to God and worships him, committing everything to
him. And when the ark of God was taken
and his sons Hophni and Phinehas were killed, we find this remarkable
statement in chapter 4. His heart trembled for the ark
of God. He was more concerned for Jesus
Christ his Lord, for the gospel of God's grace, that's what that
ark represents, more concerned for the glory of God and the
kingdom of God and the good of God's people than he was for
himself, his name, his house, and his dear sons whom he loved. Oh, what an example Samuel sets
before us and teaches us by example what it is to be God's prophet.
There are many, many examples of faithful prophets in the word
of God. Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, just many examples.
But none outshine Samuel. He, like Eli, had two sons who
were sons of Belial. Claimed to be prophets of God,
but they were wicked men. But he too was a faithful man,
and faithful throughout his life. He faithfully declared God's
word. He began with Eli, his master. And then he told Israel
plainly the word of God with them, when they despised him
for it. And he told Saul to his face
what God was going to do to him because of his sin. And being
a prophet, He was but the voice by whom
God revealed himself, his word and his will to Israel, so that
when Israel rejected him, they weren't rejecting him at all
but God. He was God's ambassador, and they despised him. And though
the children of Israel rejected him and rejected his message
and rejected his God, turn to chapter 12 and watch this. Here's this old man, Samuel,
in his last days. They stand before Israel, heartbroken
because of their behavior. And this is what he says to them.
Samuel said, verse 20, Samuel said to 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. He continues
to be faithful to their souls. and turn you not aside, for then
should you go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver
you, for they are vain." Verse 22. The Lord will not forsake
his people for his great namesake, because it hath pleased the Lord
to make you his people. Moreover, as for me, God forbid
that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you,
but I will teach you the good and the right way. Overfear the
Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider
how great things he hath done for you." Then we come to Saul. Saul stands before us as a very
sobering lesson, a lesson we have to be taught constantly,
a lesson we must learn. When we indulge the lust of our
flesh, we bring misery to ourselves and to a host of others. You
see, Saul in chapter 8, he was the product of the flesh. He
was exactly what Israel thought they wanted, but he proved to
be the source of unceasing pain and constant misery as long as
he lived. Oh, how bitter the experience
of this But we've got to learn it. Our flesh is our greatest enemy. Nothing causes us trouble like
the lust of our flesh. The flesh prefers the authority
of men to the authority of God. As we said, God give us a king.
Who do you think I am? Yeah, but we want a king we can
see and show off. Give us a king. The flesh craves
the approval of the flesh. Give us a king like all the other
nations have. Give us a king so that the other
nations look at us and say, well boy, they're pretty good folks,
look at them, they have a king too. The flesh seeks to govern
the kingdom of God by the opinions of men rather than the word of
God. The flesh consults with and follows
the flesh rather than the revelation of God and his word. Churches
get together and invent programs and schemes and have committees
and decide what they're going to do, and then they call it
serving God and ask God to bless what they're going to do for
their flesh. The indulgence of the flesh always disturbs the
peace of God's kingdom. And that's what Saul's whole
life is about, beginning in chapter 8. Chapter 16, verse 12, David
teaches us who God's elect are. And God sent Samuel down to the
house of Jesse. And God had told him, said, one
of your boys is going to be king. And Jesse said, well, bring them
in here. All right, boy. Here they are. He had a bunch
of them. And he brought them one after the other. And the
Lord said, that's not him. That's not him. That's not him.
And then Samuel said, well, is that all your sons? He said,
no, I got one more boy, but that can't be him. He's just a boy. He's out tending sheep. He's
a little fella. He's a scrapper, but he's just a little ruddy-faced,
red-headed fellow. It can't possibly be him. Samuel said, go fetch
him. I'm not going to sit down until
you bring him here. And David walked in. This? No. It can't be. No. No. Not him. No. They'll never have him as
king. He doesn't have what it takes to rule over Israel. He
can't do what's required. But God said, Arise and anoint
him. This is he. I sometimes hear
people say things that betray too much. I've often heard preachers
say, He's beyond hope. Or say, I believe
he's one of God's elect. Where do you reckon you found
that out? Since when did you have the privilege of opening
the Lamb's Book of Life? I promise you, God Almighty has
chosen and will save the least likely candidate for his grace
in the eyes of men. And he will use the least likely
candidate for the building of his kingdom. He always has, and
he continues to, and he always will, with rare exception. I see folks sometimes, I see boys, maybe that's one that got a razor,
preached the gospel of his grace. Because I'm impressed with what
I see. And then I rebuke myself and I see one that everybody turned thumbs down
on him, gave up on him a long time ago. He can't do anything,
didn't learn anything, was in school, hasn't learned anything
since. Maybe him, maybe him. God's elect
are always such as we expect they would not be. Look in chapter
25. Abigail, Nabal's wife, shows
us a marvelous lesson about God's prevenient grace. Oh, how I adore
that. Prevenient grace takes many forms.
It's one of the mysteries of God's providence. It's grace
that goes before grace and prepares the way for grace, and it's also
grace that prevents us from evil. The evil we're determined to
do if God would just let us. Nabal had turned away David's
men, and David said, fellas, don't even stop. He had humiliated
them, and David says, fellas, strap on your swords. We're going
to Nabal's house, and there's not going to be one child left
standing in that house. I'm going to kill them all right
now. And Abigail, Nabal's wife, heard about it. And man, she
loaded up the ashes with goods, and she went running over to
David, And she fell down before David, and she said, David, don't
do this thing. I acknowledge my husband Nabal's
a fool, he's always been a fool. But don't do this thing, don't
do this evil you purposed. And she reasoned with him. Now
look at verse 32. And David said to Abigail, Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me.
And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept
me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself
with my own hand." He wasn't interested in this instance. What was motivating him wasn't
the glory of God, the good of God's kingdom, the cause of Christ.
The thing that motivated him was vengeance! God wouldn't let him. God wouldn't
let him. That's called grace. And in this
book, throughout the book, indeed throughout the Bible, David stands
before us as an imminent great example and type of our Lord
Jesus Christ. As you read the Old Testament,
there are three categories of types. There are institutional
types, ceremonies and rituals of the law, providential types,
God's deliverances of his people, and personal types, individuals
like Moses and David. David is one of the greatest
of these personal types. Let me give you just a few things,
and you can take them home and mull them over. David was a shepherd
in Israel. The Lord Jesus is our great and
good shepherd. David hazarded his life to deliver
his sheep from the mouth of the lion and the hand of the bear.
The Lord Jesus didn't hazard his life, he gave his life for
his sheep. Jonathan made a covenant of love
with David, in which he made David swear
that he would save his house. And the Lord God Almighty made
a covenant of love with Christ. in which the Son of God sware
that he would save his house. David was anointed and established
of God as the king in Israel, and Christ is the anointed king
of Zion, established on his throne forever by the hand of God. David
went out against Goliath, that great giant who mocked God and
mocked Israel and defied the God of Israel. He went out with
him with nothing but a shepherd's sling. and had cut off his head
with the very sword by which Goliath had planned to destroy
Israel. And our great Savior went out
against sin, Satan, death, and hell, and saved all Israel by
his death upon the cursed tree. All the schemes and plans and
devices by which Saul tried, and you read through these 31
chapters, I read these chapters again today and I thought, How
many ways and how many turns and how many devices and how
many plans Saul made to kill David. But everything he did,
not one thing he did in any way prevented David from his position
on the throne of Israel. Didn't even cause it to pause. Didn't set it back one day. And
all the schemes and devices of hell to thwart our Savior. and keep him from the accomplishment
of his purpose in saving his people by his blood, in saving
his people by his grace, reigning on the throne of glory as the
universal monarch of all things. All that was devised to keep
him from doing it only served to accomplish his purpose. And
as David recovered from the Amalekites, everything that they had and
returned his wives to his own hands with no harm. The Lord
Jesus Christ has recovered for us everything we've lost by our
enemies, and he shall return his bride to himself, not only
with no harm, but better off than we could possibly have been
if we had never been taken captive. Hmm, wondrous grace. One more
thing. David made a law in Israel concerning
the sharing of the spoils when they went out to deliver their
families and their goods from the Amalekites and some of the
men of Belial. They came back to those who stayed
by the staff who were too sweet to go to the battle and they
said, now when we get over there, we're not giving them a thing.
They didn't go to battle, they can't go with us. David said,
oh no, oh no. No, no. Those who stayed by the
stuff, they're going to have the same thing you had. And it
was made to be a law in Israel. And the Lord Jesus Christ, our
great God, Savior and King, has made a law by his intercessory
prayer that all his people shall have all the inheritance of his
wealth in everlasting glory. as the God-man, our mediator. He said, Father, the glory you
gave me, I've given to thee. And we now and forever are heirs
of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. God make us faithful
to him. who loved us and gave himself
for us. Amen.