You're turning there. Emma Farrell
has a brain tumor and she's going to have surgery Tuesday. So let's
remember them and their family and prayer. She had a shunt put
in, I think Friday, and they're going to have the surgery Tuesday
morning. Let's begin reading in verse
13. 1 Samuel chapter 7. So the Philistines were subdued. And you'll remember where that
great victory came just from the Lord thundering earlier in
the chapter. And this is what happens as a
result. So the Philistines were subdued and they came no more
into the coast of Israel And the hand of the Lord was against
the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which
the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. From Ekron even into Gath and
the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the
Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life and he went
from year to year in circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah
and judged Israel in all those places and his return was to
Ramah for there was his house and there he judged Israel and
there he built an altar unto the Lord. Let's pray together. Lord we come into your presence
in the high and the holy name of thy dear son. And Lord, we
ask in his name that you would please be pleased to meet with
us and to speak in power to our hearts that we might be enabled
to worship thy dear son. We ask that the gospel might
be preached in the power of your spirit and that you'd unite our
hearts to worship. Lord, we We pray for Emma at
this time. We pray that you would be pleased
to heal her and preserve her life. We pray that you would
give the surgeons the ability to take care of that tumor. Lord,
she's in your hand and we greatly desire that you would heal her
for the Lord's sake. And Lord, we know she's in your
hands and we know that whatever you do is best, but we beseech
that you would heal this little girl. for the Lord's sake. And we ask that you would be
with that family, give them the grace to rest in thy dear son
and thy good providence. Lord, let your blessing be upon
us for Christ's sake. May his name be exalted in his
name. We pray. Amen. I had intended to go straight
into chapter eight, where The Israelites were asking for a
king and why that was wrong, but I couldn't get away from
these last few verses of 1 Samuel chapter 7. Now, Israel, we know
from the past reading last week, had been in a position of compromise. For 20 years, they had been in
a position of compromise, mixing the worship of Jehovah with Asatroth
and Baal. I got to thinking about this
thing of a position of compromise. You know, in many respects, compromise
can be a very good thing, can't it? You're not going to get along
with your spouse if you don't compromise. I mean, compromise
can certainly be a good thing. Not in the things of the Lord,
not with regard to worship, not with regard to truth, not with
regard to serving the Lord, there is no room for compromise. And yet they had compromised. The Philistines had their hand
heavily against them during this period, but God put it in their
heart. In verse two of chapter seven
to lament after him, they saw where their compromise had taken
him verse two. And it came to pass, while the
ark abode in Kerjeth-jerim, that the time was long, for it was
twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the
Lord." And then the Lord gave this miraculous victory. You
go on reading in chapter 7, a thunder came down and just disconfitted
them, the scripture says. And they won without any effort
on their part. And isn't that the way salvation
is? It's what he does for us. Not what we do, not what he uses
us to do, but what he does for us. He disconfitted them. And so these verses I just read
are about the results of this victory the Lord won for them. Verse 13, so the Philistines
were subdued and they came no more into the coasts of Israel. Their enemies were subdued. They
were vanquished. They were defeated. Now, who is our greatest enemy? Well, I know who mine is. You're
looking at him. My sins. My sins are my greatest
enemy. And the Philistines were subdued
and they came no more into the coasts of Israel. They were vanquished. They were defeated. You see,
Matthew 121 says, Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins. My greatest enemies have been
subdued. They're still alive. The Philistines
were still alive, weren't they? But they were subdued. And they
came no more into the coast of Israel. They weren't allowed
to come in. You know, I'm never going to
have to give an account for my sins. There is such a thing as
sin. Sin against God. All sin is against
God. And the sins of all God's people
have been vanquished. That's what the Lord did on the
cross. Now, as far as our experience goes, they're still alive. But
they've been vanquished, they've been defeated. They'll never
be brought into the coasts of Israel. My sins are never going
to be brought up on Judgment Day. They're not going to be
brought up. You know why? Because there's none there. Here's the
result of the Lord winning this victory for us. The way this
mighty thunder came down from heaven and thundered. My sins
were subdued. They were put away. They're gone. Now, let's go on reading in verse
13. So the Philistines were subdued,
and they came no more into the coast of Israel. And look what
it says next. And the hand of the Lord was
against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. Now because of
this victory, we have the hand of His good providence and His
protection. Because of this victory, He won.
Do you know that means God's hand is upon me. God's hand is
upon every believer and we have the promise of His provision,
of His protection. Now, isn't that glorious to think
about? I know we all can quote Romans 8.28, but let me quote
it again. And we know that all things,
everything, everything, doesn't matter what it is, everything
works together. Not separately, but together,
for good. to them that love God, to them
who are thee called according to His purpose. All things. Now, that's the... Because the
Lord won the victory for us, that means everything that happens,
His hand is upon. His hand was against the Philistines
all the days of Samuel. And His hand is controlling and
directing every event. I love thinking about that. You
know, even the thoughts that are going through my mind and
the thoughts that are going through your mind right now, He's in
control of. Either by way of mercy or by
way of judgment, but He is in control of everything, even the
way people think. The inclinations and the preparation
of the heart is of the Lord. Everything that goes through
the mind, everybody's in His hands. Don't you love it that
way? I mean, I just love the fact that God rules and reigns
and controls everybody and everything. Wouldn't want it to be any other
way. Because of this victory that
He achieved for us, His hand is upon everything. Now, let's
go on reading verse 14. 1 Samuel 7 verse 14. Here's the third blessing that
happened as a result of his victory. And the cities which the Philistines
had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. I want to talk about
this thing of restoration for just a moment. David said, He restoreth my soul. Aren't you thankful for that?
You know, we continually need to be restored because we continually
go astray. Now, David, the man after God's
own heart, the last verse of Psalm 119, verse whatever it
is, 176, I think, David said, I've gone astray like a lost
sheep. And I tell you something that
sheep are good at. They're good at going astray. It's their nature
to go astray. David said, I've gone astray
like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant. I love the
way he says it. Come get me. Come get me. He
restoreth my soul. Now we so easily develop wrong
ways of thinking. We're so easily tempted by this
world. We're so easily tempted to sin. But thank God, He restores. he restores. All that they've
lost, he restored, because he delights in the restoration of
his people. And I love the way he restores.
No probationary period. No period of watching. No, he
said to the prodigal who by his grace returned, bring forth the
best robe and put it on him. and put a ring on his hand and
shoes on his feet. You see, the Lord always restores.
You say, why? Because the victory has already
been won. That's why the Lord restores
you. He restores me for Christ's sake
because of what Christ did for me. That's why this restoring
is continual. He restores my soul over and
over and over. I love the way His restoration
is never partial. It's complete. I come back and
I'm accepted completely in the Beloved. My coming back. That's
what's involved in restoration. You come back. You come back.
You return to the Lord. How many times does He say, return
to me? Return to me. That's a continual blessing of
grace always being restored by His grace. Now, let's go on reading
verse 14. I saw seven blessings of God's
salvation in these verses of Scripture. First, our enemies
subdued, our sins subdued. Second, the hand of the Lord
being with us. Third, restoration. And, O Lord,
cause me to continually come to thy son. Verse 14, And the
cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored
to Israel. From Ekron even unto Gath and
the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the
Philistines. Now notice that. Israel did deliver out of the
hands of the Philistines. Now it was the Lord who did it. But
yet he says Israel did it. What's this about? What this
is about is the Lord uses His people. He restored the coast
back to Israel. He was the one who caused these
cities to come back to them, but the Lord used them to do
it. Isn't it a wonderful thing to
think of being used by God for his purposes? I love what Ralph
Barnard said, and I agree with it 100%. He says, if God ever
uses a man, It's in spite of that man, not because of that
man. Wouldn't you agree with that? If the Lord ever uses you, if
the Lord ever uses me, and He will. He does. He does. It'll
be for Christ's sake. It'll be because of that great
victory that He achieved. So, every blessing of salvation
is ours. And He even uses us for Christ's
sake. Now, let's go on reading. Verse
14, the last sentence, and there was peace between Israel and
the Amorites. Now here is the fifth blessing
that comes as a result of God doing everything in our salvation.
I love this word, peace. Don't you like the way the word
sounds? Peace. Peace with God. God being at
peace with me. In Romans chapter 5 verse 1,
it says, Having been justified by faith, we have peace with
God. Now, that verse of Scripture
is not talking about our peace with Him. It's talking about
His peace with us. It's very important. Somebody
says, I don't feel any peace. Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't,
but let's not talk about the peace you feel. Let's talk about
the peace God has. This is the kind of peace Paul's
talking about here. He's not talking about the subjective
feeling of peace. He's talking about the peace
that Christ achieved for us on Calvary's tree. Colossians 1.20
says, having made peace by his blood. That's what He did by
His blood. He made peace. Now this peace
makes it, this blood, what it does, according to Colossians
1.22, it makes us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight. He's at peace with me because
I'm holy. Because there's nothing to blame
me for. Because there's nothing to reprove me for. Now that's
how effectually Christ put away our sins. God is at complete
peace with me. He looks at me and He says, there's
nothing to be mad at. I'm pleased with Him. He's altogether
lovely. He's never done anything wrong.
He's always done that which is right. That is what Christ achieved
for His people. And God is at peace with me. You know what? I'm at peace with God. And the
peace that I have is founded in the exact same peace that
God has with me, the blood of his son. I've got the same ground
of peace in my peace toward God that God has. It's wholly grounded
and founded in what Christ achieved for me. The peace I have is not
because I feel like I'm guiltless or blameless. Well, I have peace.
I have peace in that action. I don't have peace in anything
I do. As far as any action that comes from me, I don't have peace
about it. Not once. I don't have peace about any
sermon I've preached. I don't have peace about any prayer I've prayed.
I don't have any peace about any good deed that I've done.
I don't have any peace about anything I've done. But Ephesians
2.14 says, He is our peace. And I'm at peace with God because
Christ is my peace. And there is peace with God's
people. We have the We have the same
Savior. We have the same salvation. We
have the same ground of peace. How can two walk together except
they be agreed? Well, they can't. But there's
an agreement with God's people. You know, whenever there's conflict,
I love that scripture in Proverbs, by pride only cometh contention. Whenever there's contention,
whenever there's conflict, by pride only cometh contention. That's what the Word of God says.
But, oh, what, you know, this thing of peace, too. This world is at war with one
another. And the reason everybody's at
war, and the reason there's conflict, the reason there's national conflicts,
the reason there are personal conflicts, somebody says, well,
you've got something I want, and I want to get it. I want
it. I want to take it. But with regard even to this
world, we have peace in this sense. I've already got everything. There's nothing that this world
has to offer that I really even want. I have Christ. What else could I want? Therefore,
there is peace. Oh, what peace. I wish I could
bottle it up and always feel it. Sometimes I do, sometimes
I don't, but I've always got it whether I feel it or not.
Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's go on
reading verse 15. Here's the sixth blessing. And Samuel judged Israel all
the days of his life. And he went from year to year
in circuit. He went from this place to this place to this place
to this place to this place, offering sacrifice. He was a
priest. And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel,
and Gilgal, and Mizpah, and judged Israel in all those places. And
his return was to Ramah, for there was his house, and there
he judged Israel." Now, I love to think about Samuel going in
circuit, going in circuit, here, there, there, and there. And
there's only one thing he did. He preached the gospel. He offered
sacrifice as God's great high priest. As a matter of fact,
when you go in reading Samuel, I mean Saul, was waiting for
Samuel to come to offer up a sacrifice. And he started getting nervous
because Samuel was late. So he took it upon himself to
offer a sacrifice without a priest. And God rejected him because
of that. Samuel was God's priest. And he would go to all these
different places with the same message. Salvation through a
sacrifice. Oh, aren't you thankful for the
preaching of the gospel? Samuel, they saw the preaching
of the gospel. They saw that sacrifice. And
that's what leads me to the last thing. Look what it says, the
last phrase. It says, There he built an altar
unto the Lord. Now, what's an altar for? One thing. Sacrifice. This isn't just some kind of
primitive recognition of an offended, angry God. We need a sacrifice.
Although, there's something in humanity that knows that God
can't be approached apart from a sacrifice. Everybody knows
that. There's something that lets us
know that. It's just one of those innate, like people are born
with the knowledge of God. People are born with the knowledge
that God is. Now they might suppress it. They
may prefer it not to be that way, but you don't have to prove
this. People know that God is. And everybody naturally knows
He can't be approached apart from a sacrifice. Samuel builds this altar. Now
you think of the history of altars in the scripture. I love to think
about it. Abel had an altar. He offered
up that lamb on. What's the first thing Noah did
when he got off the boat? What's the first thing? He built
an altar and he offered up a sacrifice. He knew the only way he could
come into God's presence is through that sacrifice. Abraham that
we read several times during his history where he would build
an altar and call upon the name of the Lord. And you think about
him building that altar in Genesis 22 when God said, take now your
son, your only son, whom you love, and offer him up there
as a burnt offering to me. And he went up on Mount Moriah
and he built an altar and he laid his son on that altar. I
love the altar spoken of in the Ten Commandments. I think maybe
that's my favorite one. God gave the Ten Commandments
and the children of Israel said all that He has spoken will do.
Never been a bigger lie told. Never been a bigger lie told.
And even in the instructions of the Ten Commandments, He says,
you build an altar. Make an altar of earth. Don't
let your tool touch it. If you let your tool touch it,
you've polluted it. It has nothing to do with human
works. This altar, God knew that they
would break the law. Therefore, He gave this altar
and He said, don't make steps to the altar. There's not steps
to Christ or there's not steps to God. I don't need to take
this step, then that step, and that step. Now I'm here. I've
done the things I needed to do. No. No steps. We're there as
soon as we come. And this altar for sacrifice. What was the first piece of furniture
in the tabernacle? When you came in, what was the
very first thing? The altar. You couldn't come in without
a blood sacrifice. The altar was the first thing.
Now, Churches have altars, so to speak. They have altars where you come
down and pray, come down and give yourself to God, come down
to the front. They have altars, people come put their knees on
the altar and pray and all that kind of stuff. That's just a
bunch of religious superstition is all it is. It's foolishness. These physical altars. Now let's
turn to Hebrews chapter 13 for a moment. Samuel built an altar. Verse 9, Be not carried about with diverse
and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the
heart be established with grace, not with meads which have not
profited them that have been occupied therein, Now he's talking
about meats, things you can eat, things you can't eat. But notice
he says, we have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which
serve the tabernacle. The people under the law have
no right to eat of this altar. And who is this altar? This altar
is Jesus Christ himself. He's the altar. He's the sacrifice. He's the priest. There's still a need of an altar.
There's still a need of a sacrifice. And there is still a need of
a priest. And He Himself is the altar. He Himself is the sacrifice. And He Himself is the priest. And if I believe in works in
any way, I'd disqualify myself from the use of this altar, this
sacrifice, this priest. But if I come as a sinner, right
now, needing Him, He's my altar. He's my sacrifice. He is my priest. Now, I love the way Christ is
called the new and the living way. I'm going to repeat that
again in the service this morning. But the new way. Jesus Christ, His sacrifice,
that word new means freshly slaughtered. That's what the word means. It
doesn't mean just new and recent in time, but it means freshly
slaughtered. I want you to think of how the blood of Christ is
just as powerful, just as poignant, just as real to God right now
as the very second His blood was shed. Oh, may the Lord deliver us from
ever looking at the gospel becoming It's old. It's tiring. I need something else. I need
something else to excite me. I need something else to peak
my interest in my energy. Oh, God forbid that any of us
grow tired, become bored with. Look at this as just doctrine
to argue rather than something that's amazing. amazing and altogether
glorious. Something that speaks to my heart. And the only way that's going
to happen, I know, is if the Lord causes it to happen. But
may we always be like Samuel. The last thing that's said about
his ministry was he built an altar. And you know the word
sacrifice is actually in the altar. May the Lord always cause
us to be consumed with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our altar, which
we have a right to eat of. that those who are under the
law have no right, the scripture says, to eat. Now if you can,
this week, read 1 Samuel chapter 8. This is where the children
of Israel asked for a king. They said, give us a king so
we can be like the other nations. And his sons, Samuel's sons,
went in a bad direction. And they said, we don't want
them leading us. And I understand them not wanting them to lead
them. But what was wrong with them asking for a king? So, as
the Lord enables you, read that passage of Scripture, 1 Samuel
chapter 8 this week, and we'll consider that next week. Okay.