Category: Sermon

1 SAMUEL #10: WHAT COMES OUT WHEN YOU ARE SQUEEZED?

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo by Charlotte May on Pexels.com

When Saul was in a tough spot, his insecurities, and need to be in control were revealed. Though there were consequences when he gave in to sin, those did not have to be fatal. When hard times reveal what is inside us, our hope is in Jesus, who crucified our old selves along with himself, and makes us a new creation.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 10

1 Samuel #10.  1 Samuel 13:1-15

During his first battle as leader of Israel, Saul defeated an enemy that dominated the Eastern tribes of Israel, as well as the Jordan valley. After that victory, the people finally accepted him officially as king. Saul conscripted 3,000 professional warriors and sent everyone else home. He let his son Jonathan command 1,000 of the soldiers.

Everything we read about Jonathan suggests he was an outstanding young man in every way. He took his 1,000 men and promptly handed the Philistines a stinging defeat at Geba. We will see as we go on that Jonathan had a warrior’s heart, and a trust in the Lord, and he wasn’t worried about stirring up Israel’s old enemy. He trusted that the Lord was with his people. The problem was, the rest of Israel – including his father – was worried. The news of Jonathan’s victory was carried throughout the land, but listen to how it was described:

“Saul has attacked the Philistine garrison, and Israel is now repulsive to the Philistines.” (1 Samuel 13:4)

So, even though Jonathan won the first round, the take-away was that they were now in big trouble. No one cared much for the victory. Instead, the feeling in Israel was that what Jonathan had done was basically the same as kicking a hornet’s nest, or shooting a grizzly bear with a BB gun. Jonathan inflicted damage, but he didn’t impair the power of the Philistines to make war. In addition, after almost a generation of peace with the Philistines (under the leadership of Samuel), this kicked off another round of war with them.

The Philistines began a major campaign, pushing up one of the valleys, into the hills and the heart of Israelite territory. Saul retreated, and they occupied a place near his former position.

At this point, we need some historical and geographical background. At the end of chapter 13, the writer (again who wrote this down about a generation or so later) explains something very significant.

19 There were no blacksmiths in the land of Israel in those days. The Philistines wouldn’t allow them for fear they would make swords and spears for the Hebrews. 20 So whenever the Israelites needed to sharpen their plowshares, picks, axes, or sickles, they had to take them to a Philistine blacksmith. 21 The charges were as follows: a quarter of an ounce of silver for sharpening a plowshare or a pick, and an eighth of an ounce for sharpening an ax or making the point of an ox goad. 22 So on the day of the battle none of the people of Israel had a sword or spear, except for Saul and Jonathan. (1 Samuel 13:19-22, NLT)

This information indicates that these events took place at the end of the Bronze Age, and the beginning of the Iron Age. Quite simply, at this point the Philistines had Iron-Age technology and the Israelites did not, and the Philistines were not interested in sharing it. This is one clue to why the Philistines were so feared by the Israelites, and why they were such a persistent military problem. They had iron weapons, and most of the Israelites did not. When we keep this in mind, this makes any Israelite victory over the Philistines something of a miracle. The Philistines lived on the south coast of Palestine, in areas that include modern-day Gaza. The Israelites mostly lived in the hills and mountains inland, and also on the other side of the Jordan river, north of the Dead Sea. The hills and small mountains helped keep the Philistines contained, in spite of their technological superiority.

As we look at the numbers of soldiers here, remember in part 8 we learned that the Hebrew word for “thousand” and for “chieftain,” or “well-armed professional soldier” are exactly the same. Remember also that chieftains were usually accompanied by peasant-militia troops without good weapons.

In addition, we have examples of parallel passages where extra zeroes have been added or dropped. 2 Samuel 10:18 records the defeat of 700 chariots; 1 Chronicles 19:18, speaking of exactly the same incident, writes 7,000. Generally, I would suspect the lower number to be correct. So if you ever read these numbers and think, “Gee, that sounds like a much bigger number than seems likely,” you can knock off a zero – and in some cases, three zeros – and still agree that the bible is faithful and reliable. The problem is simply in the translation.

In any case, we ought to understand that whatever the actual number recorded in verse 5 – 3,600 or 36,000 – for the times, it was a formidable professional fighting force that the Philistines sent into Israelite territory, along with a large number of peasant-militia troops. It was a big threat in two additional ways. First, up until this point, the Philistines had stayed mostly on the coastal plain. Technically, that was Israelite territory also, given to them by the Lord when they entered the promised land, however, the Israelites had never really lived there. But in the incident recorded in 1 Samuel 13, the Philistines were pushing inland, up into the hills and mountains that had been occupied by the Israelites for hundreds of years.

Secondly, the Philistine invasion recorded here nearly cut the nation of Israel in half. They pushed all the way to Michmash, which was just a few miles short of the Jordan River valley. If they moved all the way down to the Jordan, the largest tribe in Israel (Judah) would be cut off, along with the tribes of Benjamin and Dan, and roughly half of the territory of Israel would be isolated from the other tribes. In other words, the Philistines were about to take a gigantic, and possibly fatal bite out of Israel.

See the picture at left. The brown line shows the territory occupied by Israelite tribes, and the yellow area is the Philistines (this is a rough approximation, just to give you an idea of the danger they were in). Michmash is the yellow dot. The red dot next to the river is Gilgal, and the red dot closer to the Philistines is Gibeah.

Israel was just a few miles and one lost battle away from a huge national catastrophe.

It is interesting to note that Saul had originally held the position at Michmash, but retreated from the Philistines down into the Jordan valley. He gathered his army at Gilgal, a town in the Jordan river valley not far from the Philistines as the crow flies, but a very rough hike up or down the mountains by foot. The text doesn’t explain things clearly but apparently Samuel had sent a message to Saul, telling him to wait until he came, and then they would seek the Lord and worship him together before commencing the battle. In other words, they wanted God’s favor and help when they went out to fight. Samuel wanted Saul to rely on the Lord in this dire situation.

Now it is quite likely that Samuel’s home town was affected by this invasion – we do know that the Philistine forces came quite close to it. The position of the Philistines might have also forced Samuel to travel a considerable distance out of his way to get to Saul – remember, they had almost cut the nation in half. In any case, days passed, and Samuel did not show up. Saul’s army got restless and afraid. No doubt, many men were thinking of their families, wanting to prepare them for the disaster, or wondering if their homes had already been overrun by the enemy.

They were waiting to seek the Lord with Samuel the Prophet before they made a move. However, Samuel wasn’t there. Nothing was happening and the soldiers were worried about their families, and so they began to desert Saul and the army. So Saul took action. He decided to go ahead and lead the worship and offer the sacrifices himself. He made the burnt offering. This was an animal that was killed and completely burned up. No part of it was eaten – it was all “given” to the Lord through fire. It was used to seek God’s favor, to bring God’s forgiveness or to avert judgment. Just when Saul finished, Samuel finally made it to the camp.

Now, here is what troubles me. I think many Americans, if they didn’t read any further, would approve of what Saul did. People might say, “he’s a go-getter, a self-motivated leader.” They might think, “There’s a real leader – he’s losing men so he takes bold decisive action, he makes something happen.”

But Samuel didn’t see it that way, and apparently, neither did God.

13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.” 15 And Samuel arose and went up from Gilgal.  (1Sam 13:13-15, ESV)

The prophet immediately identified that the problem was Saul’s heart. It wasn’t fixed on God. We can now see clearly that Saul was insecure. He was worried about the future of Israel, of course. He was worried about his own ability to keep the men with him and maintain an effective fighting force. He did not trust the Lord with these concerns. Instead, he trusted in his own action. He trusted in the offering ceremony, but not God himself. Clearly, Saul viewed the offerings as a tool. It was a way to keep his army together and energized; perhaps also a way to manipulate God into helping him. Saul did not offer the sacrifices to please the Lord, or because he was personally repentant or worshipful. If either of those had been the case, he would have waited for Samuel, who was the one who was supposed to do such things. Saul was not a priest, nor a prophet and was not supposed to lead that kind of worship. This is bad religion. He went through the motions of a religious ceremony, but it wasn’t about God at all. He was using religion for his own ends – to keep the men from deserting.

And of course, the fact that Saul couldn’t wait showed that he wasn’t willing to trust the Lord when he didn’t understand what was happening, or when the Lord wasn’t moving as fast as he wanted.

Now, there’s no doubt that Saul was in a tight spot. But the tense situation did not create the problem in his heart. It only revealed it. When you squeeze an orange, what comes out? Whatever is inside the orange of course, which is orange juice. When you are squeezed, what comes out? Whatever is inside you, of course. If you curse and rage when you are in a tough spot, that is because cursing and rage are inside you. Jesus said:

20“What comes out of a person — that defiles him. 21 For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:7-23)
45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:45)

When Saul was squeezed by his circumstances, he did not put his faith steadfastly in the Lord. He refused to wait on God or on other people. His situation was not easy. But it didn’t cause his heart-problem – it just revealed it. He let his insecurity rule him, and he chose to act, rather than depend on the Lord.  When Saul was squeezed, it was fear that came out, and a need to be in control. He put his trust in the number of men he had, rather than the Lord. It was more important to him to keep as many men as possible than it was to seek God and his favor.

Saul failed in this incident, and revealed what was truly in his heart. However, the Lord did not give up on him, and with the Lord’s help, Saul did many more good things, as we will see. In fact we will see God continually trying to reach Saul throughout his life. Samuel’s words were supposed to be a kind of prophetic warning. If we read carefully, we see that God wasn’t even saying Saul shouldn’t be the king. It was something like this: “Unless your heart changes, your dynasty won’t continue. The Lord will find someone whose heart is tender toward God. If yours doesn’t change it will have to be someone else.” We should understand that God was not taking away the kingship of Saul, but saying instead that because of Saul’s sin, he could not be the founder of a dynasty. The kingship would pass to a different family.

This is all about trusting God when things don’t look good – maybe things look disastrous. If you get squeezed, what do you think will come out? What is in the treasure-store of your heart?

What if it isn’t good? What if, like Saul, you have insecurity hiding there? What if there is rage or hatred or jealousy or selfishness, or other ugly things? I think Saul had the opportunity to repent. Again, I think Samuel’s words were more of a prophetic warning than an absolute statement of judgment. However, even if we take it as a settled judgment, the punishment is not that Saul himself could not return to the Lord, or even that he himself could no longer be king. It was that none of his sons would be king after him. This means that there was still hope for Saul, and there is still hope for all of us.

When he was tempted, Saul could have turned to the Lord, confessed his weakness, and put his trust in the Lord. I think that is what we need to do when we are squeezed, and we see there is a problem in our hearts.

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21, ESV)

We should be sad when we discover bad things in our heart, but that is not the final word. We need to remember that through Jesus, our heart problem has been solved. Our old self, with all its insecurities, jealousies and lusts, has been killed with Jesus on the cross. Through Jesus, our spirit has already been renewed, and we wait with passionate hope for the day when that renewal is completed in our soul and body.

There might also be an application here for you if you are faced with a difficult situation. Perhaps you feel a lot of pressure just to act, to do something, to make something happen. Sometimes the Lord does lead us to do that. We’ll see that with Jonathan next time. But if the Lord is calling you to wait, or if your action would be from fear or insecurity, maybe you need to sit still and wait for God to show up.

Take a moment to let the Lord speak to you now.

1 SAMUEL #9. UNFAILING GRACE

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible Teaching, House Church, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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The things that God did for his people in the past are supposed to be considered part of his faithfulness to us in the present. What God did for previous generations, he also did for us. God’s goodness to others is part of his goodness to us, because we belong to his people. His faithfulness does not end when we make mistakes. He walks with us even when we choose the wrong path, and redeems us in our mistakes, if we will let him.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 9

1 Samuel # 9. God’s faithfulness to us at all times. 1 Samuel 12:1-25

Think for a moment about some decision you made, or action you took that you now know was a mistake. What would you change today, if you could? How would your life be different?

We all know that you can’t go back and unsay those cruel words, or un-make that decision that led you to where you are today. I’m not going to pretend that I’ve found a way to do that. But I do think that through 1 Samuel chapter 12, God is offering grace even after we have stepped out on the wrong road. It isn’t grace to go back. It is grace to go on.

In first Samuel chapter 8, the people asked God, through Samuel, to give them a king. This was a rejection of God’s plan for them as a nation. It was a choice to exchange the freedom and protection they could have had in following the Lord for the false-security of a king who would take care of them, but also rule over them. Samuel, in his wisdom, knew it was a mistake. He talked to God about it, who affirmed Samuel’s instinct that it was a mistake. But the people were determined.

Not only did they want a king, they wanted a certain kind of king. Their requirements were also a mistake. But the people were determined. The Lord allowed them to choose their own way. They did, and their choice was a major mistake. Even so, God let them go ahead with it, and helped them to find a king. The man who met their specifications was Saul, a big impressive looking fellow who was also insecure and spiritually insensitive and ignorant.

Even so, the Lord began to use Saul right away. In choosing him, the Lord removed an old shame from many thousands of people, and set up Israel with a magnificent big champion to match a Philistine giant whom no one yet knew about.

God chose Saul through the prophet Samuel. First Samuel anointed Saul in private. Later he was chosen by God in a public assembly of the leaders of Israel. Even so, nothing really happened. After the events we looked at last time – after a great military victory – the people finally made Saul an honest king.

15 So all the people went to Gilgal, and there in the LORD’s presence they made Saul king. There they sacrificed fellowship offerings in the LORD’s presence, and Saul and all the men of Israel greatly rejoiced. 1 Sam 11:15 (HCSB)

So you see, even their approach to the king was not one of faith in the Lord and his choice. They waited until Saul gave them something of what they were looking for – military victory – before they fully accepted God’s help in choosing the king.

After it was finally all official, Samuel stood before the people and made a speech. That speech is the text of 1 Samuel chapter 12.

In the first place (12:1-5), Samuel wanted to make sure his conscience was clear. He also wanted to draw a contrast between his own actions, and the rights of a king. Samuel has never taken anything that wasn’t his. Yet he had warned the people in 8:10-18 that the King would have the right to take many things from the people in taxes to run his household and the kingdom. The people affirmed that Samuel had been a good and fair leader. There is an unspoken implication to this part of Samuel’s speech “So – in me, God gave you a good and fair leader who listened to him and did right. But you wanted a king!”

Next, Samuel reminded them of God’s faithfulness. The Lord led them out of Egypt as a great nation – but without a king. They had Moses, a prophet, and Aaron, a priest, but no king. And the Lord cared for them and provided for them. Although Samuel doesn’t mention this explicitly, the troubles the people had in the wilderness during the exodus were not due to lack of a king, but rather to disobedience to the Lord.

During the time of the Judges, the people had troubles again. But Samuel points out two things. First, the trouble was their own doing, not because they lacked a king. It came because they quit following the Lord. Second, when they repented and cried out for God’s help, he was gracious and delivered them.

11 So the LORD sent Jerubbaal, Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel. He rescued you from the power of the enemies around you, and you lived securely.

There is something else about part of Samuel’s speech that is striking: most of the incidents he described of God’s goodness to the people happened to previous generations of Israelites, not to the people with whom he was speaking. However, he speaks as if God had done all this for the present generation. This is something important that Moses taught the people of Israel long before. Every generation of Israelites was called to remember the great acts of God in the past, and to live like God had done those things for themselves, in this present generation. The people of God are heirs to all that God has done in the past. God’s work in the past should be considered a sign of his faithfulness in the present.

We live in a highly individualized society, and on top of that, our culture is obsessed with the future, and new things. But there are other ways to live, other ways to view the world. God’s people in ancient times were much more communal, and much more in touch with the past. If God did something for past generations, it was counted very much as if he had done it for the present generation. If God did something for me, he did it for his people. If he did it for his people he did it for me.

I think we should learn from this way of looking at the world. I find that I easily forget the things God has done in the past even in my own life. I hardly even consider things he has done for others, or what he did for previous generations of his people. But if we start to see ourselves as part of the intergenerational community of God’s people, then his faithfulness to us becomes overwhelmingly apparent. Twenty years ago God healed my friend Adam from a broken back. The healing was documented by before and after x-rays. A few years ago, he healed my friend Doug from twisted intestines – again documented before and after by CT scan. But those healings weren’t just for Adam and Doug – they were for me, for all of us in the community of faith. And they weren’t just for those moments in the past – they were for us now, and for future generations. I could easily name a dozen other amazing things God has done for me, and for people I know. And then add in God’s graciousness to Christians I don’t even know, and then to his people of previous generations, and suddenly, God’s grace and faithfulness become overwhelming. I think it would be very helpful if we began to consider God’s faithfulness to his people as a whole, including his faithfulness to previous generations. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to do exactly that. After writing about God’s mighty acts for his people in the past, he says this:

1 Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne. (Hebrews 12:1-2, HCSB)

There is a great cloud of witnesses to God’s faithfulness to his people. We belong to God’s people. His goodness to them is also his goodness to us. Everything God did in the past, he did for us, the people of God.

4 For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. (Romans 15:4, HCSB)

Let that sink in, and let it lead us to lay aside all heaviness and sin, and run our race with perseverance, knowing that we too, are a part of that group of witnesses.

Back to Samuel’s speech. The overall point Samuel is making is that when they followed the Lord faithfully, he delivered his people, protected them, and they lived in peace and security. All this took place without a human king. The Lord was their king. Samuel is saying – look, when you were faithful to God, the old way worked just fine. God did so much for you. Even so, you are ignoring everything he did for you. You are claiming it just isn’t working out, when the reason it isn’t working out is your own stubbornness, your own turning away from God.

After the people heard this, they recognized that Samuel was right. They felt bad about what they had done, and they were afraid. I would bet that no one reading this – even you folks who live outside the United States – has asked God to give you a king. But have you asked him for something that was a mistake? Have you ever determined to go ahead your own way, and later realized it was a mistake – maybe even a huge error of judgment?

1 Samuel 12 gives a picture of how God deals with us in those kinds of situations. I always want to go back and do it over, only correctly this time. I want to have my mistakes undone. But God doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes, I enjoy playing computer games. One of the great things about computer games, is that you can mess up, you can even die – and it doesn’t matter. You just start the game over from the last point at which you saved it. I have often thought – and maybe you have too – wouldn’t it be cool if life was like a computer game? If you blow it, you just get a “do-over.” If you make a bad choice, you go back to that point and make a right choice now.

But there is something else about computer games. They are fun, but they are also meaningless. I don’t mean that it is evil or wrong to play them. But the choices you make within a computer game are meaningless. Death in a computer game is meaningless in real life. Life in a computer game is meaningless. We need to understand something here: choices without consequences have no meaning.

There is a famous old story about an ordinary young man who falls in love with a princess, and she loves him back. The father of the princess, the king, is not pleased. He decrees that the young man be placed in front of two doors, with a choice to open one or the other. Behind one of the doors is a beautiful maiden, however, not his beloved princess. If he chooses her door, he will be married to her immediately and they will be exiled to another kingdom. Behind the other door is an angry, hungry tiger which will surely kill him. He doesn’t know which door holds the lady and which holds the tiger. However, the princess, the young man’s lover, knows the secret of the doors. If she tells him to open the tiger-door, he will be killed in agony. But if she tells him to open the lady-door, he will be married to the beautiful maiden behind that one, and the princess who loves him will be left alone. She signals him secretly to open one of the doors. Here’s the question: which door did she tell him to open?

 This story has endured for over a hundred years, in part because there is an agony in knowing that the choices matter. However, as a thought experiment, change the story a little. Suppose that no matter which door he chose, the tiger would be there. Or, no matter which door he chose, he would get the princess herself and they would live happily ever after. The story is no longer compelling if the choices do not result in some consequence.

Imagine I held in one hand a bag containing a candy bar, and in the other hand, a bag containing a piece of scrap wood that was good for nothing. If you think you might have a shot at the candy bar, it would be fun to try and make the right choice. If you knew that no matter what you chose, I would give you the wood, you wouldn’t bother even playing. If you knew that no matter what you did, I would give you the candy bar, you might be happy about the candy, but you would probably think going through the motion of choosing is pretty pointless and stupid – in fact, meaningless.

So we see that with the Israelites, the Lord gave them their free and meaningful choice. If He undid their choice, it would mean their choices would have no consequences, and therefore no meaning, and therefore they would not actually have free choice. The same is true of our choices. So the Lord doesn’t undo them.

What the Lord did do for the Israelites was promise to walk with them through the consequences they brought on themselves. He works even with their wrong choices, and accomplishes his purposes in spite of them. So, Samuel encourages them to walk with the Lord NOW.

20 Samuel replied, “Don’t be afraid. Even though you have committed all this evil, don’t turn away from following the LORD. Instead, worship the LORD with all your heart. 21 Don’t turn away to follow worthless things that can’t profit or deliver you; they are worthless. 22 The LORD will not abandon His people, because of His great name and because He has determined to make you His own people.

23 “As for me, I vow that I will not sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you. I will teach you the good and right way. 24 Above all, fear the LORD and worship Him faithfully with all your heart; consider the great things He has done for you. 25 However, if you continue to do what is evil, both you and your king will be swept away.” (1 Samuel 12:20-25)

It was not God’s plan for Israel to be led by a king. Once they made that choice they had some difficult consequences to follow, as we will see. But even so, God worked through that mistake. In fact he worked through it in a mighty and amazing way. Eventually he used the monarchy of mistake as a way to bring his salvation to the entire world; Jesus, in his human ancestry, was descended from the kings of Israel.

Maybe it was a mistake for you to take the job you have right now. Perhaps the Lord was calling you to something else, but you just didn’t have the faith to take the risk. OK, so you messed up. But don’t turn away from following the Lord. He can do great things through this. Just be sure to let him.

Maybe you married the wrong person. People think this all the time. They think that somehow they missed out on their real soul mate, and now their entire marriage was a mistake. Fine, what if it was? God can and will work through this marriage, if you let him. Even now, don’t turn away from following the Lord. Don’t follow worthless things. God will redeem your mistake and make it beautiful, if you allow him to.

I’m not only talking about honest mistakes, either. The people of Israel knew that God didn’t want them to have a human king. They did it anyway. In the same way, sometimes we deliberately make a sinful choice. God can redeem even those choices; maybe especially those choices.

God is so good. He wants our lives to have meaning, so he allows our choices to be free and real. And yet, even when we make the wrong choice, if we turn back to him, he can work through any circumstance we might create for ourselves, and make good come out of it.

Once again I’m reminded of Romans 8:28:

28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28, HCSB)

IS JESUS ABOUT TO RETURN?

On By Pastor TomIn Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized2 Comments
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With things happening in Israel right now, there are a lot of Christians talking about the End Times. This happens to some degree every time there is a conflict in Israel, and I’d like to share some of my thoughts about this, to try and provide some guidance. Rather than my normal sermon format, I’m attaching some notes below that are a little bit rough still, along with an audio file with some of my thoughts.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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HOW SHOULD WE THINK ABOUT THE END TIMES?

I want to make something really clear: I trust the scripture absolutely. But with regard to the end times, I am not nearly so certain about my own understanding of it, my own interpretations of it. I think that kind of humility about our own interpretations is important when we talk about things like the end Times. So hear me say it clearly: I could be mistaken. Please consider the possibility that other viewpoints might also be mistaken.

It is good and natural to desire the return of Jesus. His return is the substance of our hope. When he returns, it means that the new creation will soon appear, and we will be freed from sin, sorrow and death. All Christians ought to desire it. If we don’t eagerly want Jesus to return, it might even be a symptom of a spiritual problem. Perhaps we don’t really believe in it.

However, it seems to me that some people misdirect their desire for the return of Jesus. They spend much of their energy trying to figure out when it might happen. It becomes an exciting puzzle that they are trying to solve. It’s understandable. When you want something badly, you want to know that it might happen soon. It’s hard to not want to figure out when you’ll get it.

However, Jesus did not tell us to eagerly desire to solve the puzzle of when he would return. In fact, he said almost the opposite. He said no one will know. Several times, and in several ways, he told us that we cannot solve this puzzle. He never encouraged us to try.

Instead, Jesus tells us to direct our desire for his return in two ways:

Let it feed our hope

Let the fact that we won’t know the day of his return lead us to live faithfully ready at all times. The parables of the ten bridesmaids and the talents are making exactly that point: Every day, live in such a way that you are ready for him to return.

44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:44-51, ESV)

At the conclusion to the parable of the ten bridesmaids, which Jesus told as part of his teaching on the End Times, he said:

3 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:13, ESV)

Likewise the parable of the ten talents, and the sheep and goats are about being ready for Jesus’ return by living faithfully at all times

WHAT IS THE RAPTURE?

There are a few Bible verses that seem to say that when Jesus returns, those believers who are still alive will not have to die, but they will be brought into his presence and transformed. Sometimes this is described as being caught up into the air. This is often called the rapture.

Some Christians think that this “rapture,” this event of being taken up in the air to be with Jesus, will occur before Jesus actually returns. They think that suddenly all the Christians alive at that time will either vanish, or perhaps be visibly lifted up in the sky. They will go to be with Jesus, leaving behind those who do not trust Jesus. After that, they say, there will be seven years of great trouble and hardship on earth (sometimes called “the Great Tribulation”), and only then will Jesus actually return. In theology, we call this idea “the pre-tribulation rapture,” or the “pre-trib rapture,” for short (we theologians are a cool bunch, with our slang and all).

This idea – the pre-trib rapture (which most people just call “the rapture”) – is the main thing that most people have heard about the end times. Most people think it is gospel truth. You might be one of them. Probably, everyone you know thinks this way. Pastors and other people you trust have told you this is what the Bible teaches. Maybe you’ve seen the Left Behind movies, or read the books. It might feel like you know this is true. I have met people who were deeply blessed by the Left Behind materials, and I’m grateful that God used them in that way. I don’t agree with everything in them, but I recognize that they are the work of dear fellow-Christians.

So, I understand that the “pre-trib rapture” is a dearly held belief. I realize that it will upset a lot of people to hear anything different. Before I go any further, let me ask you this: Do you really want to know what the Bible teaches?

Now, I don’t mind if you disagree with me, especially if you have really good reasons from the Bible to do so. I certainly could be wrong. In fact, I will be overjoyed if it turns out I am wrong. So, I’m happy to continue in fellowship with anyone who disagrees with me on this. I don’t think this issue is a good reason for Christians to separate from one another.

If I don’t think this issue is big enough to make us separate from other Christians why am I teaching on it at all?

In the first place, consider this: If you believe Jesus will take you away before things get really bad, and then things do get really bad, and you’re still here, what will you think? You might think you were never a real Christian at all, and experience terrible doubts about your salvation. Perhaps you might even believe you are destined for hell. Or you might think none of it was true in the first place, and lose your faith altogether.

On the other hand, if you believe, like me, that some Christians will have to go through the great tribulation, and then you get raptured away instead, where is the down side? As I said, I would be overjoyed to find myself raptured before the great tribulation.

In other words, I think it is far better to be prepared to suffer for the sake of Christ. As it happens, there are many, many verses in the Bible that tell us we should be prepared to suffer as followers of Jesus, whether or not we experience the Great Tribulation of the end times. So, on the whole, if we are going to be wrong about the rapture, I think it’s better to be wrong by believing as I do, and be ready, than wrong the other way, and be unprepared for terrible suffering. One of the main points of Jesus’ teaching on the end times is that we should be ready, living faithfully at all times, because we won’t expect it when he shows up.

Secondly, I am teaching on this because I want to share what I believe the Bible actually says about the issue. It’s OK to disagree, and it’s also OK to have a firm opinion, while we deal with our disagreements in love and grace.

All right, let’s dive in.

In the first place, this teaching about a pre-tribulation rapture – a rapture that occurs some time before Jesus returns – was not common at all until the mid 1800s. In other words, for about seventeen-hundred years, hardly any Christians thought that the bible taught this. This is actually quite important. To say that the pre-trib rapture is correct, you must assume that most of Christians throughout most of history just absolutely missed it. You need to believe that only after 1700 years did some people get smart enough to see what the bible really teaches about the end times. It also means that the Holy Spirit allowed virtually all of God’s people to be in error for all of that time. That’s quite an idea. It could make you question whether we can trust anything we think we know about the Bible, because maybe Christians have got everything wrong all this time.

Even the word rapture doesn’t exactly come from the Bible. It is an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek word from the New Testament. In other words, “rapture” is a translation of a translation. It is not the best translation directly from the Greek. I’ll keep using this word, however, since everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say it.

Most pre-tribulation rapture people have detailed ideas about the end times, and they are pretty confident that they know how it goes. They take parts of Daniel, and of Zechariah, little pieces of the gospels, one two pieces of the letters of Peter and Paul, and put it all together with the book of Revelation. They do not take these verses in context. They don’t consider the books as a whole. Instead they take verses out of the context in which they were written, and add them to other verses taken out of context, and then come up with their detailed plan for how the end times are supposed to go. They also often ignore the type of genre in which those verses are written, and take many things literally when some of them were probably intended to be metaphors.

That is the part that I believe is a bad way to study the Bible. If we used the Bible like this for other subjects, we could make it say all sorts of crazy things. In fact, when people start cults based on Christianity, this is how they treat the Bible, and those cults often start with strange new teachings about the end times.

Let’s look at two important “rapture” verses:

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! 52 It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. 53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)

It says here that first, those who have died will be raised to life, and then the living will be transformed. In other words, the rapture happens after the resurrection.

You might argue that the verse above is not about the rapture, because it only talks about the transformation of our bodies, but not about being caught up in the air. So then, read this:

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

When it says “those who are asleep” it means “those who have died.” Just as these days we use “passed away” as a euphemism for dead, so in those days, the expression was “fallen asleep.”

So this is all quite clear. First, the Lord will descend with great fanfare from heaven. Then the dead will rise. Then, those who trust Jesus and are still alive will be “raptured,” along with those who have just been resurrected. Again, the resurrection of the dead will occur before the rapture. It happens at the moment that Jesus himself is descending from heaven with a loud cry and trumpet blast. In other words, it happens while the whole world witnesses the return of Jesus.

Jesus also makes it clear in Matthew, that the rapture happens at the moment of his return:

29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. (Matthew 24:29-31)

It’s actually quite straightforward: The elect (those who trust in Jesus) will not be gathered up (raptured) until:

a) After a time of tribulation (verse 29) and

b) The sun and moon are darkened

c) The dead are resurrected

d) Jesus appears in the clouds, visible to all people in all his power and glory.

In other words, as we have already seen, the rapture happens at the same moment that Jesus returns to earth in power and glory.

A DETAILED LOOK AT ONE BIBLE TEXT (MATTHEW 24:3-44)

(Mark and Luke have very similar passages)

Here is the most clear and complete teaching about the end times given by Jesus while he was still on earth:

3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. 5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

So, in the first place, we need to guard against being deceived. Many people will claim the end is about to come, but we should not be alarmed, or led astray. Wars, natural disasters and so on are only the beginning of the birth pains. They are not the end. If someone says “This war in Israel means the end is near,” they are not paying attention to what Jesus actually says. He says wars will happen, but they do not mean the end has come.

Some people may not be aware of it, but Israel has been involved in many wars and military actions since it became a modern nation in 1947. The website Jewishvirtuallibrary.org documents twenty-two major military actions during that time. I’m not judging Israel for it – I believe they’ve been attacked every single time, and they’ve defended themselves, as they certainly have a right to do. However, every time there is a conflict in Israel, many Christians claim that the return of Jesus is imminent. The people claiming that have been wrong every time – twenty-two times – so far. Why do we still pay attention to them?

Let’s continue with the words of Jesus:
9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Jesus says that we will experience tribulation before the end comes. Many awful things will happen while disciples of Jesus are still alive in the world. It does not say that we will be “raptured out” before bad troubles begin. It does not say we will be raptured out before the wars and natural disasters. Instead, it calls us to endure until the end. It also says the gospel must be proclaimed to all ethnic peoples (that’s the Greek meaning for “nations”) before the end will come. We can’t do that if we are raptured away. There is no need to “endure until the end” if we will be raptured away.

15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house, 18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. 21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. 22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Most Biblical prophecies contain layers. For instance Isaiah prophesied about the return of the Jewish exiles to Jerusalem after they were in Babylon. This happened in about 517 BC. Mixed and jumbled with those same prophecies are things about the first time Jesus came into the world, and also (we think) about the end of the world, when he will return.

Joel 2:28-32 is a prophecy that was fulfilled by the coming of the Holy Spirit on all who trust Jesus (Acts 2:14-21). However, also jumbled in with Joel 2 are prophecies about the return of the Jewish people from exile in Babylon that was fulfilled in about 517 BC, and, as far as we can tell, prophecies about the very end of the world.

So, in Matthew 24:15-22, Jesus is probably talking about several things. First, it is almost certainly a prophecy about the Jewish-Roman war of 70 AD (roughly forty years after Jesus). The temple was desecrated at that time, and it was probably the most horrible slaughter in world history until the first world war. In fact, Jesus’ prophecies here are so right on about that war that it makes unbelieving scholars think the gospels could not have been written  until after 70 AD., because they don’t believe Jesus could have predicted the future so accurately.

Part of this prophecy may also be about the end of the world and the return of Jesus.

Jesus says the days of tribulation will be cut short “for the sake of the elect.” The “elect” are those who belong to Jesus through faith. He does not say the elect will be “raptured out” before those days. Instead he says the suffering won’t last as long for everyone, for the sake of the elect.

Some people might say that “the elect” means the Jewish people, whom, they say, will remain behind after the rapture. However, in the New Testament, the Greek word “elect” is never used to refer specifically to the Jews or people of Israel. It is always used of all those who trust in Jesus, whether Jews or Gentiles.

23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand. 26 So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Here we see again a warning against being deceived about all this. He says that false prophets and false miracles will be used to try and deceive the elect. That means the elect (in other words, believers) will still be in this world.

He also says that when Jesus returns, no one will miss it. It will be obvious.


29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

All of this happens after “the tribulation of those days.” Once again, we see that the return of Jesus will be completely obvious. Everyone will see it and know it. As Jesus is returning in power and glory – after the tribulation, after the sun goes dark – he will send his angels to gather the elect – those who belong to God through faith. This is the “rapture,” and it doesn’t happen until the very end, until everyone on earth sees Jesus returning.


32 “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

The lesson of the fig tree is that we can recognize the signs that his return might be likely. The generation that Jesus spoke to didn’t pass away before the fulfillment of his prophecies about the Jewish-Roman war.

Again, however, NO ONE KNOWS WHEN JESUS WILL RETURN, NOT EVEN JESUS KNEW WHILE HE WAS ON EARTH.

 37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. 42 Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Verses 40-41 are often used as “proof” of the pre-trib rapture. However, such a thing is not at all clear from these verses alone. It might be referring to the rapture at the moment Jesus returns, but it is certainly not proof that for those who aren’t raptured, life will continue on normally for a while.

Jesus says it will be like the days of Noah, which is to say, life was going on as normal, and then suddenly the flood came and destroyed the world. So, life will be going on as normal, and then suddenly Jesus will return. The main point here is obviously that the end will come as a surprise.

Jesus compares it to Noah’s flood. Think about the days of the flood. It wasn’t that the flood came, and some were saved from it, while others continued on with their daily lives for seven more years. No, the flood came suddenly, and then it was too late to get on the ark. Those who trusted God’s word through Noah were saved. Those who didn’t were lost in a moment.

So, if “one was taken…etc.” does refer to the rapture, there is no reason it should not mean that one is taken up to be with Jesus as he returns for the final judgement, while the other is left to face that judgment alone, since he doesn’t belong to Jesus. There is nothing here that suggests that some people are taken up to heaven seven years before Jesus returns.

Once again, however, the main point for us is not about when the rapture, and the return of Jesus will happen. The main thing is for us to be living faithfully, ready, if necessary, to suffer for the sake of Jesus, and ready at all times for him to return. Let’s dedicate our energy and effort to that, more than to trying figure out something that we already know ahead of time we will be unable to discover.

Once again, I hold my own interpretations fairly loosely. I could be wrong about some of this, and I will be delighted if I am wrong about when the rapture happens. But I do think it’s important to consider the perspective I offer here, because it often does not get much of a hearing in Christian circles.

1 SAMUEL #7. THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Saul was a tall, impressive, handsome man. The people wanted a king that would make them look good to other nations, and that made Saul the best choice, given their own parameters, which God honored, though it limited the options. Even at this early stage, there were some warning signs about Saul’s character. Yet, when the Lord chose Saul, he used that choice to end the shame of the small tribe of Benjamin, and he began to give Saul opportunities to respond to Him in faith.

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1 SAMUEL #7. 1 SAMUEL 9-10. THE CALLING OF SAUL

There is an age-old story line, repeated in all the great books and movies. Boy meets donkeys. Boy loses donkeys, and goes looking for them. Boy forgets donkeys when he meets the prophet who anoints him as the first king of his country. Boy briefly joins a group of different prophets, then goes back home, because the donkeys, having more common sense, are already home as well. You know what I’m talking about, right?

OK, so it isn’t a normal or well-known tale. But I love it, in part because it seems almost random. Yet in that randomness, we can see God at work. That gives me comfort when events in my own life seem both ordinary and random.

In chapter 8, The elders of Israel gathered and asked God to give them a king. Through Samuel, God warned them against it, but they persisted in asking for it anyway, so the Lord agreed to give them a king. Then everyone went home.

The narrative suddenly switches, and 1 Samuel chapter 9 tells us about a young man who went out with his servant to look for some lost donkeys. The young man was named Saul. He was not at the meeting where the people asked for the king. He was not seeking the Lord, or going on a pilgrimage to a place of worship. He was just doing his job, which at that moment, was to find his dad’s lost donkeys.

After a few days of wandering in the hills, Saul and his servant decided to give up. As they turned back, they were near Samuel’s hometown. Saul’s servant knew this, and suggested that they ask Samuel to ask God where the donkeys are. Saul wasn’t sure about it, because they had nothing to give Samuel, but the servant had some money. Saul then said, basically, “OK, if you think it will help us find the donkeys.” In other words, he had no desire to see a prophet in order to get closer to God, or to learn God’s will for his life. He just wanted God’s help with his own problems.

We learned at the end of chapter seven that Samuel used to travel around to various places in Israel and lead worship and judge disputes and share God’s words with the people. Even though Samuel did not live very far from Saul (compared to other areas of Israel) the two had never met. This implies that Saul had not, up to that point, been particularly interested in God. He clearly had never sought guidance from the Lord through Samuel for any other purpose, and he obviously had never taken a sacrifice to worship with Samuel when he was in Saul’s area. Even in our text for today, he seeks Samuel not because he wants to know God, but because he’s lost his donkeys. His focus is not on the will of God or on relationship with God, but rather what Samuel can do for him.

So by this point, we can already see some things about Saul. The first few verses tell us that he was an unusually tall and large man – the tallest man in all twelve tribes. It also says he was handsome. But other than that, there is nothing out of the ordinary about him. We can see from the incident with the donkeys that he isn’t particularly persistent. He isn’t especially patient, or spiritually sensitive. He’s just an ordinary person, except that he is very tall, and impressive to look at. He had no clue what was coming.

Samuel, as always, had been talking to God and listening. Samuel is one of my favorite heroes of the faith. The people wanted a king. God told Samuel he would grant their request. So Samuel went back to work, and waited for God. He didn’t immediately go out and try to find a king for them. He talked to God and listened, and then, some time later, God told him when to anoint the first king. So when Saul showed up in town, Samuel was ready. He recognized him as the person God had chosen to be the answer to the request of the people of Israel. God had previously told Samuel to expect someone like Saul, and so Samuel made him a guest of honor at the feast he was going to.

After the feast, Saul stayed overnight with Samuel. They spoke for a long time. Later, in private, Samuel poured oil on Saul’s head which was a symbolic gesture showing that Saul was now chosen by God. The significance of oil was that it represented the Spirit of God. The idea was, that along with the oil, the Holy Spirit was poured out onto Saul, and he was to be God’s chosen instrument from now on. The pouring of oil on the head, and the pouring out of God’s Spirit are both sometimes called “anointing.”

This anointing shows us one of the big spiritual differences between the time before Jesus, and the time since his resurrection. In the Old Testament it appears that God generally filled only one or two people with His Holy Spirit in each generation. It was as if he had just a few chosen instruments for each period. But the prophet Joel predicted a great change that would arrive after the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah:

 28 ​​​​​​​After all of this ​​​​​​I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people. ​​​​​​Your sons and daughters will prophesy. ​​​​​​Your elderly will have revelatory dreams; ​​​​​​your young men will see prophetic visions. 29 ​​​​​​​Even on male and female servants ​​​​​​I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29, NET)

That’s a promise that things were going to change. No longer would God limit his spirit to one or two people in each generation. Instead, all people who trusted the Messiah (Jesus) would have God’s Spirit in them.

In Acts 2:17, on the day of Pentecost, the Lord gave his Holy Spirit to all 120 followers of Jesus. Peter quotes this prophecy from Joel and affirms that it was fulfilled from that day on. And so, from that day on, God’s chosen instruments to work in this world are every single person who trusts in Jesus. It is no longer one or two people in a generation – it is all of God’s people. We are all given the anointing of the Holy Spirit to do God’s work here and now.

But in the time of Saul, this was still many centuries into the future. And so when Samuel anointed Saul, it was something very significant and very special. We can see this anointing at work almost immediately. Samuel predicts that the Spirit of God will fall on Saul, and change him:

The Spirit of the LORD will control you, you will prophesy with them, and you will be transformed into a different person. (1 Sam 10:6)

When Saul turned around to leave Samuel, God changed his heart, and all the signs came about that day.(1 Sam 10:9).

So the anointing was the outward sign of what was to take place spiritually with Saul. However, it was done in private, because Samuel wanted to make sure that Saul really was God’s choice. So he did this privately, and then also arranged a public ceremony (more on that later) where they asked God who should be king, and through the casting of lots, God again chose Saul.

Now, I want us to pause for a moment, and ask “Why Saul?” Saul himself asks basically the same thing in verse 21. Again, the only thing remarkable at all about him was that he was tall and handsome, and those had nothing to do with this character. I think God choosing Saul is all about God’s grace.

First, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. The patriarch Benjamin (son of Jacob) was the youngest of the twelve brothers who founded the twelve tribes. In those days, elders were honored above those who were born later. Even though we are talking about many centuries later, still, the tribe of Benjamin was descended from the youngest brother, which was not a place of honor.

Next, about two hundred years before the events we are looking at right now, one of the towns belonging to the tribe of Benjamin perpetuated a terrible atrocity. The story is in Judges 19-21. The other tribes demanded justice from the evil town, but the whole tribe of Benjamin made a terrible choice, and rose up to defend the evildoers. The result was war between Benjamin and the other eleven tribes, and the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out – everyone was killed except for six-hundred men who fled to the hills. The other Israelites eventually forgave them, and wives were found from the other tribes for those six hundred Benjamites. This is why, two hundred years later, Benjamin was still the smallest tribe in Israel. Even in the time of Samuel and Saul, the tribe of Benjamin was probably still under a cloud of shame for their history of fighting a war to defend something that was truly wicked and sinful.

The Lord had twelve tribes from which to choose a king. But he chose the tribe of the last-born patriarch, the smallest tribe, and the one that was still under the cloud of a shameful history, to bring forth the first king of Israel. It is as if he is saying, “Tribe of Benjamin, your shame is removed. Look – I am paying attention to you. You are as significant and important as any other part of my people.” It is sheer grace.

There is another reason God might have chosen Saul himself. In the very near future, the Philistines were going to challenge Israel with a huge warrior – a giant of a man named Goliath. Israel’s new king – Saul – was also a very large man. Saul was not as tall as Goliath (who was probably nine feet tall) but many commentators speculate that while the average height of a man was maybe five foot three, Saul must have been well over six feet. Regardless of what the actual heights were, the Bible is clear that everyone else only came up to Saul’s shoulders in height; which is to say he was almost a foot taller than the next tallest man. Israel wanted a king who would lead them in battle. They wanted someone who would bring them respect among the other nations. Saul is big and strong and impressive. He is exactly what the people of Israel asked for.

Once Samuel heard from the Lord, he gathered the people of Israel. They chose the king not by election, but by a process that was like rolling a special kind of “dice” that had been blessed by God. The “dice” might have been the Urim and Thummin – special stones first mentioned in Exodus 28:30. This process was called “casting lots.” They would pray, ask God a question, and then cast the lots, trusting that God would determine the result. So they went through, asking about each tribe until Benjamin was chosen by the casting of the lots. Then Saul’s father’s family was chosen, and then Saul himself. So the choice that Samuel privately felt God had made was now confirmed in this public process. But when he was chosen, Saul hid himself among the baggage.

At first this makes it seem like Saul is charmingly humble. However, in light of what we will see in Saul’s life later on, maybe it wasn’t actually humility. Maybe it was reluctance to let himself belong so fully to God, reluctance to give up his own agenda in order to be God’s instrument in this world. We know that Saul was not spiritually sensitive, or even interested in God to begin with. God gave him his anointing, but we don’t see Saul really embracing it. We don’t really know much about how Saul received these things. It looks like it was mostly external for him.

Think of the contrast between Saul and Samuel. When Samuel was called, he invited God to speak to him. He said “speak for your servant is listening.” he spent his life listening to the Lord, and not shrinking back from what God said, waiting when God said “wait” and acting when God said “act,” speaking when God said, “speak.” He was willing to let God be God even when he didn’t understand why God would, for instance, let the people have a king.

Saul, on the other hand, didn’t look for God. He looked for donkeys. He didn’t look for the responsibility of leadership, and God practically had to force it on him. There is no record of him saying to the Lord, “I am your servant, use me as you please.” These things in Saul’s character are warning signs. They are seeds of destruction that, if not rooted out and given to the Lord, will end up causing big problems later on.

It wasn’t that God was trying to mess with the Israelites because they had rejected Him as king. But he was trying to allow them their free will, and answer their prayers. They had certain parameters. They wanted a king to give them respect among the nations. They wanted him to be a fine figure, impressive, a war leader. They didn’t want a prophet – they had rejected the idea of someone who listened to God and then encouraged them to do God’s will.

Before the lots were cast, Samuel warned the people again about the folly of choosing a king. But they went ahead with it anyway. So the Lord gave them the best possible king he could, given their demands and choices. But those demands and choices meant that their king would have other deficiencies. We can see those deficiencies already.

Sometimes God is more gracious to us and gives us greater blessing when he does not answer our prayers the way we want him to. But the Israelites insisted, and he allowed them to make their own choices.

We can see that this might all end badly, even so, this incident in Saul’s life shows us a little bit of how gracious and caring God is. Saul was not looking for God, he was looking for donkeys. And yet God was still reaching out to Saul. Saul had no thought of becoming a king, but God gave him a kingdom. He was not special in any way, except perhaps physically, and of course, his physical characteristics were something given to him genetically, not earned. Ultimately, his physical appearance came from God as well. Yet, in spite of the fact that Saul did nothing to deserve it, God chose him. This is grace, all the more amazing because it is totally unexpected, and totally undeserved.

So where does this leave us? Are you making demands of God? Perhaps God will give you what you ask for, but maybe you should consider letting him have his way instead. He is gracious sometimes to give us our free choices, but His will is always best. Sometimes there is more grace in a prayer that is not answered the way we want it to be.

Maybe the Lord is making it clear to you that he wants you to be his instrument in this world, but you, like Saul, are reluctant. God did use Saul, but Saul would have been much better off if he had willingly given up his own will and desires. Maybe like Saul, you’ve been coasting along, doing your thing, and God has gone out of his way to get your attention. Don’t be like Saul, who remained insensitive to the Lord even afterward. This is grace, and I encourage you to respond in faith and surrender, and re-orient your life and priorities around listening to God and letting Him live his life through you.

I myself was like Saul in that way for about three years. In college, I became convinced I was called to ministry. I finished college, and then spent almost five years in graduate school, and jumping through hoops in order to become a pastor. But then, after I had been a pastor for a few years, I decided I didn’t have to do that anymore, and I walked away from ministry. It didn’t go particularly well for me. After many hard lessons, the Lord brought me around to his way of thinking, and I went back into ministry. I learned that accepting the Lord’s call is always best.

Perhaps you feel like the tribe of Benjamin. You feel insignificant. Maybe there is a cloud of shame or disgrace in your past. Think of God’s grace to this tribe. That grace is for us as well:

26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. 27 Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. (1 Corinthians 1:26-28, NLT)

Listen! God has chosen you. He chooses the foolish to shame the wise, the lowly to shame the great, the small to teach the grand. Your shame is removed and God wants you.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you now.

1 SAMUEL #6. BAD CHOICES, GOOD GOD.

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Samuel thought the Israelites were making a bad choice. Even though he was a wise, mature, man of God, he did not assume he was right, but instead, he brought their request to the Lord. Surprisingly, the Lord told Samuel that he was right, that what the people wanted was bad…but then he said he would grant their request anyway. The wrong choice of the Israelites led to pain and heartache. But God did not abandon them. He used their wrong choice to bring about good things even so.

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1 Samuel # 6. Kingship, Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Samuel 7:18–8:1-22

The battle recorded in 1 Samuel chapter seven ended when Samuel was in his twenties. Verses 13-17 summarize much of the rest of his life. He led Israel, listening to the Lord, and telling them what the Lord had to say, helping them to understand what it means to follow him, and encouraging them to actually do it. And the people seemed to respond to his leadership. After those first tumultuous twenty years or so, things went well for that generation. The Philistine threat was greatly reduced. There was peace and people seemed to want to listen to the Lord. What began with a simple woman wanting to become a mother, had brought peace, joy and goodness to thousands and thousands of people.

As he aged, Samuel tried to groom his two sons to lead Israel as he had. But it looked like they were headed down the same path as Hophni and Phinehas, the wicked sons of Eli, who had been in charge when Samuel was very young. History seemed poised to repeat itself. Samuel’s sons were dishonest – they took bribes to settle disputes, instead of judging fairly.

People Samuel’s age and older probably remembered what it was like back in the days of Eli, and were afraid of going back to those dark times. In any case, the people gathered and told Samuel they wanted him to find them a king. This was a bad idea for many reasons. The most important thing against it was that the people of Israel were supposed to see God himself as their king.

 I love Samuel’s response. The same little boy that was ready to hear God, still wanted to hear him as an older man.

One bible version says, “the request displeased Samuel.” The Hebrew word for “displeased” actually means to “ruin or spoil.” So it could mean that Samuel was upset about it – it ruined his heart. Or maybe he thought that the Israelites were going to spoil a very good thing. I think that is the best way to translate it, considering what followed.

So the first part of Samuel’s response is that he thinks it is a bad idea. He has good reasons for thinking so, and history basically proved him right. But, while that is what he thinks, he doesn’t just come right back with that. Instead, the second part of his response is to pray about what the people have said. So, Samuel was a humble God-follower. He was experienced and wise. He was a proven and popular leader. But he did not assume that his own well-considered opinion was automatically right. Instead, he asked God about it.

Samuel’s attitude is definitely one worth learning from. When I have to make decisions about something, or deal with others, too often I know I’m right, and when I know I’m right, I think I don’t have to ask the Lord about it. Now, I’m not talking about things that the Bible is very clear about – like who Jesus is, or whether it is wrong to lie. In those types of things, where the Bible is clear, we can be confident. In other words, we don’t have to pray: “Lord should I advise my co-worker to lie to our boss?” The answer is obvious from scripture. We don’t have to ask God whether or not we should lie, or get drunk, or cheat someone.

However, there are many situations where God hasn’t given us a set of rules or a manual, and instead, we are supposed to rely on him to reveal his will in various situations. Should you take the new job or not? Does the Lord think it’s a good idea for you to go to that party? Should your let your kids go on the overnight trip? Does the Lord want you to talk to your co-worker about what the bible says in this situation? In such situations rather than relying on a set of rules, the Lord wants us to come to him directly, like Samuel did.

What God said to Samuel is surprising, puzzling and (I think) extremely interesting.

The LORD said to Samuel, “Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king.

1 Samuel 8:7

So, let’s get this straight. God is saying, “Samuel, you have it right. When they ask for a king, they are rejecting me as king. This is a bad idea. So go ahead and help them get a king.”

Say what?

I think there are several things going on here. First, Samuel may have felt that he had personally failed as a leader. After he led them for a lifetime as a prophet, the people of Israel said, “we don’t want a prophet anymore. We want a king.” So Samuel probably felt that he had somehow failed to teach them or encourage them in their relationship with God. He may also have felt bad about the choices his sons had made. The Lord was saying first of all “No Samuel, it isn’t you. You haven’t failed. They aren’t rejecting you, they are rejecting me.”

Sometimes this is a word we need to hear from the Lord. Maybe you have a family member you’ve been praying with or for. Maybe there’s a friend who has sought your advice. And yet the relative or the friend has ultimately decided to ignore what you have shared with them. Your prayers don’t seem effective. That person is going her own way, and that way is to move farther away from the Lord. Perhaps the Lord wants to say to you right now, “My beloved child, that person has not rejected you. She is rejecting my will for her life. Don’t take it personally. Don’t feel that you are a failure. This is about Me, not you.”

I want to talk for a minute about what the Lord meant when he said the Israelites were rejecting Him as their king. Since the time of Abraham, the people of Israel were not ruled by kings. For four hundred years in Egypt, and another four-hundred after they came to the promised land, the people were supposed to live free, with God as their only king. They were supposed to answer to Him – above any earthly authority.

I am fascinated by how similar this is to the basic political philosophy of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her life growing up on the American Frontier during the late 1800s. In Little Town on the Prairie she makes some observations that are surprisingly relevant to our text today. One year, the new town she was living in celebrated the fourth of July. As part of the celebration, they read aloud the Declaration of Independence. After that, the crowd sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” ending with this verse, causing Wilder to reflect:

Long may our land be bright; With Freedom’s holy light. Protect us by Thy might; Great God our King.

The crowd was scattering away then, but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The Declaration and the song came together in her mind, and she thought: God is America’s king.

She thought: Americans won’t obey any king on earth. Americans are free. That means they have to obey their own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he has to boss himself. Why (she thought) when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will stop telling me what to do, and there isn’t anyone else who has a right to give me orders. I will have to make myself be good.

Her whole mind seemed to be lighted up by that thought. This is what it means to be free. It means, you have to be good. “Our father’s God’s, author of Liberty — ”  The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God’s law is the only thing that gives you the right to be free. (Little Town on the Prairie, page 76)

The problem is, it didn’t work very well for the people of Israel. Most people didn’t want to live that way. This is what God meant when he said to Samuel that the Israelites were not rejecting Samuel, but God himself. They were saying, “It is too hard to have to listen to what God says for ourselves. It is too much responsibility for us to do what is right. Give us a king to lead us. He can tell us what to do. He can listen to God and be responsible for what happens.”

There is a deeper truth here. Whenever we reject the Lord, we are actually rejecting freedom. We tend to think of it the other way around. We think God gives us rules to follow and that is the opposite of being free. I want the teenagers reading this to pay careful attention, because you are at an age where you crave freedom. True freedom only exists with true responsibility. What that means is, you can’t really be free unless you are also really responsible.

Think about it like this. Suppose you are sixteen years old, and you want the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want to. In other words, you want the freedom to drive your own car. In order to get that freedom, you must take on the responsibility of learning how to drive, and you must take on the responsibility of learning the traffic laws, and abiding by them, and maintaining your license, and maintaining your car and paying for gas. If you were in our family, you had to have a job, and pay for insurance as well. You get the idea? You can be free, but in order to be free, you must also be responsible. If you don’t want to be responsible enough to do these things, you won’t be free to drive either.

Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, we human beings want to be free without being responsible. But that never works. The two things simply go together. What the Israelites finally admitted is that they would rather not be free, if it meant they actually had to be responsible for their own relationships with God. They were saying, “we don’t want to grow up spiritually. It’s too hard. We would rather give up our freedom, so that we don’t have to be responsible for ourselves.”

In exchange for their freedom, the Israelites thought they would get real security. The king would protect them. The king would make the hard choices. They could see the king, talk to him, and he would be easier to deal with than an invisible God.

In verses 9-18, the Lord through Samuel told the people that this was exactly the choice they were making. He warned them that the king would take away their freedom. But they said that they still wanted a king.

I think we do the same thing when we rely too much on Christian leaders or on religious rules that aren’t really in the Bible. Hearing God through other believers is a valuable thing, a gift that the Lord sometimes gives us. I definitely need to hear what God says to me through other Jesus-followers. We all need a community of believers to help us as we follow the Lord. But we can’t rely on others alone; we are all supposed to connect with the Lord individually also. It’s a kind of spectrum – we need to rely on both the Christian community and also our own individual relationship with God, and keep the two in balance.

These things require effort and personal responsibility. It’s easier just to have someone tell you what to do. Some people find it easier to have an extensive list of rules that can apply to every situation. That way you don’t have to actually deepen your relationship with God, to learn to hear him, to put in the time required to get close to him. This theme – the tension between following God closely, or, instead, trying to live only by rules and leaders, will occur several times throughout the books of Samuel.

God’s response to the people is fascinating. What they want is a bad idea. They will ruin his plan for them to be free as they follow him. And yet, he says to Samuel, “Let them go ahead with it. In fact, help them pick a king.” Basically he said to the people: “I’ll give you what you want, but it will frustrate you in the end. In the end it will just bring you back to the same place.”

This is one of those places in the Bible where we see clearly two things that seem contradictory, and yet they are both true. God gives everyone free will. He let the Israelites choose something that was not what he wanted for them. They truly had a choice, and they used it to choose against God’s plan. But then, once they made their free choice, God began to work his will in and through the circumstances that their choice created. They got to have their free choice. And yet God’s will was not ultimately thwarted, and he began to work. Before we are done with 1-2 Samuel we will see some really amazing ways God used the poor choice of these people to have a king. It is a reflection of Romans 8:28:

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

All things – even our own bad choices – are used by God to accomplish his purposes in and through us. God let the Israelites ruin his plan for a nation that lived free from tyranny and served only Him. In fact, before he ever made the universe, he knew this would happen. He didn’t stop them. But he didn’t give up on them either. He continued to work with them, in them and through them.

As we read the Old Testament, it is helpful to remind ourselves how it points to Jesus. What about this text? Does it tell us something about what life is like while following Jesus? Does it remind us what Jesus is like, or what he did for us? I think it does. Obviously, the idea of balancing our dependence upon others with a strong individual relationship with the Lord is important for following Jesus. Samuel also gives us an example: rather than relying on his own wisdom and experience, he checked with the Lord, and was willing to hear something counter-intuitive.

The Lord’s own response shows us his character, the same character that Jesus Christ displayed. The people rejected him, but he did not abandon them.

Sometimes we are like the Israelites. We want what we want, even when someone (perhaps even the Lord) has warned us it is a bad idea. Yet God can work through even our mistakes. Now, this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to completely ignore God, because he’ll make it work out anyway. The Israelites experienced a lot of pain and heartache from their bad choices, but it did not separate them from the love of God. We may experience pain and heartache. But if we continue in faith, if we continue on in Jesus, God will work out all things in some way to our good.

1 SAMUEL #5. THE POEPLE WHO REPENTED

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized2 Comments
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The ancient Israelites faced tremendous cultural pressure to worship false gods. But even when they finally resolved to follow the Lord with all of their hearts, things did not go well for them at first. This passage reminds us of God’s holiness. It reminds us that we need Jesus. It shows us the parallels between the ancient Israelites, and us today. It shows us that it is good and helpful to deliberately reminisce about times past when we had powerful experiences with God.

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First Samuel #5. 1 Samuel 6:13-7:17. Repentance.

We left off last time where the Philistines put the Ark of the Covenant into a cart, and hooked it up to two cows who had been separated from their calves. Rather than return home to their calves, the cows pulled the cart into Israelite territory. They stopped near the town of Beth-shemesh, which was a town given to the tribe of Levi. The tribe of Levi (Levites) were the priests for the people of Israel.

13 The people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley, and when they looked up and saw the ark, they were overjoyed to see it. 14 The cart came to the field of Joshua of Beth-shemesh and stopped there near a large rock. The people of the city chopped up the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. 15 The Levites removed the ark of the LORD, along with the box containing the gold objects, and placed them on the large rock. That day the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD. (1 Samuel 6:13-15, HCSB)

The Ark had come home, so to speak. Remember, the Lord had refused to let the Israelites manipulate him through the Ark; he had erased their idea that it was a kind of lucky rabbit’s foot. Next, he used the Ark to show the Philistines that he was more real and powerful than the idols and demons they worshiped. And now, he brought it back to Israel. Even so, the Lord does not seem to be finished with the lesson. This perplexing incident is recorded:

And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the LORD. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great blow. Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?” So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down and take it up to you.” (1Sam 6:19-21, ESV)

The Old Testament has several stories like this. They can be confusing and perplexing. A few years ago I was reading through Leviticus for my daily devotions. I did this almost to dare God to speak to me through Leviticus, which is some pretty dry reading at the points when you can even understand it. I got nothing out of it for almost two weeks. Then I read a story from chapter ten. Two priests sacrificed “unauthorized incense” and God burned them up instantly. I said, “What’s up with that, Lord? That doesn’t sound like you. It doesn’t sound like my Father, my Comforter, my never failing Friend.” Then I read Leviticus 10:3

I will show my holiness among those who come to me. I will show my glory to all the people.

So also, the Israelites say when they are struck down for disrespecting the ark: “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?”

When I was a teenager, my High School science teacher took a very small piece of pure sodium (which exists as a soft metal) and put it into a tub of water. It immediately began to hiss and steam, and then suddenly the sodium exploded into flames. Pure sodium cannot exist in water. It burns up and explodes in the presence of water, becoming a different chemical in the process.

Just for grins, below is a video of two guys dropping pure sodium into a toilet. It’s pretty dramatic, especially if you start at about 3:10 into the video.

All right, hope you enjoyed that. The video was kind of fun and whimsical, but it portrays a physical reality: two elements that simply cannot coexist. In the same way, though we often forget it, sin cannot exist in the presence of God. It burns up, explodes and is destroyed. It isn’t a matter of God not tolerating sin – the very nature of God destroys it. The problem however, is that we human beings are born in sinful flesh – from our very birth, we are corrupted by a nature that rebels against God. This means that there is no way for us to get close to God without being destroyed. Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? Who indeed? Certainly, no one with sin in him or her. So in the time of the Old Testament, unless people took the extreme precautions laid out by God, they were destroyed if they even did something like touch the ark improperly, or offer unauthorized incense. In the case of our text today, it might be that some people actually looked inside the ark at the stone tablets, or possibly that they gloated over the fact that they were now in charge of it.

The difference between these incidents I read about in the Old Testament, and my own experience of relationship with God, is the work of Jesus. Jesus took all of our sin – past, present and future – into himself. When Jesus took that sin into himself,

“God made him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God,” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Because Jesus was in nature God, and as a human was not himself sinful, the sin which God laid on him could be destroyed without destroying Jesus also.

So now, through Jesus, we are no longer in a situation where the presence of God destroys us. Now his holiness is not a problem that keeps us apart, because our sin has been removed. This is one reason why I say that if we are in Jesus, we don’t have a sinful nature anymore. If we did, the Holy Spirit could not live in us, and we would be destroyed by God’s presence. We continue to battle with the effects of a body corrupted by sin, but in Christ we have been given a spirit that is holy in God’s sight.

In any case, the point I’m making is this: the way the Old Testament describes God is not inconsistent with the way God is revealed by the New Testament. They are not two different Gods. In fact, we don’t really understand how much we need Jesus without passages like this in the Old Testament. Now, through faith in Jesus, we are reconciled to the holiness of God in a way that in those days, people were not. This passage, above all, reminds me of my deep need for Jesus.

The writer of 1 Samuel continues the narrative, twenty years later. An entire new generation grew up. Previously, under the leadership of Eli, Hopni and Phinehas, the people were disconnected from God, and they didn’t care. They were arrogant, sure of themselves, sure they could manipulate God through the ark. They blamed God in their defeat, and tried to force him to give them victory.

But after their defeat, and their difficult experiences with the ark, the new generation grew up in humility. By the way, this was Samuel’s generation. He was probably in the middle of it, age-wise, and he led them spiritually. This generation didn’t take anything for granted.

2 A long time passed after the ark came to stay at Kiriath Jearim. For 20 years the entire nation of Israel mournfully sought the LORD. (1 Samuel 7:2, GW)

Finally, for a sustained period of time, the Israelites were humbly seeking God. For once it appears that it wasn’t their circumstances that they were upset about. They truly repented. They actually wanted to be close to the Lord. Samuel told them that they needed to get rid of the idols in their lives, to stop seeking comfort and hope in anything that was not the Lord.

And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the LORD only. (1 Sam 7:3-4)

The “Ashtaroth” means the idols made in the image of the goddess Ashtoreth, a Canaanite deity of war and fertility. Baal was the most important male god, and Ashtoreth the most important female one. Typically, every family had copies of idols to these gods. It may seem obvious to us that the Israelites should get rid of these false gods if they wanted to worship the Lord. But if we think that, we may not really understand the culture of that time.

We need to remember that in the first place, four-hundred years before, the Israelites had failed to do as God commanded, and displace the Canaanite peoples (like the Philistines) who lived in the Promised Land. As a result, for four hundred years the people of Israel had been influenced by the pagan cultures that lived around them. Though they often had small wars, just as often they traded with the pagan peoples, and sometimes, even though they weren’t supposed to, they married people from these pagan groups. In other words, there was a lot of peaceful interaction between the Israelites, and those who worshipped pagan gods. This interaction exerted a lot of cultural pressure on God’s people.

The Israelites were literally the only people in the entire world who were supposed to believe in only one God. The kind of cultural pressure they felt to at least believe that there were other gods is similar to the type of cultural pressure we might feel today if we believed the world is flat. Israelites would have felt inferior, not smarter, for believing in just one God.

“Of course there are other gods,” said the people around them. “Everyone knows that. It’s obvious. Yahweh might be the god of Israel, but he can’t be the only god. That’s ridiculous. You might as well say the sky is brown. You people are ignorant twits.”

Practically speaking, a lot of Israelites caved into this pressure. Many of them probably believed that Yahweh was indeed Israel’s special god, but that, obviously, other gods must exist. And the gods Baal and Ashtoreth had been in the land long before the Israelites and Yahweh came along. It made sense, even if you were going to worship Yahweh primarily, to make sure you didn’t get on the bad side of the local gods that were here before you and your god.

It made even more sense when you realized that if you worshipped other gods, you’d get to eat meat more often. People didn’t eat meat very often in every day life. But animal sacrifice and then feasting on the animal, were a regular part of many worship rituals. So, if you worshipped lots of gods, you got to eat meat more frequently.

Some pagan gods were also worshipped with fertility rituals. In these, women were encouraged to have sex with any man at the festival who wanted to, in order to get the god/goddess to bless the harvest. If you lusted after the spouse of one of your neighbors, you might get a chance to indulge your lust if you all worshipped these pagan gods. Even if your lust was more general, there were obvious reasons to participate in these rituals. It’s possible that some of the cultural pressure even came from pagan women inviting Israelite men to such ceremonies. And actually, these festivals were not exclusively heterosexual, either.

I hope you can see that actually, the Israelites faced the same types of cultural pressures that Biblical Christians face today. After about 500 CE, up until quite recently, a lot of the dominant cultures in the world believed in only one true God. But we’re back to ancient times again, now, in that respect. Christians are considered strange and backwards for believing that there is only one way to God, or even just one God. It’s hard to maintain our true beliefs when everyone around us thinks we are obviously wrong, and also thinks we are ignorant and bigoted for believing as we do.

We’re also back to a culture that thinks we are stupid for not indulging our every desire as fully as we want to. How silly is it to only have sex within marriage? There are plenty of temptations and opportunities to do otherwise. How silly is it not to indulge your every desire whenever you can?

Everyone around us is doing it. Everyone around us thinks we are stupid, and even dangerous for our beliefs. So, it shouldn’t be too hard to understand the ancient Israelites.

In Samuel’s generation, however, under his leadership, the people found courage. They listened to Samuel, and quit worshipping the false gods, and remained faithful to the one true God.

What happened next is something that I think surprises most of us in America these days. They turned to the Lord with their whole hearts and then things got worse. While they were gathered to worship God, the Philistines attacked. For some reason, preachers in America have been telling us for awhile now that if you just start following Jesus, everything will go well for you. Funny thing – Jesus never said that. Following Jesus, giving their whole lives to him, brought plenty of trouble to Peter, Paul, John James, Barnabas and many others. Following God brought trouble and hardship to Jeremiah, Ezekiel and yes, to Samuel’s generation.

It’s a bad idea to turn back to God in the hope that doing so will make your life go more smoothly. It just ain’t necessarily so. The great thing about Samuel and his generation was that they wanted to follow God because they believed he was the one true God. They dedicated their lives to him because it was good and right, and their hope was in God alone. If he gave them victory, that would be very good indeed. But they planned to follow him regardless. They turned their hearts to the Lord before Samuel told them that he would deliver them.

One of the reasons I get so angry at people who preach that following Jesus brings mainly prosperity and peace is that when trouble comes, those who believe that lie are undone spiritually and emotionally. A common reaction among those who believe this is that if they experience trouble, either they must have failed to follow God, or God is not truly real. They won’t allow for the idea that God might lead us directly into trouble sometimes.

The truth is, not only did Jesus promise persecution and trouble (Matt 6:10-11; John 16:33), but we also have spiritual enemies who will do whatever they can to make trouble for us – the devil and his demons (Eph 6:12; 1 Peter 5:8-10). The older I get, the more I think we should be surprised if we are truly seeking the Lord with all our hearts, and we experience no opposition at all. At the very least, we should be deeply grateful for those times. I’m not trying to make you depressed. I’m only suggesting that we take what Jesus said seriously:

 I have said these things to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33, ESV)

So how did Samuel’s generation react when the Philistines attacked them? Naturally, they were afraid. No one with any sense at all wants to fight in a war. No one really wants suffering or tribulation. At the same time, they faced it with courage, and asked the Lord humbly for help. They didn’t assume he would deliver them, but they asked for it, in case he would. They didn’t try to manipulate him; they didn’t blame him. They just asked for his help, and they seemed ready to trust him and follow him whether or not he gave it at that particular time.

As it happened, the Lord helped them. The text says that he “thundered against the Philistines with a great and loud voice” (7:10). As I have pointed out before, these older manuscripts were often originally written on either papyrus, or animal skins. If you wanted to explain things in detail, you had to go out and kill another animal to make another manuscript. In the case of papyrus, though it was a paper-like substance, it was also time consuming and costly to make, and it wore out quickly. So you didn’t write down any more than you really had to. Therefore, the thunder is not explained, because the writer didn’t think it was as important as the main thing, which is that God did something to deliver his people. It may even be an expression that was common in those days, something almost like slang, that we don’t understand the full meaning for nowadays. In any case, it was clear that the Lord intervened, and protected his people on that occasion.

As the Philistines, fled, the Israelites chased them. Where the battle stopped, Samuel set up a stone, and called it “Ebenezer,” which means, “stone of help.” It was a way for the people to remember how God helped them that day.

Sometimes it may be helpful for people of faith these days to have our own “stones of help” – something that reminds us of specific times when God helped us. This sort of remembrance can be helpful when we face the pressures of a culture that mocks and denigrates us for worshipping the God of the Bible.

One way to set up an “Ebenezer” is to keep a journal, and record the times when God helped. For other folks, it might be a song that you listened to frequently during a time when God was especially present or helpful. I know of some Christians who collect rocks, and each rock reminds them of something the Lord has done. These days, photographs aren’t a bad way to remember what God has done for you, though you might want to create a special “Ebenezer” album to preserve photos that remind you of what God has done for you. The principle is to have a helpful, concrete way to remember times when God’s presence was obvious to you.

Take a minute to reflect on what the Lord is saying to you through 1 Samuel 6:13 through 7:15. Do you need to be reminded of your need for Jesus? Do you need to remember that in Jesus, your sin has been thoroughly removed and is no longer a barrier between you and the Lord? Is the Lord calling you to come back to him with your whole heart, like Samuel’s generation? Maybe you are really feeling the culture’s pressure to believe there are many ways to God, or many lifestyles that are equally acceptable for those who follow Jesus (in spite of what the Bible says about that). Maybe you need to be encouraged to stay strong.

Perhaps you need to be reminded that trouble is a normal part of life, even when you are walking with the Lord. Or perhaps today you need to set up an “Ebenezer” – a reminder of God’s presence and help in your life. Let him speak to you.

1 SAMUEL #4: THE GOD-IN-THE-BOX

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon1 Comment

Sometimes we confuse good spiritual things with God himself. We put our trust in things like baptism, or prayer, or “getting saved” rather than trusting in the Lord himself. We also, at times, make the mistake of thinking that God is on our side, rather than asking if we are on his side. Our text today shows us the pitfalls of that sort of thinking, and encourages us to find a better way.

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1 SAMUEL #4. PLEASE READ 1 SAMUEL 4:1-6:21.

When I was a kid, I was a little bit scared of lightning. But somewhere I had heard that rubber or plastic could protect you from electricity. Now there is a kernel of truth in that. If the rubber is between you and the electric current, the electricity can’t even reach you. Or, if the rubber is between you and the ground, the electricity won’t pass through you, and it will cause no harm. In other words, it insulates you from electricity. But as a child, I didn’t have the complete picture. I thought that simply holding something made out of plastic or rubber would protect me from any form of electricity, no matter what direction it came from.

I had a toy tomahawk that was made out of rubber. It said so, right next to “made in Hong Kong” (which is where I got it). I believed without question that if I held this tomahawk, I was safe from electricity. In New Guinea it rained a lot, and puddles formed on the top of the ground very quickly. It wasn’t uncommon for a large area in a flat field to be covered by a foot of water or more, at least for a few hours. The ditches and low places would quickly fill up to three or four feet of water sometimes, creating instant, temporary swimming holes. The rain was warm, so my friends and I actually swam in the low places in the fields and ditches. At times the rain would be accompanied by lightning and thunder. In those circumstances, I took my tomahawk with me. I would frequently stand up to my knees in water in the middle of a thunderstorm, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be hit by lightning because I was holding my toy rubber tomahawk.

Now, I had a piece of the truth here. It is true that rubber won’t conduct electricity. I was close to something real. But even though there was something true about rubber protecting me from electricity, I had twisted that truth into a practical application that was nothing more than superstition. It is only by God’s grace that I was never struck by lightning. The rubber tomahawk had nothing to do with it.

1 Samuel chapters 4-6 describe a series of events where the people of Israel were close to something real and true about God, and yet they twisted it into mere superstition. Unlike me, they paid a difficult price for it.

As we go through 1 Samuel I want to occasionally point out some important thoughts for bible study and reading. The Jews in Jesus’ time divided the Old Testament into two parts: The Law (which was the first five books of the Bible) and The Prophets (everything else). That means that even though 1 Samuel is basically a history book, it was considered by the Jews to be “prophetic” in the sense that the history recorded here teaches us many things about God. I myself might call it, “prophetic history.”

We need to read prophetic history with a different approach than we might read most of the New Testament. The truths about God are contained in the telling of historical narratives, rather than in a straightforward letter or in teachings given by Jesus. “Narrative” is another word for “true story.” So when we are looking at the New Testament, you may have noticed that we often spend a great deal of time on just a few verses. Now, as we study prophetic history, I think that generally we need to look at whole narratives, rather than merely the individual verses within those stories. I think when we read this part of the Bible, we will miss the main meanings unless we consider things in the context of the overall historical narrative that is being told.

This week, the narrative happens to span three chapters – four, five and six – of first Samuel. You may remember that as a very young boy Samuel started hearing God speak. One of the first things God told him was that Eli and his sons were going to be judged for being such bad leaders. This is how that happened, and more.

One of the problems that the people of Israel had at this point in history is that they had not obeyed God and driven out all the pagan people who lived in the land. As a result, they were surrounded by people who worshiped false gods and demons. When the Israelites made friends with these people, they were led away from God into the worship of these demonic pagan gods. When the Israelites “woke up” and remembered the Lord, they refused to worship with their pagan neighbors, and then those people became enemies of the Israelites, and made war on them.

One of these pagan people groups was called the Philistines. They lived in an area along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, where they had five main cities, with five main Chieftains for each one. They worshiped two main false gods: Dagon and Ashtaroth. During the time of Samuel and the history recorded here, the Philistines were the biggest threat to the people of Israel.

War broke out between the Philistines and Israelites, as it often did. The Israelites were defeated in battle. They asked an interesting question:

And when the troops came to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines?

(1 Samuel 4:3)

Another translation says, “why did the Lord let us be defeated today?” They blamed God for their defeat. They didn’t come back and say, “we stink as warriors,” or “the Philistines are really good.” They said, “it’s God’s fault.”

In a sense, I understand this. God could have given them the victory, but he did not. Since it was in his power, and he didn’t do it, they blamed him. But it isn’t exactly that God made them fail. He simply did not intervene to make them succeed.

They had forgotten something that happened centuries before, when the Israelites first came into the land. At that time, their leader Joshua experienced an interesting incident:

When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached Him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies? ”

“Neither,” He replied. “I have now come as commander of the LORD’s army.” Then Joshua bowed with his face to the ground in worship and asked Him, “What does my Lord want to say to His servant? ”

(Josh 5:13-14, HCSB)

You see the proper perspective is not “Is God on my side or not?” but rather, “Am I on God’s side or not?” In the battle with the Philistines, the Israelites blamed God for not being on their side. But they never confronted the idea that they were not necessarily on God’s side.

Isn’t this what people still do in so many situations these days? We moan and gripe: “Why didn’t God let me see the policeman before I ran the red light?” That one may seem a bit obvious – because you should not have run the red light!

 But maybe our situation is more serious and complex: “Why didn’t God heal my mother?” Believe me, I understand that those types of questions can be real and difficult. You know that I live with this kind of question on a daily basis. In some ways, such questions are natural. And yet, I think we have the wrong perspective if we think that God is obligated to help us and do what we want him to, rather than the other way around. The question is never “Is God on our side?” If you insist on thinking in that way, the only appropriate question is, “Am I on His side?” Personally, I think the whole question of “sides” is counterproductive. We don’t want God to control us and make us do only the things he wants us to do. As it happens, God does not do that to us. So why do we think we should get to control him, and make him do only what we want him to?

Instead of confronting this problem in their relationship with God, the Israelites did something to avoid it. They decided to ignore the problem in their relationship with God, and put their trust, not in God himself, but rather in a shadow of him, a symbol: the ark of the covenant.

The ark of the covenant was a carved wooden box, about four feet long, overlaid with gold. Inside the box were the tablets on which Moses had carved the ten commandments. It was a symbol of God’s presence with his people, a symbol of the agreement that he made with them at Mount Sinai. It may have looked a little bit like the picture at the top of this post.

The leaders of Israel decided to bring this box into battle with them. The idea was, if the ark was there, God must be there with them. This way, they didn’t have to face the fact that they had turned away from him. They didn’t have to deal with all those uncomfortable ideas like repentance, and surrender to God’s purposes for their lives. All they had to do was bring a box into battle, and God would automatically fight for them.

Some of the other leaders, perhaps some of the priests, probably thought about it in a slightly more complex way. They thought that by bringing the ark into battle, they could manipulate God into fighting on their side. After all, if God didn’t fight and protect the ark, it would send a message to the Philistines that God either wasn’t real or wasn’t very strong. So even if the Israelites didn’t repent and seek out a true faith-relationship with the Lord, he would still have to fight for them, to protect his own honor, in the form of the ark, to make sure the truth about him was known.

So they sent the ark into battle. Along with it, went Hophni and Phinehas, priests, the sinful, unrepentant sons of Eli, the chief priest. Obviously, those two did not take relationship with God seriously.

Here’s one lesson from this incident: never try to manipulate God.

The Israelites lost the battle. In fact, the writer records “a very great slaughter.” Among those killed were the evil priests, Hophni and Phinehas. When the news was carried to their father Eli, he fell and died. His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, went into premature labor, and she died. As she died she said, “The glory of the Lord has departed Israel.” This reveals what she and most of the people around her believed – that God lived in that box called the ark. The deaths of this priestly family fulfilled those first words that Samuel had heard from God.

Now, God did indeed want to show the Philistines that he was real, and all powerful. But he could not do that through the Israelites, because they had rejected a true faith relationship with Him. He could not reward the Israelites for putting their faith in a gold-covered wooden box. He needed to reveal the poverty of their faith. So they lost the battle and the ark was captured.

Even so, once the Philistines had the ark, God began to confront them with their own false worship. They took it first to the temple of their idol, Dagon, probably as a representation that Dagon was greater than the Lord, and had arranged for the Lord to be captured. The next morning, the statue of Dagon was found toppled over, face down in front of the Ark. The Philistines put it back. But the morning after that Dagon had fallen again, and broken into pieces.

In addition to the problem with their idol, the Philistines began to get sick. Somewhat skeptical, they sent the ark to a different Philistine city, but got the same results. Finally, they decided to see if God wanted the Ark back in Israel. They put it on a cart with some offerings of gold. They hitched the cart up to two cows that had never pulled anything. They took the calves of those cows, and penned them up at home.

In fact, this shows us that the priests of the Philistines really did not want anyone to believe that it was the Lord who was behind the sickness in their cities. They said, “if the cows take the cart to Israeli territory, then we know it was the Lord. But if they don’t, we’ll know it wasn’t him. This is sort of like saying: “If we toss a coin and it lands on heads, I win. If it lands on tails, I also win. But if it lands on the edge, you win.”

We had a cow with a calf on our little farm a couple of times. One time, the mother cow was keeping her calf far from the safety of our barn, so I picked it up and carried it to the barn. Let me tell you, that mother followed uncomfortably close behind! (She had horns, too). In the normal course of things, cows do not leave their calves behind. That’s why the Philistines did this. They really wanted to make it unlikely that the ark would go back to Israel. In fact, in the normal course of things, this was a totally rigged experiment. In such a scenario, the cows should always return to their homes, and their calves. Even so, these cows walked away from their home pastures and their calves and went straight to an Israelite town on the border, a town that was originally set aside for the Israeli priests. The Philistine priests must have been flabbergasted and enraged.

So God made it clear that he was real. He made it clear that there was significance to the agreement he had made with Israel, the agreement which the ark represented. But at the same time, he did not affirm or reward the superstition and manipulation of the Israelites.

You see the Israelites were close to something real and true. God had made promises to be in a special relationship with them. That was true. God often intervenes to help his people. That was also true. But there were some other truths that they ignored – that the special relationship with God involves faith and surrender on the part of God’s people. By surrender, I mean that God’s people are supposed to make their lives available for God to use and work through. The old time language for this is “obedience.” Sometimes that gives us the idea that we have to obey God in order to be holy, but that isn’t it. Through Jesus we have already been made holy. Our obedience is so that God can live his life through us.

These days, we are often as superstitious and manipulative as those Israelites. If you come from Lutheran, Presbyterian or Episcopal traditions, you might feel that if you just get baptized as a baby, confirmed as a teen and take communion sometimes, you will be saved. Baptism and communion and confirmation are all useful things, and they are engaged with true spiritual reality. But they are useless without faith. By themselves they won’t help you at all. If you use them and receive them in a way that strengthens your relationship of faith and obedience/surrender, then they will indeed be helpful. But if you do them for their own sake, without faith, you might as well forget it.

Those from the Baptist/Methodist/Church of Christ type traditions do the same thing, usually with an event called “getting saved.” I’ve met many people who “got saved” when they were twelve or fifteen years old. Since then, they’ve had nothing to do with God, but they are putting their trust in the fact that one day in their distant past, they walked down the aisle and “got saved.” I’m afraid this is nothing more than empty superstition. There’s something real and true that can happen when a person is saved, but it must involve true faith and surrender to the living God.

Other people might do this with a special kind of prayer. A few years back there was a whole thing about “the prayer of Jabez.” People were buying books and learning how to pray a certain way, because it was supposed to get the kind of results people wanted. Traditional Roman Catholics might do this with the rosary, or “hail Mary.”

Others do it with going to church. I think there are many positive reasons to come to church on a regular basis, but if you are doing it to try and get God on your side, or for him to do you a favor, I’m afraid you are in for disappointment.

All these things are like expecting a rubber tomahawk to protect you from lightning. There is something true about rubber and electricity, but it doesn’t work like a magic wand. The rubber and the electricity need to be in the right relationship to each other for the insulating power of rubber to work. There is something real and true about getting saved, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, prayer, and coming to church, but it all has to come in the context of faith and surrender in relationship to Jesus Christ.

So what is the Lord saying to you right now? Have you been upset with Him because he’s not acting like he’s on your side? Have you been putting your faith in religious activity or a religious symbol instead of in Him alone? Take a moment right now to surrender your life to him in faith.

1 SAMUEL #3. THE BOY WHO LISTENED

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

Samuel shows us the importance of seeking God diligently, and the power of listening to God when we do so.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

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The boy Samuel served the LORD in Eli’s presence. In those days the word of the LORD was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread.

1 Samuel 3:1

Times were bad in Israel. There was an old man who was supposed to teach everyone about God, kind of like a pastor, except he was the pastor for the entire country. His name was Eli. Eli had two sons, named Hophni and Phineas. These two sons were grown men, and they were supposed to help their father Eli with the work of teaching people about God and leading them in worship. Instead, they took advantage of their positions. They took food from people who had saved up all year so they could bring the food to the place of worship and celebrate with God. When people complained, Hophni and Phineas told them that they were working for God, and so the people had to do what they said. They did even worse things than that. They either seduced, or coerced the female workers at the tabernacle to sleep with them.

Their father Eli told them that what they did was wrong, but they didn’t stop doing those things, and Eli didn’t take any more action to put an end to it. As we look at 1 Samuel chapters 1-3, it seems like Eli is not a bad man, but he was weak-willed and he did not do a good job raising his own children.

This wasn’t the only reason times were bad. The text says, “In those days the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread.” In other words, no one was paying attention to God, and so no one knew what he wanted to say or do. No one seemed to be seeking God. I think one of the things we can learn from these chapters of 1 Samuel is the importance of seeking God. Many, many years later, King Asa of Judah wanted to do the right thing. God brought the prophet Azariah to him, who said this:

The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. 3 For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, 4 but when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. 5 In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. 6 They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. 7 But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” (2 Chronicles 15:2-7, ESV)

The time that Azariah was speaking about was roughly the time of our text today – the time right before the boy Samuel began to seek God, and listen to him. The future of an entire nation was changed because a few people, like Hannah, and her son, were willing to seek God. Throughout the history of God’s people, he has reminded them that he will be there for those who truly seek him:

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 4:29, ESV)

6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

(Isaiah 55:6-7, ESV)

17 I love those who love me,
and those who seek me diligently find me.

(Proverbs 8:17, ESV)

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD

(Jer 29:13-14, ESV)

Jesus Christ put it this way:

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

(Luke 11:9-10, ESV)

So God says, if you look for him, you’ll find him, if you are looking with all your heart. If you want to hear what he says, you will, if you really, truly want to. He will speak to you through the Bible, and he will affirm it in your heart. He will use circumstances and other people. But your seeking must be genuine.

However in the days of Samuel’s childhood, no one was doing that. It wasn’t that God was ignoring his people. People didn’t hear from God because they weren’t listening. They did not really truly want to know God better; they didn’t really want to know what he had to say to them. Probably, they just couldn’t be bothered. The result was four hundred of the darkest years in the history of God’s people.

But one person started to listen. It wasn’t Hophni or Phineas, the bad priests who were abusing their power and position. It wasn’t Eli, the old man who was supposed to lead the country in following God. It wasn’t a mighty warrior or a great scholar.

The one person who started to listen was a young boy. His name was Samuel. In the first of this series we learned how his mother held on to her desire to have a son, but also surrendered that desire to God. Because of that, after Samuel was born, when he was between four and six years old, she let God adopt him. Of course it was Eli, the old chief priest who took care of him and taught him at the house of God, but it was really as if Samuel was adopted by God.

It wasn’t necessarily right after he came to live at the sanctuary that Samuel first heard the voice of God. But it is clear that when Samuel started to listen to  God, he was still only a young boy. Both the Hebrew Text and the Greek Old Testament (called the Septuagint) agree on this point. The Greek uses a word that means “young child.” The Hebrew uses a word that can mean any child younger than thirteen years old. So he is definitely not a grown up; not even a teenager. It isn’t any more specific than that. He could have been twelve years old, or he could have been six. But we know he was only a kid.

Many of us know the story. It is right there in 1 Samuel chapter 3. One night Samuel was sleeping and he heard a voice call him. He thought it was Eli, the old priest. Now Eli took care of Samuel, and made sure he was fed and washed, taken care of and educated. But Samuel also took care of Eli, because Eli could not see very well. So Samuel thought it was Eli who called him. Maybe he thought Eli needed some help finding something or walking somewhere in the dark. Probably there were times when Eli did call him to come help for things like that.

So Samuel got up to see what Eli needed. Only Eli had not called him. He sent Samuel back to bed.  A little while later, Samuel heard a voice calling his name again. He got up and ran to Eli once more. Once more Eli sent him back to bed.

Then it happened again. Eli had his problems, but he wasn’t an entirely bad person, and it seemed like when he was caring for Samuel, he avoided the mistakes he must have made with his own sons. Eli realized that it must be God speaking to Samuel. So he sent Samuel back again, but this time, he told Samuel to ask God to keep speaking, and to listen to what God says.

Now there is something interesting about this story. I think a lot of people feel that if God speaks to them, it is going to be easy to hear him and easy to know that it IS God who is giving them the message. But that wasn’t the case with Samuel. It really was God. He was even speaking in a voice that Samuel heard audibly. Even so, it took both Samuel and Eli several tries until they realized that God was at work.

Many times, I think we don’t hear God because we think it should be easy. We think, “if God wants to say something to me, well, he can.” But that isn’t really seeking God, like Jeremiah and Jesus talked about. And even with Samuel, it took some time and energy to discern that God was speaking. You can see here again, one of the important things is that Samuel really wanted to hear God. He was willing to put in the time and effort.

It is not good to assume that everything that comes into our heads came from God. But at the same time, it is good to take a little time and energy to evaluate unusual thoughts or experiences, in case the Lord does want to speak to us through them. We evaluate it first of all through comparing what we think we heard, with the Bible. If it came from God, it won’t contradict the bible. Of course there are some things that aren’t in the bible, like what job we should take or where we should go to school. We should pray about those things too, and ask for God to speak to us, and then listen. When we think we hear something, we should talk with other Christians about it, and pray about what we heard, asking God to confirm it or not.

In Samuel’s case, what he heard was very much like something that another man of God had heard a few years before: Eli and his sons were going to be judged. The sons would be judged for the evil they were doing. Eli would be judged for allowing that evil to continue. This wasn’t actually a very nice or comforting thing to hear from God.

This is where Eli did teach Samuel an important lesson. The next morning, Samuel didn’t want to tell Eli what God said, because it was all about Eli and his family, and it was bad news for them. But Eli told Samuel that when God speaks, it is important to tell others what he said – even if it may be hard for some of them to hear. This is still true today. In fact, I think one of the biggest mistakes that many American pastors make is that they try to avoid saying challenging or difficult things to their churches.

I have to admit, I don’t like saying things that I know will be hard for people to hear. I don’t actually enjoy it when people are upset with me. In this day and age, the hardest things to say are about sin. People have conveniently “forgotten” that God does indeed care about our behavior, and that he judges certain things to be wrong. They expect churches to be places where they only hear things that are encouraging and accepting, and never anything that challenges or confronts them. So when pastors say anything like: “The bible says it is a sin for people to have sex outside of marriage,” or “The Bible says it is a sin to get drunk,” or “Greed is a sin,” it is offensive to individual people, and to the culture at large.

While pastors and Christian leaders have a special responsibility to say what the Bible says, all Christians share that responsibility to a certain degree. Teachers of the Bible will be judged more stringently by God (James 3:1), but all Christians are called to bear witness to what they know, when the opportunity arises. I don’t mean we should go looking for fights, but if someone asks, “Do you think it’s OK to ________ (fill in the blank)?” we need to be honest about what the Bible says. I have heard many Christian celebrities fail, in public, in this way, apparently mostly because they don’t want to lose their popularity. I am concerned that such people will be held accountable for leading others astray.

1 Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that make people fall into sin are bound to happen, but how terrible for the one who makes them happen! 2 It would be better for him if a large millstone were tied around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.

(Luke 17:1-2, NLT)

Eli coached Samuel, however, and with his encouragement, Samuel told him exactly what God said. Even though it was hard for Eli and his grown sons to hear, it was actually a very encouraging message for the rest of the people. Eli’s sons were bad men, and no one was stopping them. It was  a good thing for the people to hear that God himself was bringing their evil ways to an end. It meant that God cared about his people, and would not let someone treat them unjustly.

So what can we learn from all this? Are you like the people of Israel in those times? Could it be that you don’t hear from God and you don’t see him at work in your life because you really haven’t devoted much time or energy to seeking him? I don’t mean this to sound judgmental or condemning. I just mean that this passage shows us a connection between hearing God and seeking God, and we saw many other passages that show the importance of seeking God with our entire heart. It shows that even when God is speaking to us, it takes some effort and focus to realize that, and to hear what he is saying. It isn’t like a lightning bolt spelling something out in letters in the sky. We need to devote our attention to it.

Here’s another thing. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how old you are – God can speak to you. Samuel was a young boy. He was not an adult. He did not have the respect of a grown up or any relevant experience to convince people that they ought to listen to him. But God spoke to him. He chose him, out of all the people in Israel, to listen to God and to tell others what God was saying. You may think, “I’m just a kid,” or “I’m not a preacher” or “I don’t know much about the bible.” But all those were true of Samuel also. God can use any of us. In fact, he wants to use each one of us, in different ways.

I mentioned in the first sermon that these were some of the darkest days in the history of Israel. But because of one young boy, all that was about to change. People were going to begin to hear God again. I pray that we can all be like the young boy Samuel.

1 SAMUEL #2. THE WOMAN WHO BELIEVED GOD WAS IN CONTROL

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The idea that God is in control raises many objections for some people, but even before her situation was totally changed, Hannah found peace, comfort and joy in the fact that God is entirely in control.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 2

1 SAMUEL #2. 1 SAMUEL 2:1-11

Not long ago, we were looking at various psalms. I said at the beginning of the series on the psalms that in every case where we know the author of a given psalm, it was written by a man. I want to make sure I was clear though, that there is still the possibility that some of the psalms were written by women, it’s just that we don’t know which ones might have been. However, here we have a psalm that we know for certain was written by a woman: Hannah, mother of Samuel.  I might call this particular psalm an example of “prophetic poetry.” Hannah is proclaiming God’s truth through poetic language, and there are several important truths to look at here. One reason I call it prophetic is because even though Hannah wrote this about her own life, in a big-picture kind of way, it reflects what God is doing, and will do, for the entire nation of Israel during the lifetime of her children and grandchildren.

When Hannah says, in verse 1 that her “horn is lifted by the Lord,” she is using pictorial language that would have been understood by the people of her time, but probably not by most modern readers. The horn was a symbol of strength, power and victory. So by saying this, she means that the Lord has given her strength, and victory.

No doubt Hannah was thinking of her husband’s second wife, Penninah, when she writes about her adversaries, or says things like: “Do not boast so proudly.” But the things she writes about could apply to the whole nation of Israel. The whole nation was poor and needy, seemingly neglected by God, at that time. Other nations dominated the Israelites, and were proud and boastful about their power. But God was about to give the Israelites strength and honor, in part, through Hannah’s son, Samuel. The mighty nations around them were about to be humbled, while the poor and needy Israelites would soon find themselves to be a dominant power in the region.

The heart of Hannah’s psalm is verses 6-9:

6 The LORD brings death and gives life;
He sends some to Sheol, and He raises others up.
7 The LORD brings poverty and gives wealth;
He humbles and He exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the garbage pile.
He seats them with noblemen
and gives them a throne of honor.
For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’S;
He has set the world on them.

1 SAMUEL 2:6-9

This is not just about Hannah’s life, nor even just the life of Israel. These verses declare an important truth that is often hard for us to get our heads around: God really is in control of everything.

Before we dive deeper into this, I want to make  sure to reiterate another biblical truth: human beings are responsible for their own actions. The Bible makes that very clear. We are held accountable for what we do. That is one reason we need Jesus: because every human being does sin, and break faith with God. We need forgiveness, and that forgiveness is found only through Jesus Christ. If we weren’t responsible for our own actions, we could not be considered accountable for our sins. But we are accountable for what we do, and since we all sin, that means we need Jesus.

22 God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: 23 everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence. 24 But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. 25-26 God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him.

(Romans 3:22-26, GNT)

Sometimes the Bible describes two truths that need to be held in tension with one another. On the one hand, we are responsible for our own actions. On the other hand, as Hannah tells us here, God is entirely in control.

I want to share two analogies to help us wrap our heads around this. The first comes from the laws of physics. In general at the level of our everyday experience, physical things are either particles, or waves. A particle is something with physical mass in a specific place. Think of a piece of wood. The wood is made up of a bunch of particles. They don’t move, and they weigh something – they have mass. For an example of a wave, think about sound. You don’t have “a piece of sound.” It doesn’t really weigh anything. Instead, sound is a wave that acts on the air ( or other medium) through which it travels, pushing it in wave patterns that act against our eardrums. So you have particles, or you have waves.

And yet, when you get to quantum physics, suddenly some things can act like both particles and waves, especially light. Light appears to be both a particle, and a wave. It doesn’t really make sense, but it’s true anyway. Both things are true. In the same way, the Bible describes two truths that seem in conflict: we are entirely responsible for our own free choices, and, at the same time, God is entirely in control.

Here’s another analogy. I write murder mysteries – I like to say I kill people for fun and profit (to be clear, I’m talking about making up stories where certain people die, not real killing). Early on I noticed that sometimes, as I was writing, I “realized” that my characters wanted to do and say things that I hadn’t originally planned for them. I have since found out from other writers that this is fairly normal.

Now, I’m the author, the only author of my books. No one in my books can do anything at all unless I write it. At the same time, I’ve realized if I want to write stories that ring true, I have to allow my characters to choose things that are consistent with the kind of people I’ve made them to be, and sometimes those things surprise me, or turn out to be different from what I had originally planned for them. In my first book, there are two main bad guys. I had plans for one of them to repent of his wrongdoing at the end. But when I got to that point in the story, I realized that the kind of man that he was, and the choices he had made up to that point meant that he would not really repent. He was too proud, for one thing. I could have made him repent, but it would have made a bad story. My readers would have known that I, as the author, intruded on the story and forced it. They would have sensed that the story did not reflect reality, that my characters were not real people, free to make real choices. Now, on the other hand, even when I allowed the character to choose a different path, I was the one writing it. He couldn’t have moved a muscle without me. But on the other hand, he “chose” something different from my original plan. The path he chose turned out worse for him than I wanted it to be.

So, what does this have to do with 1 Samuel 2:6-9? Human beings are truly morally free agents. We are responsible for what we do. But, at the same time, nothing that happens is out of God’s control. He allows us to do things that he wishes we would not do, but nothing in this world is ever out of his control. Both things are true at the same time.

All right, having established both of those truths, I want to, like Hannah, spend some time focusing on the truth that God is in control. I think most of us understand instinctively that human beings are free agents, responsible for the choices we make. But we often struggle to believe that even so, God is in control, and we can trust him. Some people think that if God is really in control, he must be some kind of monster, because so many horrible things happen in this life, and if he is in control, why can’t he stop them?

That kind of question is worth a whole book, not just a paragraph or two in the middle of a sermon. But I’ll offer two suggestions. First, because we human beings do, in fact, make free choices for a which we are responsible, we often make a big mess of things. For instance, God did not choose the Second World War. It was largely the choices made by leaders in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that made that happen (along with other choices by leaders in other countries). It’s true, God could have stopped it, but if so, he would have had to take away human free will. And when you take away human free will, you take away love.

The essence of love is that one has a choice to love, or not love. If you take away the choice to not love, then love itself is no longer real. But to not love a perfect, good God is ultimately to choose evil. Even indirect suffering, like sickness and death, is a result of the fact that the first humans chose to rebel against God. So my own intense chronic pain is the result of the fact that sin is in the world. It isn’t anyone’s fault in particular (unless maybe Adam and Eve’s) but it is a result of the fact that human beings as a race chose to not love God, and so corrupted not only human DNA, but the entire natural creation. In other words, it is not God’s direct doing. If all human beings had chosen to never forsake God, I wouldn’t be in pain, babies wouldn’t be born disabled, and human beings wouldn’t hurt one another. So if God brought an end to suffering by making it impossible to choose anything that leads to suffering, then he would also make it impossible to truly love.

The second thing is that the bible’s teaching that God is in control of everything is an invitation for us to trust him. When we respond to that invitation, and do, in fact, trust him, the result is often wonderful grace and comfort.

 I will have to stop writing this soon, and take a break, because it is becoming difficult to maintain focus through the intense pain that I am experiencing at this moment. Even with this level of pain, the knowledge that God is in control of my pain has brought me deep and wonderful comfort.

(I’ve had my break. In fact, it’s the next day now). Let’s start with the alternative. If God does not want my pain to continue, and yet it does continue (as it has), that would mean he is not all-powerful. It would mean that I am at the mercy of something stronger than God. It would mean that there are forces other than my own choice, that can take me away from God’s plan for my life, and keep me from his help. If God is not in control of my pain, we live in a horrific world where not even God can help us in our suffering. If God is not in control of my suffering, then I am utterly alone. Life is very difficult, and I am beyond God’s help. That is not a helpful, or comforting idea.

Now, someone might ask, “But Tom, if God could change someone’s terrible circumstances, and yet he doesn’t do it, doesn’t that make God cruel, or at the very least, uncaring?”

The thought behind that question often causes people to lose their faith. Thankfully, I didn’t experience my eight years of suffering until I had already experienced almost forty years of following God. So, I couldn’t abandon my faith over my suffering, because I already knew God too well. I have experienced too much, studied too much, thought too much, to convince myself that God isn’t real, or that he isn’t loving, or that he isn’t powerful. What I did have to learn is that I don’t know what God knows, and in many circumstances, I am simply not capable of comprehending why he might do something, or not do something. God’s control, even of my suffering invites me to trust him beyond my own understanding.

Little children don’t always know why their parents do things. Sometimes parents take their children to a cold room, where a stranger in a white coat stabs a needle into the child. How could loving parents do that? Are the parents not strong enough to protect their children from being stabbed with needles by strangers? Does this mean the parents don’t care about their children?

Sometimes, if the child is seriously ill, parents make their children go through far worse things than just being poked with needles. Childhood cancer and chemotherapy come to mind as examples of this. The children in those cases are often too young to really understand why they have to suffer in this way. Their only real hope of peace and comfort is to trust their parents; trust that their parents love them, and want the best for them, and are in fact, making sure that everything that happens is for their best good.

Hannah’s viewpoint was one of trust. Remember, at this point, she had borne Samuel, and then brought him to live apart from her. She had other children, but that was not until later. She wrote this psalm before everything turned out better for her. That’s trust! She learned, and gave us an example of, the kind of joy and peace that comes when we trust that God is in control of all things.

This is our best chance for peace and comfort as well. We often won’t understand why we, or our loved ones might have to suffer. But, I tell you, speaking from personal experience, the best path to peace and comfort is in admitting that I don’t know what God knows, and trusting that he loves me, even when I can’t understand what is happening.

If ever I begin to doubt that love, the best antidote is to look at Jesus. He literally went through hell for me, so I cannot doubt that I am indeed loved. That helps me trust in a God who is indeed in control. I pray you can do the same.

1 SAMUEL #1: THE WOMAN WHO WANTED

On By Pastor TomIn 1 Samuel, Bible, Bible Teaching, Old Testament, Podcast, Religion, Sermon1 Comment
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download 1 Samuel Part 1

1 SAMUEL #1. 1 SAMUEL 1:1-127

Hannah honestly admitted to her desire, and the pain it caused her. At the same time, she fully surrendered that desire of the Lord. Because of that, the Lord used her to change the course of history, and Hannah became one of the great heroines of the faith.

We are doing something unusual with the next sermon series: we will be redoing the books of first and second Samuel. I want to do this for several reasons. First, as we have recently been in the book of Psalms, we have touched on the life of David several times. The many questions and comments I have had about David’s life have helped me realize that it might be worthwhile to examine his life again.

Second, David is very important because he is one of the clearest Old Testament examples of a “type of Christ.” The Holy Spirit, working through the writers of 1-2 Samuel shows us, through David, a little bit of what Jesus is like. Because these things are so clear in David’s life, they can help us to learn to read the Old Testament while “looking for Jesus” as we do so. In other words, these scriptures help us learn to see messages about Jesus even in the Old Testament. In a sense, they teach us how to read the Old Testament as Christians.

Third, though I did preach through 1-2 Samuel about eleven years ago, the audio for those messages has been lost. Because the series seemed so rich and helpful back then, I would like to have audio to go with it.

There is an interesting note at the end of the book of 2 Chronicles. It says this:

29 Now the acts of King David, from first to last, are written in the Chronicles of Samuel the seer, and in the Chronicles of Nathan the prophet, and in the Chronicles of Gad the seer, 30 with accounts of all his rule and his might and of the circumstances that came upon him and upon Israel and upon all the kingdoms of the countries. 1 Chronicles 29:29-30, CSB)

This is probably a summary of how we got the books of First and Second Samuel. By the way even though our English versions split the story between First, and Second, Samuel, originally it was probably all one book: the Book of Samuel. The verse I just quoted tells us how the book came about: some of it was told by Samuel, some of it by Nathan, and other parts of it by Gad. I say it was “told” because at least some parts of the book(s) of Samuel were probably memorized as oral history. In Hebrew, you can see in those parts that the text includes little tricks for memorization, and for delivery as a spoken story. Other parts were probably written down pretty close to the actual events. Eventually, of course, all of it was written down, and the material was put into its final written form during the days of David’s grandson, Rehoboam. There are convincing reasons to believe that, but I won’t bore you with the details unless I run out of other ideas when we get to 1 Samuel chapter 27.

The book of Samuel begins at a very unsettling time in the history of the people of Israel. It was roughly four-hundred years after the time of Moses and the Exodus. The Israelites certainly had their problems in the wilderness, but at the end of it all, they had entered the promised land as a united nation, under strong leadership. However, once they began to settle the land, they splintered back into a loose confederation of tribes. Worse, they ignored the Lord’s command to drive out and completely eliminate the pagan cultures around them in the land. What followed was a few hundred years of the darkest times in their history. They forgot God, and began to adopt the pagan practices of the peoples around them – the very people whom they were supposed to drive out. They were oppressed by those same people, and frequently various areas and tribes of Israel were almost slaves to other cultures. God did not forget them. He used the negative circumstances to remind them about Him. When they prayed for his help, He answered and saved them, but usually within a generation or so, they forgot Him again, and went back to a cycle of worshiping false gods, being oppressed by the surrounding people. Then they remembered God again, and asked for his help, and so the cycle continued. The people were ignorant of God, brutal, and divided.  At the time recorded by 1 Samuel this had been going on for so long, most people probably felt like this was just how life was. There was certainly no reason to hope or expect that anything could ever change and be permanently different.

The nation of Israel was supposed to be united by their common faith, and they were meant to function as a nation by following God, as they had during the Exodus. Because God was supposed to be the King, technically they were all free. But because they weren’t following the Lord, it wasn’t working. Instead of freedom, they generally alternated between chaos and oppression.

At the time that this particular historical record begins, the spiritual leadership was as bad as the rest of the country. Eli, the High Priest was short-sighted and a weak leader. His sons Hophni and Phineas were self serving bullies – they took every opportunity to abuse the power they had over the people. None of them actively led the country from a position of faith in the Lord or obedience to Him.

1 Samuel 1:1-27 records how the Lord began to change all this, not just for a few years, or even just a generation but for the long term. It was an unlikely and surprising beginning. God didn’t call a hero to defeat the enemies of Israel (he had already done that many times over the past few hundred years, and it never lasted). He did not raise up someone to campaign for unity among the tribes. God did not lead anyone to go on a crusade to clean up corruption among the priests, or to start a movement to educate the ignorant children in the outlying areas. If Hollywood screenwriters were making a movie, any one of those choices might be their storyline.

But God did something different and unexpected. He began with a woman who just wanted to be a mother. Her name was Hannah. Her deepest desire was to have a child. She turned her desire over to the Lord, even while continuing to desperately want it. And the Lord pursued his goals through her life and those desires.

Hannah was married to a man named Elkanah. He had a second wife, called Peninnah. He almost certainly married Peninnah only because Hannah couldn’t have children. Chapter 1:5 and 1:8 record that Elkanah loved Hannah deeply. But in those days, having children was simply not considered optional. The culture considered it a curse from the Lord if a couple could not conceive. God blessed Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). If someone could not do that, they figured it must mean that God’s blessing wasn’t on them. Besides that, children were the only source of “social security.” When someone got too old to work, he relied on his children to take care of him. Finally, having children ensured that the family name would continue, and be included among God’s people (Israel) for another generation.

 All this is why a man like Elkanah, who seemed to have a genuine love for Hannah, would go the length of marrying a second woman just to have children. By the way, some folks say that the Old Testament endorses polygamy without reservation. That is not exactly true. It records that some men had many wives, and it does not condemn them, but it also almost always describes that situation in a negative light. This is true here as well. Elkanah had two wives, and there was rivalry and jealousy and strife between them. This was true also of Jacob, even though his wives were sisters. Solomon, had hundreds of wives and scripture makes it clear that it was his downfall.

Anyway, Hannah’s lack of children meant several things to her. First, she thought it meant God somehow had something against her. It had led to the destruction of her married happiness and love with Elkanah. Finally, if Elkanah were to die before she did, there would be no one to take care of her in old age. As we can see, the issue was both emotional and practical. There was deep hurt and pain wrapped up in Hannah’s barrenness, as well as practical concern about the future.

One year, when the family was at the annual worship pilgrimage,  Hannah reached a breaking point. I love her attitude in 1:9-18. She is another one of those unsung heroines of the faith. I think what makes her so special is that she honestly acknowledgesher desire to the Lord, while at the same time, she surrenders it. She tells Eli, the priest:

I am a woman with a broken heart. I haven’t had any wine or beer; I’ve been pouring out my heart before the Lord. Don’t think of me as a wicked woman; I’ve been praying from the depth of my anguish and resentment. (1 Samuel 1:15-16)

Many Christians in this day and age would encourage you to pursue your desire as if it was somehow holy just because you had it. They paint a picture of God as if he was there for the sole purpose of making your life comfortable and giving you anything you want. They preach a gospel of personal gain here and now. There are other Christians (though less common these days) who treat every personal desire as if it is evil; they suggest the only way to deal with any desire for anything personal is to get rid of it.

Hannah did not follow either path. She desired a child. She wasn’t going to pretend that she didn’t, and she wasn’t going to pretend that she thought her desire was wrong or sinful. She let God hear her anger, anguish and resentment. At the same time, as she asked God to fulfill her desire, she surrendered it back to him. Verses 10-11 in the message version record it this way:

Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to God and cried and cried — inconsolably. Then she made a vow:

“Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain, If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me By giving me a son, I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you. I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.” (1 Sam 1:10-11)

Some people may look at this part of Hannah’s prayer as making a bargain with God. But I think it is a little different than that. Hannah will not let go of her desire. She’s asking for a son, not the strength to go on being barren. And yet, while not letting go, she does surrender that desire to God. It isn’t completely clear in the Message version of the bible, but what she is pledging is that when he is old enough, she will physically bring the child to the tent of meeting and he will stay there with the priests and serve the Lord. The child will not stay with Hannah or her family. In a sense, Hannah is saying, “I want to be a mother. But I also want to surrender to you. So if you do make me a mother, I will turn around and live as if I was not a mother again. You will gain a child Lord, not me.” So, yes, in a sense it was a bargain. But I don’t see how else Hannah could both hold on to her desire and surrender it at the same time. It is this bravery and honesty that makes her a great woman of faith in my eyes.

To help us understand what Hannah did, I want to put it in simplistic and shallow terms. It is as if you prayed, “Lord, please give me one million dollars. If you do, I will give all one million dollars to the church.” Now, looking at it that way, you may say, “What would be the point of that?” We see no point in that because our desire is either not real or not surrendered. If our desire isn’t real, then we don’t want one million dollars so badly that we’re willing to give it all up again just to say we did have it once. If it isn’t surrendered, then we don’t want one million dollars unless we can keep some of it, or all of it.

By the way, this text brings up something obvious and important. In this day and age, women have the freedom to pursue any career they choose, and they often do. I am in my early fifties, and I cannot remember a time when anyone seriously suggested that women should not have careers. But sometimes, I wonder if our culture has gone too far that direction. What I mean is, sometimes, women whose primary desire is to be wives and mothers are mocked, belittled, or questioned, as if motherhood is not something worthwhile to aspire to. I know some women who primarily want to be mothers, and others speak of them as if they are somehow throwing their lives away, selling themselves short. I think that is wrong.  Motherhood was Hannah’s deep desire, and through that desire, God changed history. Hannah is in the Bible precisely because she was a faithful mother.

I have no problem with women who want careers. I also have no problem with women who want to devote their lives to their families. Such women often change history, though we often don’t recognize it. I think it is wrongheaded to pressure women into careers if their strongest sense of calling is to the home. I don’t think that honors women or offers them freedom at all.

Hannah’s desire was real, and it was truly surrendered. The result of that true and surrendered desire was a baby boy named Samuel. Because Hannah surrendered him to the Lord, the Lord was able to use him to change the course of Israel’s history.

The Lord needed both Hannah’s desire AND her surrender to do what he did through her. If she had kept the desire for a child, but did not give that up to the Lord, Samuel would not have been raised in the house of the Lord and become the greatest spiritual leader since Moses. If Hannah had not truly desired a child as deeply as she did, she probably would not have been driven to surrender him in the first place.

Israel was in a bad place spiritually and politically. Society was fractured, life was dangerous, people were ignorant. God did change everything for them. And he did it through a simple woman who was honest about her desire to be a mother while also surrendering that desire. That’s not how we expect Him to save society. But he often works in these unexpected ways.

So what about you? What are the deep desires of your heart? Are you willing to be honest about them? And are you willing to surrender them to the Lord at the same time? God needs people who are willing to follow in Hannah’s footsteps.

What about desires that are sinful? What do we do with them? I think we do the same thing, although we also aim for a third step, which is to totally give up the sinful desire. But we can’t do that until we are honest that we do indeed desire it. So we confess that sinful desire to the Lord, being honest that we do want it, and even honest about how much we want it. Then, we also confess that we know it is sinful, and, instead of seeking it for ourselves, we surrender it to the Lord. Finally, we allow the Lord to lead us to desire good things.

I think the psalmist was talking about people like Hannah when he wrote:

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.  (Ps 37:4, ESV)