1 Samuel 6-7 - The Ark Returns and So Do the People

alright alright let's open our violence tonight in First Samuel Chapter six as we continue our verse-by-verse study through the historical books and fortunately we're in our favorite book tonight the book of 1st Samuel we've mentioned to you again and our often I'll mention to you again whenever you read narrative parts of the Bible the book of Acts and especially these historic books in the Old Testament they are they are really God's report of what took place that he wants you to know about sometimes we cover hundreds of years in just a chapter other times you know it takes four or five chapters to go through three or four months but the lessons in historical or I should say narrative books are not just historical but narrative books are in the telling of the story so narrative books you got to kind of put yourself in the midst of the story that's how you learn when you get to the doctrinal books and the epistles at all well then that's a different story then you got to think things through and then your conceptual but more often than not the lessons in a narrative books are just standing right where everyone else is standing so that's why we can cover more ground and do one or two chapters sometimes just to get through the story itself the books of first and second Samuel cover about a hundred and thirty years of time we start with Samuel the the last judge also the first real prophet to the nation in the scriptures and then we go forward all the way through King Saul's life and almost at the end of King David's life about 970 or so BC so far we've covered an act because we're close to the front I can quickly go over it the circumstances involved in Samuels birth in chapter one he had a mom and a dad but mom hadn't had trouble having children for years and every year as they went up three times a year for the week I was good Jews to the place at Shiloh where the Ark stood Hannah would cry out to the Lord for a child and just didn't seem to go anywhere every year she'd come with the same request I I maybe at some point she got tired of crying out you know for all of the wrong reasons getting even with the second wife being viewed in the in her community as someone that God was blessing but whatever it was she finally came to the place where she said Laura if you'll just give me a son I will dedicate him to you all the days of his life to serve you and I think that's what the Lord wanted to hear he he needed a leader that the nation was just floundering and so within a year the Samuel was born God had heard her prayer that's his name she nursed this child for three or four years until the point where she could bring him if you will to the tabernacle there in Shiloh and leave him with Eli the high priest so that he could learn to serve the Lord chapter 2 was a story of Eli's family and that of Samuel see if you will Eli was a good priest but he was a terrible father he led his sons get away with murder they they used the the place of worship as a place to gain for themselves they they took advantage of the position they'd been given in the Lord they they lived in moral lives and Eli had that nothing about it and so for Eli things get getting worse in fact a prophet unnamed in chapter 2 comes to warn him man get your act together because your family's gonna take you down meanwhile Samuel three years old five years old nine years old just as growing in the ways of the Lord he's got it he's got it all together his parents come regularly to to visit him his mom's making him outfits you know priestly outfits and he's just loving the Lord and learning about the love of God but the parents leave it with a guy who wasn't a very good parent but they had great trust by that time in the Lord so elide was doing nothing meanwhile Samuel was growing in favor and in grace no matter the conditions around him chapter three jumped 10 years forward and Samuel is now a kid of maybe 13 or 14 years old and for the first time God speaks to him and he hears a voice from the Lord first miss understands it for being the the priest that he is working with Eli eventually realizes that it's the Lord he makes himself available and the Lord gives them my word to share he's going to be a prophet here's his test I want you to go tell Eli what I'm gonna do to his house because of his unwillingness to take care of his children to to put them in their place and the tough message to deliver for a teenager to an elderly priest that he looked up to but he was faithful to deliver the Word of God and God began to raise him up in the nation as a voice in a mouthpiece for the Lord and years pass Tory when we get to chapter four and five twenty-five years pass and now samuel is in his late 30s early 40s Israel has been overcome by the their perennial enemies at that time the Philistines they were the strongest people on the planet you know they had the the iron industry cornered and so Israel does what it sees the world doing they look as they go to battle first to their own strength and they lose 4,000 soldiers they come back and they say you know what did we do wrong and here's the brain trust spiritually we need a God with us as they have God's with them and so they they went to get the ark now the Ark was a place of meeting with God was hardly God and they treated the are for God not as a place of meeting but as an amulet they could put around their neck they carried it into battle and it did not work 30,000 people were killed the ark was stolen by the Philistines when news came back to Eli he was now 90 years 98 years old and he's a kind of a heavyset guy and he hears about the Ark being stole and then his sons both being killed in battle he falls over backward breaks his neck his daughter-in-law having a child hearing that news dies in childbirth we then take a switch and we look at the you know the Philistines who are now having a hold of the thing that they think the Israelis lost their presence of their God but the Lord now needs to teach the Philistines something new that is he's the biggest baddest God of all and so they put him in the house of Dagon it which was their God it was a god of half kind of fish had a fish body a face in the hands of a man the first night it was in there Dagon fell on his face they thought accident they put him back up second night well they fell on his face again except now his hands in his head cut off they thought well maybe it's better we don't put that in there anymore and so they begin to March this Idol to them this arc of God around their five main cities of the Philistines at the time and everywhere it went the people began to get sick they began to have kind of bloody tumors if you will hemorrhoids is the word that is used of all things let's just say it wasn't a blessing to try to mess with Israel's God and so eventually the the concern will be as we pick up tonight in Chapter six let's get rid of this thing our lesson tonight from chapter six and seven is fairly straightforward and you learn it from God's people themselves who had been beaten so severely and lost the ark they will be brought by by the Lord to the same place of defeat into the fields of defeat they will find God's victory and they will find it twenty years after the fact because they will now have learned that God is for real he can be dependent upon he's not living in that arc in terms of you know having that arc with him means anything and so they they will come back to the Lord and begin to to look to him chapter six verse one will tell us that the ark was seven months in the Philistine land chapter 7 verse 2 will tell us that when the ark came back to Israel it remained in the house of one family for twenty years so there's the the main you know 20 years of passing of time as we read these two chapters together the the nation will repent God will hear and and interestingly enough Samuel who disappeared in chapter 4 in verse 1 when they started to think about let's get the ark reappears in chapter 7 as God's mouth Pete because because now the people want to hear from God and when you want to hear from God God will speak to you if you want to walk with God God will walk with you but you can also spend 20 years of your life out there getting beat over the head by the Philistines and losing your awareness of who God is so let's start in chapter 1 we kind of catch together we sight I got better KPD he I had a stroke two years ago don't worry it's by the way it works for just everything thank you very much we ended and we gave you kind of a quick overview of what got us to that point just we'll just end with chapter 5 verse 12 where the the men of all of these different Philistine cities began to cry out to the heavens because of their suffering brought on by their carrying around of the ark now the arket says was in the country of the Philistines for seven months and the Philistines called for their priests and their diviners and they said what shall we do with this Ark of the Lord let tell us how we could should send it back to its opens its place and they said if you send away the Ark of God of Israel don't send it away empty by all means return it to him with a trespass offering then you'll be healed and it will be known to you why his hand is so not removed from you and they said what is the trespass offering what should we return to him and they said we should put five golden tumors and five golden rats according to the number of the Lords of the Philistines for the same plague was on all of you and on your lords therefore you shall make images of your tumors images of your rats that have ravaged this land and you should give glory to the God of Israel perhaps he will lighten his hand from you and from your gods and from your lands why then do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts when he did mighty things among them did they not let the people go that they might depart so it seems strange to me and maybe to you as well that these Philistines I know they were either idol worshippers you don't think they're stupid so seven months of Thoth in this Ark of God around everywhere when people got sick and that somehow it took a half a year or wanting to go dove it would get rid of it I don't get it you're messing with there are four God you're at messing with the God of the Jews that is dull of hearing absolutely though seven months later now though everyone is afraid to move the thing because it now has become a curse to them so they call their religious leaders verse two there diviners together for guidance and they're not sure but they're pretty sure if you're gonna return it you should probably send it back with some expensive guilt offering at the least and then maybe he'll let you off the hook we've never dealt with this God so we have no idea but but you know we have some history with him I mean he is the guy that dealt with the Egyptians and when the Egyptians stepped aside the Lord seemed to leave them alone although it almost cost them area so we should send back a gift a guilt trespass offer and then maybe we can get out from under this and they said what should we do and so let's make images of the things that have afflicted you the rats the tumors maybe bubonic plague make five of them one for each city one for each ruler that had been affected there's no commentary by the way in Chapter five and four of the arc of God going to Ashkelon or to Gaza there is record of it going to Ashdod and gaff and ekron the other three very large Philistine cities at the time but this would tell us it went everywhere so these guys were slow learners not very bright this plague that God had brought upon them notice verse five that ravaged their land so their religious leaders say we should give glory to the God of Israel maybe he'll lighten the load maybe he'll leave us alone and our land alone and our gods alone for now he's wiping us out he's wiping us out here's you know acknowledge his supremacy which tells me that at least for this moment these fortune-tellers are fairly filled with common sense whatever they're used to doing I don't know but I mean they're they're there's great logic in verse six right why should you stubbornly refuse this God that had protected and delivered Israel from the Pharaon and Egypt of all things and when he let him go finally God then backed off but it cost them nearly everything we should wise up to it is an amazing thought to me that when people see God's overwhelming or that you know though they know they can't resist him common sense wouldn't say I should maybe bound my knee to him or submit myself to him and forsake whatever powerless gods I'm holding on to and join the God of the Jews I mean doesn't that make sense he's the only one that went when all his sudden down in the battle he stands everybody else falls Dagon has lost his head and his hands the Philistines major cities of Commerce have you know their leadership just in bed or worse I remember having someone say to me one time a high school friend who I hadn't seen in a while he said I see what the Lord has done in your life and in saving you and it's often awesome but it's just not for me I thought well that's the dumbest thing you could ever say if you see that God has changed in my life why wouldn't you want him to change it yours but but here's the argument this is a spiritual battle in other words no human sense leads anyone to the Lord right it isn't the way you get to people you have to share the spirit of the Scriptures and God has to get ahold of them I was reading in Luke the other day about Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath when that man came in with the withered hand and Jesus looked all around him at these you know these religious people ready to just inflict their rules upon Jesus of working on the Sabbath and he said to the man with the withered hand stretched forth your hand and it says that he did so and that it was restored like the others that had to be awesome to be in that service you know a guy you know and he's suffering and now he's completely well verse 11 of Luke chapter 6 says this they were filled with rage and they determined with one another how they might kill Jesus you heal another hand and you're dead man it makes no common sense but it makes every bit of spiritual sense now I don't know what the the consensus was amongst the Philistines at this time these idolaters these idol worshipers but I suspect from what we're going to read that some people thought this was just very much a coincidence that this whole god thing is balloon baloney you know I think we should keep the arc now give it back to them you know or maybe we're we've just got some bad luck and so after the count meant there in verse six they devised a test that should prove whether this is bad luck or they are truly dealing with a God that is more powerful than anyone elses so we read in verse seven now therefore here's what we're gonna do these are the priests and the diviners make a new cart take two milk cows which you've never had a yoke put on them hits the cows to a cart take their calves home away from them and then take the Ark of the Lord and put it in the cart put the articles of gold which you're gonna be returning to them as a trespass offering in a chest by its side and send it away doesn't let it go and watch to see if it goes down the road towards its own territory to Beth Shemesh and then he has then he has done us this great evil if they do that but if then we but if not then we'll know that it is not his hand that has struck us it just happened to us by chance it's just a bad deal so foolproof test made by these false priests let's take cows that have never been yoked to anyone let's take their their calves away so that in an instinct God made in every animal to just take care of its young we'll have to kick in let's remove them let's hook them to a cart let's put them on the road and let's see if they'll act by instinctive behavior or somehow contrary to that instinctive behavior they'll head for it best she much was which was about seven miles or so from where they were Beth she must means house of the son little Levite town if you will on the border in fact when we go to Israel every year we or every other years we go to miss Beth she omits it's kind of even today not occupied by very many people but it is on the outskirts if you will and so they want to see if they're dealing with God or they're just having a whole string of bad luck let's see if God's involved and they'll use the instinctive nosov ikaw that test it now understand that these Philistines if you read about them anywhere had seen demonic proofs over the years that their God Dagon could be trusted I mean there were vested in this guy and they were there used to the powers of the gods but they weren't clear about how do you surrender to a bigger God because every one of these nations believe their God was the greatest and the baddest they knew nothing about a God of mercy or of love all of their gods were hateful and demanding and only loved themselves I mean that's the way idols were so that was their test verse 10 tells us so the men did so and they took these two milk cows and they hitched him to the cart and they shut up the calves at home and they set the Ark of the Lord in the card in the the chest with the golden rats and the images of their tumors spoke ridiculous and then the cows headed straight out the road to the bath Seamus and and went along the highway lowing as they went but they wouldn't turn to the right or to the left and the Lords of the Sevilla scenes went after them followed him all the way to the borders of beth-shemesh so God now does this work because I don't know if you've ever noticed but everything God creates serves him except for a man he has decided otherwise but these Philistine leaders follow in unbelief oh my goodness three miles four miles six mile seven miles they they called for their calves they load for their for their babies but they didn't move they didn't look left they didn't look right they didn't stop they didn't you know they didn't hesitate they just continued to move amazing and rather than going home praising the God of the Jews they went home happy to ever gotten rid of the dumb thing not interesting that's the way they responded to what God has done you remember that that rich man and Lazarus and and when the rich man was sent to hell there and or to Hades and Luke chapter 16 and he's talking with Abraham in Hades across the Great Divide and he said you know my family needs to know about this place so if you could just send me back or send someone back to warn them then they won't have to come here and I don't have to make the same mistake I did and Abraham said to them look if you're not gonna lift they're not gonna listen to Moses and they're not gonna pay attention to the prophets neither will they be persuaded even if someone would raise from the dead in other words the miracle won't convince them if they're not hungry to know who God is there's no internal drive to know God same thing here these guys they came up with a plan that should have said we're messing with the god of the Jews it should have left them you know prostate before him instead it doesn't do anything the smart god inspired cow's head directly for the land of promise against their natural instinct crying out for their young but they were on a mission from God and they were fulfilling the call of God upon their lives and this witness to this whole you know generation of pillow seats verse 13 tells us now the people of the seamus were reaping the harvest or wheat harvest in the valley when they lifted up their eyes and they saw the ark and they rejoiced to see him and the cart came into the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh and it stood there where a large stone was there and so they split the wood of the ark I mean of the cart and they offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord poor cows their last OBD well that's what you get for being faithful buddy and then the Levites took down the Ark of the Lord and the chest that was in it they saw the articles of coal they put them on the large stone and the men of the seamus offered burnt sacrifices offerings and and made sacrifices to the name of the Lord and so when the far four five Lords of the Philistines saw it they returned to ekron that same day that like I said they were just happy to get rid of it these are the golden tumors which the Philistines regarded as a trespass offering to the Lord and then one for each of the cities Ashdod Gaza Ashkelon Gath and Ektron and the golden rats according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines and belonging to those five Lords the fortified city is in the country villages even as far as the the the large stone of Abel on which they set the Ark of the Lord which stone remains to this day in the field of Joshua there of beth-shemesh living in a Levite borders town as a priest would have been a dangerous place these last 300 years it was during those years that these you know especially the Philistines would come and take your your crops and so these guys were you know living on the on the edge if you will and and because it is a Levite town these priests should have certainly known how to handle the ark properly this day could have been filled with great joy God's presence returned to them at least the symbol of his presence the only place by the way that you could serve and offer sacrifice as a nation was where the Ark of God stood it had been gone more than a half a year it now stood in your backyard if you will and yet as we read along we realize that they they still don't see the God of the Ark they still just see the Ark this is still kind of the last days of the book of Judges where men do everything that was right in their own eyes and all these are the same mentality that that seven months early had carried this thing in the battle and seed 35,000 people total get killed so we read in verse 19 and it's kind of bullet will be will during then he struck the Lord struck the men of Machinists because they had looked into the Ark of the Lord he struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people the people Ament 'add because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughtered and the men of the Shema said who is able to stand before this holy God holy Lord God and to whom shall it go up from us and so they sent some messengers to the inhabitants of care Jeff jerem and they said the Philistines have brought us the Ark of the Lord come down and take it with you careless approach to the holy of holies now you know again we've it's been a while since we were in the Book of Numbers but but in several places very clearly you even when the Levites who were assigned to carry this thing from place to place they were told to back into the place never could look at it had to cover it and then back in and carry it and then set it up but no one was to see where God was that the whole idea was God's holy or not let's learn that God's holy and your not and then if we're ever gonna get to the Lord it's gonna have to be through sacrifice or or bloodshed or you're right this is the whole setup for us to learn how God is in terms of his relationship to us so you couldn't look at a holy God and live and even the priests like I said working around the ark we're told to not look in their numbers chapter 4 verse 20 you shall not go in to watch while the whole things the Holy things are being covered or you will die isn't that God didn't want people to see him he wants us to know him but he wants us to learn the lesson that man if we're going to get to him or something have to be done with what separates us from him which is arson not his obviously thank God for Jesus coming to make the way in fact Hebrews a 10 is a good chapter to read about how the Lord says you know that God made a covenant with us to remove our sins and and that there's no more need for an offering of sin Jesus's by his body coming and made a way for us to have come boldly boldly before his throne of grace our high priest so that that's the whole lesson right here now I just take your for a minute draw your attention to verse 19 it is almost impossible to think that this little town had fifty thousand people in it in fact if you'd happened to be carrying with you an NIV tonight it should read in this verse that only 70 people died Hebrew wise it could literally read out of the fifty thousand seventy died which could be a reference to all that had been killed you know during the time that this you know between the the thirty four thousand at the battle and then those in the Philistine lands and all that the Hebrew expression could read out of the fifty thousand gathered 70 died that's possible otherwise I can't explain it to you I don't have an answer for you I would say this to you that's Merilee it means that 50,000 had died with the ark 70 more were added here the lesson isn't hard to learn and the lesson is don't think you can approach God on your own right don't think you can stand in God's presence and live you need a mediator you need an in this intercessor you need a Savior that's the same lesson comes through time and time again verse 20 is a pretty good question you know the whoever was living there said how do I get rid of this thing sounds like the Philistines just a couple of verses ago what do we do now who can stand before the Lord and live and the answer is they recognize God's holiness they recognize their sinfulness and that you're a dead man if you kind of stand before him on your own you know what is that Romans 3:20 verse that says Romans 3:20 therefore by the deeds of the flesh no flesh where the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in your sight so you know that's the lesson certainly but the fifty thousand it's way it C it has to be a colloquial that that refers to something just beyond that and there are a couple of places even in the book of Samuel where the numbers don't seem to add up so doesn't shake my faith mind you it doesn't change anything but I don't think it just seems very improbable that fifty thousand people died for a few guys that looked into the Ark but I don't know I do know that at Mount Sinai when the children of Israel came out of Egypt and they six weeks later were camped in front of God's presence that the Lord said to Moses you made sure to tell the people to stand back or they're gonna die don't try to come up here to see me right so access to God and the Old Testament was not simple I know we read it and we sometimes you get laborious and think man what does all these things mean but all of the sacrifices and all of the rules were meant to protect sinful man from coming into contact with a holy God without a covering to convince us and them of God's holiness our sinfulness even just a high priest could go in once a year but he couldn't just go in he had to offer lots of sacrifices for himself and then for the people and then we've told you you know he goes in with with bells on so people know he's still in there moving and rope on his feet in case he drops dead it had done something wrong and then the next guy gets to go in you don't want to be the next guy I don't they on the other hand whenever you see the people hungry for God and wanting to reach out to him God accepts the sacrifices in lieu of what he would come to do through his son so doesn't that God doesn't want you to come but he doesn't want you to learn he's holy you know we call him our Father and that's amazing but he's also a God of holiness so we have to keep that in mind as well so what does that sum 24 there's a scripture that says who can ascend into the house into the hill of the Lord who can stand in the Holy Place he who has what clean hands and a pure heart who has not lifted up his old to sold to an idol who hasn't sworn deceitfully he can receive the blessings of Lord and the righteousness of god of his salvation he can get all of that so he's the guy that gets to stand but but needless to say the ark comes back is it hits town they don't handle it very well let's say at all and rather than doing things right and after all they are priests they don't handle it very well at all and God brings his judgment to bear so kind of a sad story for sure but that's just the way it went with these guys all right where we had verse 21 did we read that everything I guess we did didn't we so anyway the the the the message is sent to cure cure that Jairam the knee the name cure Jeff Durham means a city of the forest it still exists in Israel today you can go visit it it is indeed in a forest it is north of Judah it's in the southwest corner of what was then the tribe of Benjamin 's land and they basically cried get this thing out of here verse 1 chapter 7 and then the men of Kirchhoff jerem came and they took the Ark of the Lord and they brought it into the house of abinadab on the hill they consecrated his son to keep the Ark of the Lord and it was it was that the ark then remained in Kiev jerem a long time it was there for twenty years and all of Israel or the house of Israel began to lament or lament it after the Lord we presume because of the text that abinadab and his son Elliot are were priests because the Lord had given the the priests charge over the over the ark it stayed there for twenty years and they lived to tell about it that's another pretty good indicator that they were doing the right thing but understand that during these twenty years that passed that the nation continued on their spiritual kind of spiraled downward in other words God was still virtually absent from their lives it's saved there no one came to look for it God's presence or his meeting place was with them again only been gone seven months but now it's been twenty and a half years and still no one showed up to go in should we maybe have a sacrifice I have a meeting all of these twenty years over in Shiloh those three weeks of celebration every year were canceled no one came no one showed up the religious calendar was all but but closed and so the ark was in country but the country was far from God though they had the meeting place with God with them and the people went on without them meanwhile and that we can read it in other places the Philistines just continued whooping on the Jews they took their cities they subjugated their people they stole their their their food amazingly this defeated enemy who had sent the ark back was still finding victory over God's people it's an ugly picture the same is true in the world I think and this frame can be true with us we can ignore spending time with the Lord he's near he's available he's overcome the enemy for us but if we neglect him we just become kind of food for the defeated enemy and the enemy begins to have victory in my life regularly rather than the Lord having victory it can work that way and it worked that way here you see this is the narrative put yourself in their shoes why weren't they after 20 years on their faces again why why why didn't the whole nation come to abinadab how's that get that get this thing set up man we got to worship God is with us they didn't until at some place the people began to lament for the things of God look put yourself in their shoes Eli the high priestly family is gone and any good influence Eli out is gone Shiloh the place of worship was overrun the ark the meeting place with God has securely tucked away obscurely with virtually you know no one anxious to reinstate him into the national life the only redeeming influence that you can find in the narrative is Samuel who's running around now preaching and Sharon and and laying out God's Word to the people and reaching out with it with the Word of God and he seems to be the only one that was trying to to rout God's Word into the national life the ministry was hard the people were not willing and it took 20 years to get the nation to go we need the Lord back in our life we're not told anything of what happens in those 20 years in terms of of what it took to get them on their face but on their face they ended up so we read in verse 2 at the end everyone now began to lament by the way the word lament means to follow after someone and cry out to them until you get their attention the word lamenting means pay attention to me hey hey I'm talking to you until they finally turn around and say what Israel after 20 years had come to the place where they were finally willing to confess that there was a misery of life without God overrun by their enemies unable to move forward in their heart they began again to seek after the Lord it was the first time in a long time you read in Psalm 63 of the people crying you are my god early will I seek you my thirst soul thirsts for you and my flesh longs for you and I draw in in a thirsty land where there's no water in Psalm 107 he will satisfy the longing soul and filled the hungry with goodness so here the people were crying and interestingly enough after all of those years now Samuel pops up again old times hammer getting older by the minute won't be long before he'll be unable to see still around just preaching God's Word in a nation that very rarely wanted to hear but you see the minute you want to hear from God and you want God to draw near to you here comes Samuel he's available again immediately so and I think that's pretty cool it took a long time but finally the people came to their senses if you will and begin to to cry out to the Lord we read in verse three then Samuel spoke to all of the house of Israel and he said this if you will return to the Lord with all your hearts then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you prepare your heart for the Lord serve him only he will deliver you from the hands of the Philistines so the children of Israel put away the bales or the bowels and the ash dross and they began to serve the Lord only four thousand people had died back in Chapter four they weren't seeking the Lord they regrouped and got the ark use it as a an idol thirty thousand more people died for the next 20 years nobody moves towards God until now and Samuel step is up to the voice of reason the voice of God and he says to the people if you are really gonna go after the Lord you got to get rid of all of your false gods which tells you how those last twenty years have gone you have to separate from the world and from its ways which tells you how they've been doing in Isaiah 55 where the Lord calls you to come and walk with God he said let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and then he can return to the Lord and then he can have mercy upon him and then he can return to God where he will abundantly pardon him but at first he puts away his wicked ways so God's word to the nation was I'll be your God again our relationship can be restored again but you're going to have to get rid of these things that are separating us from one another and so the people were moved and they were moved to do the right thing asteroth is the female counterpart to ball it is she is the goddess of fertility she is the the goddess of love and war she her worship just say is perverse as you would suspect get rid of that in your life you guys are a bunch of people looking like the world and prepare your heart verse 3 and 4 for the Lord and serve him only you can't serve God and Mammon there's an old line that says must be him alone if it's gonna be him at all him alone if it's gonna be him at all you know the relationship God wants with you and me is exclusive that's how love works right we shake our heads at people oh yeah I'm married to four women really love them all the same video huh you're in knucklehead love demands fidelity and an exclusivity exclusivity and it has to be individual and indivisible you if you have love for two it's not acceptable to either and God is like that you can't have the idol worship and then a heart for God now they responded right they they put away we read in verse four they acted upon it and they put it away restore us O God we read in Psalms shine cause your face to shine upon us and we'll be saved so they were ready to put away their false idols verse 5 and so Samuel said well then gather all of Israel to Mizpah I'll pray to the Lord for you there and so they came together at Misbah they drew water they poured it out before the Lord they fasted that day they said we have sinned against the Lord they repented confess their sins and saw Samuel judged the children of Israel there at Misbah so Samuel calls for a national day of commitment gathers them together at Misbah the nation came in repentance by the way they hadn't seen a national turning to the Lord like this since the days of Moses I mean read back if you've been with us you may be remember back they confess their sin they fasted before the Lord they put off the needs of the flesh they today to return to God they put a line in the sand this this is towards the end of the time the hundreds of years of of Judge if you will the the term Mizpah means watchtower and having been built on a hill Mizpah can be seen for miles around it really does status kind of stick out on the landscape so as you might suspect the Philistines which had been hammering them now sees Israel gathered together in one place and they seem to be excited and so because they are not high double they're up on the hill the Philistines see this as a possible counter-attack or insurgency in progress and so they decide to organize quickly so that they can come and be proactive and and take out God's people who are now you know that an enemy that they'd been able to just chew on for years now seem to actually be organized against them and that all this is happening while the people are they're not gathering for war they're you're hunting for worship they've come to say God we're sorry and we need to to do what's right in your eyes and this is the first real test of their commitment to the Lord especially in light of the fact that that the army they they were gonna face they could watch down in the valley they they were at they were in the valley now they came up to the heights and they can see the people and they're coming in their direction these are giving people that have been slaughtering them for twenty years they hadn't come to fight Israel had come to pray no one was armed this was not an insurgency but this was the time God had planned for so that they might learn who their real strength was so we read in verse 7 thank you and when the Philistines heard the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah their Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel and when the children of Israel heard of it they were afraid of the Philistines and so the children of Israel said to do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines and Samuel took a suckling lamb and he offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord and Samuel cried out to the Lord vis rayul and the Lord answered yeah imagine standing here in no repentance first time and maybe your life you know if you're 20 or 30 years old that never happened we should serve a little alright and you go to the meeting and all you can hear down the road is here come the armies of the people that have been just hounding you for generations it does interest me that no sooner do you repent to the Lord and resolve and your heart to put him first and to make concrete steps back in his direction that the enemy decides this is a good time to attack you but that's the way it works isn't it make a commitment watch the devil go nuts I'm gonna start going to church during the week eight weeks in a row I'm working wife six kids or six I'm sick car broke down flat tire you you name it I'm gonna try get up I'm gonna start reading my Bible in the morning you can't get out of it I've never been so tired all on my dog we're not ignorant of his devices right second Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11 we're not ignorant of his devices so the enemy decides this is a good time to attack and the response of the people verse 8 is cool because they are really in the right spot right now they're not saying for run or let's buy him off no brash kind of misplaced confidence in the Ark or in an army that they really don't have so they just say to the Prophet could you just pray for us either God helps us now or we're just dead which is a great attitude to have towards the enemy he's more powerful than you but God's far more powerful than he is and so notice in verse 9 Samuel in verse 9 Samuel he begins to pray for the people he intercedes for them there's a great verse in Psalm 99 which is kind of a historical overview where it says really quickly Aaron and Moses were amongst his priests and Samuel was among those who called upon the name of the Lord and God answered him families marked out as a guy that when he prayed God would listen and so Samuel kind of is the intercessor right he stands in the place of where the people are when we get to chapter 2 here in a few weeks we're gonna see the people on a king like the world and angered old sama he's he couldn't he took it so personally and God said no you're not mad at you they're rejecting me and you're just you know part of of me but in Chapter 12 he then goes to talk to the Lord and and the people again begins to suffer and the Lord sent fire and and rain that day and the people began to really be afraid of the Lord and even though they asked for a king God kind of asserted who he was again and and Samuel began to pray and and people said to Samuel we've done a horrible thing we've sinned greatly we've asked for a king rather than serving the Lord with all of our hearts so if you could just pray for us you know that the Lord would be merciful to us and Samuel said you know God forbid that I should sin against the Lord and ceasing to pray for you I would see it as a sin and not praying so Sanna me although he had served these people for years and they hadn't done very well every time they wanted to get closer Lord he was willing to help them he was willing to stand with them and encourage them along so the people had the right response but but you know you read this and you know we placed a great importance of church on prayer we have prayer meetings during the week and in the mornings and during services and you know the church should go forward on its knees you know that's the only way we're gonna make it because we can plan and plot all we like but God's not in it we're wasting our time so we want his help don't we and his blessing well we read in verse 10 as we continue now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering so in the midst of this whole thing the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel can you imagine you're in church and you hear the the guys outside but the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day confused them so that they were overcome before Israel and the men of Israel went down out of Mizpah and pursued the Pharaoh scenes and drove them those are back as far and below as Beth car so the the attack actually starts while the people were worse being in their new relationship with God that is amazing to me the devil will not wait you make a commitment to the Lord tonight as God's folks to you speaks to you by the time you get home I'll bet you're getting while oh you're getting Wales on it's just the way it works you know who the devil leaves alone people are doing nothing you know if you could be on the Shelf he's happy he'll just he'll get your coffee but if you kind of step out on a sir share I want to serve I want to be a part of what God's doing man be careful you're gonna go you're gonna get into battle and that's all right I mean that's just the way it works isn't it but but here comes the enemy and and the devil you know here's the interesting picture that the battleground is very old this is the same battleground that is stained with the blood of past defeats this is the place they lost 20 years ago and here they find themselves face to face with a very old adversary that they haven't ever been able to deal with and they're just now starting to be you know acquainted agin with the God that they can serve the enemy on the other hand remembers they've been up this road before they come with confidence they come with with cockiness they come with a sense of blood they realize you know there's no difficulty in battle the Jews have never won against us but here's the interesting thing these are God's people worshipping now and the Prophet is praying and God is with them he'll fight their battles all they need to do is look to the Lord and then get gathered together the the spoils if you will of the battle great picture but you see now they're back right I love verse 10 towards the end but the Lord here they come but the Lord isn't you underline those three words but the Lord it's a great word here comes the enemy but the Lord and and the enemy comes while Samuel is offering the offering of dedication of consecration of kimete complete commitment and God just deals with the enemy the people just are in their worshipping look you may have lost lots of battles as a Christian but God will help you win the war twenty years thirty four thousand soldiers have and killed the nation has been captive by these same people for for half a generation but on these pages the situation the story is rewritten you know you may have gotten beaten over the head for years with some habit or problem but God didn't canon in one moment deliver you right you go back to him and you let him have it and you stay there and you use these spirit you go to the Lord's I just like the Philistines Lord I want to have victory in the in the fields of defeat well needless to say it was a pretty good day Samuel took a stone verse 12 and he set it up between Misbah and Shen he called the name of the stone Abba nezer saying thus far the Lord has helped us so he wants to commemorate the victory as a stone glorified no skillful leader no brave Army soldier this stone said that God has brought in us this far it's only a stone of remembrance to help the look to help the people remind them of order that's what the word Eman easer means this God the stone of our help so Samuel sets up a memorial with the right motive he wants the people to remember hey remember that day when we were up there worshiping and these guys you know surrounded us who gave us the victory God has brought us this far it's not such a bad idea to leave some pennies or stones along the way in your wife life God walked me through this God took me through that God was there in this kind of time so you don't forget how far the Lord has brought you good way to remember God has brought me this far verse 13 tells us and so the Philistines were subdued and they did not come any more into the territories of Israel and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all of the days of Samuel and the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel they were restored to Israel from ekron to Gath and the and Israel recovered its territories from the hands of the Philistines and there was even peace between Israel and the lowly amirite so Samuel judges rule all the days of his life he went from year to year on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Misbah and he judged the Israel in all of those places and he always returned home to his house in Ramah for his house was there and he judged Israel and there he built an altar to the Lord so it's I think once you have spiritual victory in your heart the rest of the battles what the enemies are really down hill right in other words once you realize that God can fight your battles in your not having their fight all of a sudden you take over the land you have you have space between you and the enemy by the way this is the first time in over 40 years that no Philistines are living in Israeli territory now they're you know they're poaching or they're encroaching that God has given and then God gave them back the lands or those things in their life that would have been taken from them you get right with God you get to gain your land back your life back your sanity back your hope back here your vigor back your fruitfulness back and even the lowly Emirates were made to deal peaceably and by the way they didn't get along with anyone but God's on the throne these guys are out of business verse 15 16 and 17 gives us the the resolve of the people was was continued by the faithful ministry of salmon just one guy wasn't a church on every corner there's one guy who thought who was the spokesman and he ran man he had a life to go running around the country just you know pouring out the heart of God to the people keeping them fired up which is why it's good for you to go to church you need to stay fired up it's easy to get just lazy isn't it we don't need that between chapters 7 & 8 30 years pass I'm only pointing out these years because this is the way the Florida's laid them out for us 30 years pass and Israel will after these 30 years say to Samuel you're old you're your sons are horrible so we'd like to cash you in for a king and then that whole story begins of you know the people having to learn from God that just like the amulet a king isn't going to do you any good either unless you your heart is right with God God had a plan for a king for them by the way both a physical king and a spiritual king but it wasn't the guy they chose and that was a hard lesson to learn so for next week if you'll read ahead chapter 8 and 9 I don't know if we'll do 1 or 2 but you'll you should be prepared so if we get to verse 22 and we don't stop you'll be with us alright father thank you tonight as we sit together for your word and I love the the lessons in these couple of chapters that when the ark returned so did the people took a long time they started off as a high dollar ders they they spent years being nothing kind of stuck in the middle religious people without a god but finally the pressure of this life drove them to their knees and went and when they cry out you came that Samuel came the direction came and you brought deliverance even at the very place of commitment the enemy was coming to take them out and he couldn't and may that be our lesson today maybe your are going through some things and you realized that that your walk with the Lord is not where it should be well now's a good time to fix it now's a good time to just say Lord take my life you returned God's ready you you turn to him he's ready he's willing he's able he's more than able to get you back down the road of blessing in life or you can just be you know channel for the enemy like like the Israeli a the Israeli people had been for for all of these years under Philistine kind of rule their iron fists their their their horrible treatment but the people have had enough and if you've had enough God's ready to begin to work again if you've had enough you can come and pray with one of the pastors tonight you can just leave it all here with him and you can go home like the victors that we read about here in chapter 8 finding deliverance from your enemy by the hands of a god far greater than your enemy that's the Lord's offer and it stands the people took years to come around to doing it I hope you won't wait that long sorry Stan

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Length: 55min 28sec (3328 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019