“Don't Turn Away from Your God and King” Date: November 21, 2004 Scripture: 1 Samuel 12:5-15 & 19-25
Series: “The Bible's Story of Creation and Redemption” Pastor: Larry Kirk
DON'T TURN AWAY FROM YOUR GOD AND KING
I think if you asked a lot of people in our country to characterize the Christian faith or the religion of the Bible they would give you an answer that would be all about moral values. In our recent presidential election, polls and studies indicated that "moral values" topped the list of issues most voters were concerned about when they went to the polls. It's not surprising that many people today think that Christian faith is primarily about moral values, but it isn't.
Don't misunderstand. The Bible does give us moral values. It gives us moral guidance and direction, but the heart of the Bible's message, the very center of its story, is not a set of values to rule our lives but a relationship with God that is life-changing from the inside out. The Bible doesn't give us something less than moral values. It gives us much more than that. It gives us the story of a God who loves us and calls us into a relationship with Himself. It gives us an invitation to turn to Him and enjoy a life-giving, life-changing relationship. It also gives us a warning. It warns us of the danger of turning away from God.
In the Scripture in 1 Samuel 12 that we are looking at this morning we shall see how the concern of the Bible revolves around that relationship with God. Notice how personal the language is. In verse 9, for instance, Samuel doesn't just say, “You broke the rules.” He says, “You forgot the Lord.” In verse 10, when the people confess their sins, they say, ”We have forsaken the Lord.” When the warning comes at the end of the passage in verse 20, it's not just a warning about a loss of values. It's a warning about the loss of a relationship. Verse 20 reads: “Do not turn away from the Lord.” Everything is put in very personal terms.
The story of the Bible is like a mirror held up to our hearts to show us that our tendency as human beings is to forget God, to take Him for granted, to place little importance on a relationship with Him, and to turn toward some kind of independence in which we go our own way, or to some kind idolatry in which we worship and serve something or someone else instead of God. What the Scripture wants us to see is how ironic and foolish it is that we turn away from God so often. That's the lesson we learn from Samuel in 1 Samuel 12.
He tells us first that it is foolish to turn away from God because. . .
When We Turn Away from God, We're Turning Away from Our Greatest Source of Help in Life
“Samuel said to them, ‘The Lord is witness against you, and also his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.’ ‘He is witness,’ they said. Then Samuel said to the people, ‘It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your forefathers up out of Egypt. Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the Lord as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord for you and your fathers’” (1 Samuel 12:5-7). Samuel reminded God's people that he had been honest, God had been faithful, but they'd been forgetful.
It Is Important to Remember the Help That God Gives Us
In verses 8-11 Samuel asks God's people to remember the history of His faithfulness from Moses to his own day. He describes what is sometimes called “the cycle of the judges” or “the cycle of defeat.” It was a pattern of behavior that characterized the people of God during the period of the judges in the Bible. The truth is that it still characterizes the relationship that many people have with God today.
Here's the cycle:
1. God's grace and help is given. Verse 8: "After Jacob entered Egypt, they cried to the Lord for help, and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your forefathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place.”
2. God's grace is taken for granted by the people to whom it is given. They sin against God and turn away from Him. Verse 9: "But they forgot the Lord their God.”
3. The result is they experience the consequences of their sin and the judgment of God. Verse 9: "But they forgot the Lord their God; so he sold them into the hand of Sisera, the commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hands of the Philistines and the king of Moab, who fought against them.”
4. When things get bad enough, there is a change of heart. They pray and repent. Verse 10: “They cried out to the Lord and said, 'We have sinned; we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtoreths. But now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve you.'”
5. God gives His grace and help again. Verse 11: “Then the Lord sent Jerub-Baal [also known as Gideon] , Barak, Jephthah and Samuel, and he delivered you from the hands of your enemies on every side, so that you lived securely.” Samuel was not talking about one event in which God sent these four leaders to help His people. These were four separate times in their history when the same cycle was repeated. If you go back and study the history you will find that pattern was repeated at least seven times.
What stands out is not only the disappointing human tendency to forget God and turn away from Him but the incredible way in which God just keeps persisting in His willingness to give His grace and help to people like them and like us.
Over and over again He shows mercy and patience. Life unravels every time we turn away from God. But even though we hurt ourselves and others and forget and forsake Him, the moment we come back. He receives us, forgives us, and begins to restore us. Samuel took the people in his day back hundreds of years to trace the pattern of God's dealing with them and to learn its lessons. We are reading the story in church today because it's our history too. God wants us to see the continuity of these patterns of spiritual life right up to the present day.
But we have a problem we need to face so that we can fight it. And we need to understand the help God has given us.
We Need to Understand Our Tendency to Forget God's Help
Having reminded the people of God's faithfulness, Samuel now reminds them of their most recent test of faith. In verse 12 he says: “But when you saw Nahash king of the Ammonites was moving against you, you said to me, 'No, we want a king to rule over us'--even though the Lord your God was your king.”
Now, what was he talking about, and what does it have to do with us? This Nahash king of the Ammonites had surrounded a city in Israel. When they offered to surrender, Nahash said he would accept surrender only if he gouged out the right eye of every one of them. That would not only be a horrible thing in itself, but it would mean that the men would never be able to defend themselves in the future, because the archers wouldn't be able to aim. So this was a big test of faith. How did they handle it? Basically they said no to God and to faith.
Everything God had said and done meant little when the real test came. This is the most basic temptation we see in the Bible and today: the temptation to belittle the spiritual and rely on the physical. When tested, they said, “No, we want a king to rule over us.” What they were actually saying was, “We don't want to deal with the issues of life on a spiritual basis. We don't want to have to rely on God. We want a human king, a standing army, and a source of physical and material strength that we can see and touch, one that doesn't require anything from us spiritually.” Notice again what Samuel said: “You said to me, 'No, we want a king to rule over us'--even though the Lord your God was your king.”
This is a powerful picture of a very common human weakness. How often do you allow the assurances of God to seem unreal and unhelpful while letting yourself believe you desperately need something else, something more than what God has promised you?
The Israelites believed that the idea that God was their king was like a six-dollar bill, a nice thought but it had no value, no currency in the real world when facing actual needs and problems. We read the story and think they should have known better, but do we know better? How much value do you place on the reality of God and His promises in your life?
One way to belittle the spiritual is to never come to Christ. Another way is to come to Him asking for His forgiveness and a sort of spiritual salvation but to forget Him in the test of daily life.
Have you come to the place in your life where you have said, “I am going to trust in Jesus Christ to be my Savior in life and for eternity; I believe that Jesus is God in human flesh, who gave Himself to die and rise again for my redemption; I'm going to put my faith in Him for my forgiveness, and I’m going to follow Him as my Lord”? If so, the Bible says there are certain things that are true of your relationship to God that you need to believe. God is your king. He is your good shepherd, who guides you and provides for you in all of life.
God, in Christ, is present with you all the time. He loves you with a love that can't be measured or comprehended. You are completely forgiven. He will provide everything you need to follow Him throughout your life. Do you value that? Do you believe it? If you believe those things to be true, your faith will affect the way you handle the circumstances and challenges of life.
Maybe you are thinking, I don't want to belittle the spiritual, but I want the physical also. I know that God loves me, but I want someone who can hold me. I know that God provides for me, but I want some money in the bank. Is that so wrong? Maybe, but not necessarily.
We need to clarify the issue. There was nothing wrong with the idea of having a human king. God had told His people that one day there would be a king (Genesis 49:10; Numbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 17:14-20). Yet the Scripture says when the people demanded a king, they were forsaking the Lord. First Samuel 12:19 tells us that this was an evil thing to do.
You see, it's one thing to want a king, to ask God to provide a king, and to hope for a king as you trust in Him and recognize that He is your true and greatest King. It’s another thing to believe and act as if God's help is worthless and to demand a king with a desperate unbelief that is really rejecting the goodness of His presence.
It's one thing to want some money in the bank and to ask God to help you develop financial stability and security as you trust in Him to provide your needs. It’s another thing to believe and act as if money itself is your true source of security and satisfaction, so that your happiness depends on what you possess and your security comes from how much you have. As a result, you neither live with deep contentment or give with great generosity. What's true with money is true in many other areas of life, such as wanting a relationship with someone who loves you. It's true with friendships and with achievements.
The Lord your God is your king, your provider, your protector, your closest friend, and the one who loves you best. He is your greatest source of help in life. The only way we break out of the cycle of defeat is by a faith that radically turns to Him and trusts in Him and refuses to turn away or to stop trusting when the next testing comes.
Recognize God’s faithful helpfulness, and recognize also your weakness, the human tendency to disregard or to take lightly the reality of what you have right now in God.
I remember the story of a father who had a little girl. This little girl didn’t like to cuddle. But the father did. So sometimes when Father came home from work, he would sit down on the couch with a handful of pennies. He would open his hand and show her the pennies, and she would scramble up in his lap and try to pry his fingers open to get the coins. He loved the little game because he got to hold her in his lap and hug her tight while she tried to pry open his fingers and get the pennies.
That little girl in her father's lap, fighting for a penny, pictures how so many of us live our lives. The Father wants to hold us, to care for us, and provide for all our needs. It's His pleasure to do so. But too often all we care about are the pennies in His hand. We lose our appreciation for the Father and focus only on the things He can give us. The Father's love itself, His relationship to us as our God, our King, our Father, and our Savior, is of far greater value than any of the temporal gifts He gives us. That's why it is foolish to turn away from Him.
But there is another reason it is foolish to turn away. In the midst of showing us how great God's grace and kindness is, Samuel also gives us a warning. Beginning in verse 13, he says: “Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you. If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God--good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.”
The
point here is that it's foolish to turn away from God because. . . .
If We Turn Away from God, He Will Work Against Us Instead of For Us
Tremendous grace is shown here. God even gives them what they foolishly asked for. But what He basically says is, “Do not misunderstand. The fact that I am giving you a king changes nothing about your relationship to Me. I'm still looking at your hearts. I want your faith, trust, obedience, and allegiance. So even when I give you what you ask for, the essential reality doesn't change. If you give Me your faith and obedience, you will have My hand of blessing on your life, I will work with you and for you, and it will be good. But if you don't give Me your faith and obedience, My hand will be against you.”
If You Are Not Obeying the Lord, You Are Turning Away from Him
One of the powerful things about this passage is the way it speaks about the personal relationship with the Lord and the practical expression of that relationship in a life of obedience.
The passage speaks about turning to the Lord, not forgetting or forsaking Him, and serving the Lord with all the heart. It's very personal and relational and heartfelt.
But this Scripture speaks just as clearly about obedience. Look again at verses 14-15. “If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God--good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.” That emphasis runs through the whole passage and indeed through the entire Bible. We need to hear it and take it to heart.
Some people claim to be following the Lord and would never think that in any area of their lives they are turning from Him. Yet they are very comfortable disobeying in areas where the Lord’s commands are clear. They are not committed to sexual purity, or sobriety, generosity, the church, the sanctity of marriage, or forgiving those who sin against them. They practice a sort of weak attempt at sin management. Here is a passage in which God cares enough to tell us clearly that kind of life will not work with Him.
He makes it clear. Don't fail to see it: If you are not obeying the Lord you are turning away from Him.
If You Turn Away from Him, His Hand Will Be Against You
There's a section of the story that we did not read because this Scripture is rather long. But in that section Samuel says, so to speak, “Let me add a visual aid to all this verbal truth.” He says, “It's harvest time, right? I'm going to pray, and God is going to send a thunderstorm to show you how dependent you are on Him.” So Samuel prays, the thunder thunders, and the sky pours rain.
The people are awestruck. Heavy rain has the potential to ruin their harvest. Wheat harvest was in May and June, the dry season in Israel. A thunderstorm during wheat harvest would be like six inches of snow in Daytona on the first day of summer--a little unusual. But that's the point. You can put your trust in a bank account and then lose your life in a freak accident.
God is the only and ultimate source of true security in this life. Learn your lessons of faith and obedience so that you place your trust not in an earthly king or any other human or physical source of security, but in God, who offers to hold you in His protective hand as long as you do not turn away from Him.
The Strong Warning God Gives You Is Wrapped in Reassurances
Look at all the reassurance in this passage:
True repentance will never fail to find God's grace. Verses 19-20: “The people all said to Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king.’ ‘Do not be afraid,’ Samuel replied. ‘You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.’”
When God breaks through to your heart and shows you your sin, don't excuse it or minimize it. Confess it and repent. But no matter how many times you have failed, no matter how foolish your failures, when you return to God you hear these same words spoken over you: “Do not be afraid.”
The grace of God will never be defeated by your weakness. Verses 21-22: “Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own.”
How can you be sure that the Lord will not reject you? Is it because of your goodness and your obedience? No, it is because of His name and His pleasure. What He says is that if you belong to Him, you belong to Him because He chose you and made you His own. He did that to reveal His grace in your life. So for His own name's sake, for His own glory, and His own pleasure He will never reject the people He has chosen for Himself.
Jesus put it this way, speaking about those who hear His voice and believe in and follow Him: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand” (John 10:28-29 ).
What a contrast! The false gods to which we are tempted to turn can't rescue us. They are useless. But the real God, who makes us His people for His pleasure and glory will never reject us.
And there's one more reassurance . . .
The spiritual help you need will never be withheld by God. Verse 23: “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.”
Samuel was God's prophet. He represented the heart of God. The reassurance he gave was that he was going to keep praying for them and guiding them. What Samuel pictured is promised throughout the Scriptures. It's a reassurance that God gives all of us.
Sometimes we go through times when it seems that God is teaching us and helping us on a daily basis. Then sometimes we feel that He is strangely silent or distant. During those times when He seems silent or distant, we do need to take an honest look at our lives, but we don't need to be afraid that God is no longer willing to work in us the way He has in the past. In Romans 8 He promises that the Holy Spirit within us will continually intercede for us and instruct us. That's the reassurance pictured in this story. God will never withhold His help from His people when they turn to Him.
But we do have to turn to him, and that turning has to be real.
Persistence in evil will not escape God's judgment. Verses 24 and 25: “But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away."
You can't play games with God. He wants reality in His relationship with you. If you turn from Him and serve other gods, other priorities, you will suffer the consequences. If you have come to Christ as your Savior, God will not lose or reject you, but He will discipline and correct you in this life. Instead of His hand of blessing and protection, you will experience His hand of discipline and correction. So don't turn away from God.
This story marks an important turning point in the history of the Bible. The people foolishly demand a king. God patiently gives them what they asked for even though their request came from spiritual weakness, unbelief, and impatience with God. From this time on, the kings of Israel will play a very important role. There will be a few good kings, but there will be many very bad kings, and even the best of kings will prove to be imperfect and disappointing. But God will add to His other promises of grace the promise that one day a king will come who will be the perfect king. This king will come with incredible strength and honor but also with incredible humility and love. He will save His people, not with the strength of His army but with a sacrifice of love. He will be God in human flesh, yet His crown will be a crown of thorns. He won't just rule us, but He will redeem us by dying for our sins and rising again from the dead.
All of the grace that is offered in all of the stories in the Bible and in all of our lives for all of our sins throughout all of history--all of that grace is possible only because the true king, Jesus Christ, allowed Himself to be crowned with thorns and enthroned on a cross as the sacrifice for our sin.
In verse 24 Samuel says: “But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you.”
When you think of the great things God has done for you, think of the whole story of the Bible, the story of your life, but most of all the greatest thing of all, the story of Jesus Christ. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest of all things God has ever done for you. Why did He do it? Not just to get you into heaven someday but to bring you into a relationship with Him today. Is it not foolish to turn away from the God who so powerfully and persistently turns to you with grace?