CALL TO CONFESSION

Isaiah 53:4, 6

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Merciful Savior, we come before you today as foolish sheep who find it our natural inclination to wander far from you. You have set your love upon us, chosen us, and saved us, but we find it hard to trust you and prefer to turn to our own wisdom and understanding. You lead us in green pastures for your own name’s sake, but we reject the feast that you laid before us and try frantically to fill ourselves up with things that cannot satisfy. You lead us by still waters to restore our souls, yet we recklessly dabble with strong currents of temptation and are easily swept away by torrents of sinful cravings and lust. You call us to straight paths of righteousness, but we ignore your guidance, and rebel against your discipline. Father, we stray from you every day and turn to our own ways; forgive us for our many sins.

Jesus, you are our sacrificial lamb. You never strayed from the path of obedience to your Father, even when that path led you to a brutal cross, the mockery of those who should have worshiped you, and taking upon yourself the penalty for our sin. Jesus, you are the Great Shepherd, who laid down your life for your beloved, sinful sheep, and you are the tender shepherd who gathers us in your arms and carries us. You were torn for all our sinful and rebellious wandering, and through your wounds we find healing and peace as we have been brought into your fold. Thank you.

Holy Spirit, help us to see where the path of blessing lies, and give us hearts that are eager to travel that path. We will always be prone to wander, but we thank you for holding fast to us, for we cannot hold onto you. Grant us unshakable confidence in the death and life of Jesus, and make us humble followers so that we can find safety and delight in walking with you. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

“Take a few moments to personally confess your sins to the Lord.”

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

“Hear these words of comfort and assurance.” 

Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our transgressions;

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

    and with his wounds we are healed.

• How does someone who has grown cold in their faith, who has been going through the motions for months or even years, who has let the world crowd out their devotion to the Lord, how does that person find their way back to God?
• That is the question at the heart of our text this morning. And for many of us, it’s a deeply personal question.

• If you’ve been walking through this series with us, you know the massive crisis Israel has been living through. They lost the battle, they lost the priesthood, they lost the ark of God. And the glory had departed. 
• The ark was brought into the territory of the Philistines, and from that moment, God singlehandedly began a devastating campaign of judgment that had the Philistines scrambling to get rid of the ark and return it to Israel. 
• What became crystal clear is that Israel’s greatest problem was not her corrupt leaders and it was not the Philistine threat. Israel’s greatest problem was with God himself! 

• At the end of chapter 6, after God struck the men of Beth-Shemesh, we see this reality hit home: “Who can stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?”
• How can these people who have wandered far from God return to him?
• In our text today, we’ll see how that happens. 
• When God's people return to the Lord in wholehearted repentance, He delivers them by His power and proves Himself faithful in every season.

• As we walk through this text, we’re going to trace a path that every wandering heart needs to know. 
• It runs through four stages: Ruin, Repentance, Rescue, and Remembrance. 
• I pray you’ll see that the God who met his people at Mizpah is ready to meet you right where you are today. 

1 Samuel 7:1-2 And the men of Kiriath-jearim came and took up the ark of the Lord and brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill. And they consecrated his son Eleazar to have charge of the ark of the Lord. 2 From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

• The ark comes to rest at the house of Abinadab, a house on the hill in Kiriath-jearim. His son Eleazar is consecrated to guard it. This seems to indicate that this was a Levite family.
• The narrator delivers some brief but devastating words about the length of time the ark is in Kiriath-jearim up to this point. 
• “A long time passed, some twenty years…”
• Twenty years. Let that settle in your mind. Think of everything that can happen in twenty years in the course of a human life.
• Picture this in your mind:
• A house on a hill at the edge of a small town. Inside is a wooden chest overlaid with gold. It’s the most sacred object in all of Israel, the visible sign that the living God dwells among his people. 
• But no one comes to see it. No one worships there. No one prays. 
• For twenty years it just sits there. Forgotten. And so does the God the ark represents, at least in the hearts of his people. 

• Now, for most of those twenty years, Israel may have been comfortable and prosperous enough to forget they were spiritually bankrupt.

• But notice the end of verse 2, "all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord."
• The word translated,"lamented," carries the idea of a mournful yearning, a weeping that longs for what has been lost.
• After this long winter season, Israel began to grieve over her distance from God. An ember of devotion was stirring in the ashes.

• Perhaps you know what a long spiritual winter feels like.
• You go to church, you go through the motions, you read your Bible occasionally, but the fire has gone out.
• And maybe there is a growing ache in your soul, a sorrow that you can't quite put your finger on, a homesickness for a God you once knew more intimately.
• The ache you feel is a mercy of God. It is God at work in your heart.
• The great Puritan preacher, Thomas Watson, is attributed to writing, "the same wind that blows out a candle blows a fire into a flame.”
• And that's what God does in us, he blows the embers of a cold heart back into a roaring fire.
• If you are sensing that stirring, if you're sensing that something is missing, this is the first sign that God is drawing you back to him.

1 Samuel 7:3-4 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.” 4 So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only.

• Samuel had no active role in the dramatic events we have looked at.
• Now suddenly, Samuel appears again in the narrative.  
• This is the first time since his calling in ch3 that Samuel speaks as a prophet to Israel. 

• Notice three things about Samuel’s call. 
• First, Samuel tests whether the repentance is genuine: “If you’re returning to the Lord…
• There is a world of difference between feeling bad about the consequences of sin and genuinely turning from sin to God.
• “godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, in contrast worldly grief produces death. (2 Cor 7:10)
• Second, Samuel demands comprehensive and wholehearted action: If you're returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods among you.”
• A half hearted rearrangement of priorities won't cut it. God requires the whole heart.
• “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut 6:5)
• The Lord does not share a throne. Every rival affection must be put away. 
• The Israelites had absorbed and incorporated pagan idolatry into their everyday life.
• Rather than living counter culturally, as God had commanded them, they had taken on the Canaanite lifestyle, the Canaanite ways, and the Canaanite gods.
• The pagan gods must be repudiated. (1st commandment) 
• He says, "put them away, direct your heart to the Lord, and serve him only!”
• This is the substance of genuine repentance. It is a sorrowful lamenting over one's sin, turning to the Lord in wholehearted devotion, and a turning away from sin and idolatry. 
• Third, Samuel attaches a promise: God will deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines.
• It certainly appears as if during those twenty years, the Philistine threat had not been suppressed.

THE PEOPLE’S RESPONSE

• The overwhelming response was that the people put away the worship of the false gods, and they served the Lord only.
• That little word "only," marks the difference between religious activity and true worship and devotion.
• They didn't just add the Lord to their collection of gods, they cleared off the shelf and put him alone up on it.

• Idols can be anything that occupy ultimate places in our heart that belong to God alone. 
• For some, it may be the approval of others, or financial security or career success, or a relationship, or a political vision, or even the idol of personal comfort and ease.
• Samuel's call to Israel is God’s call to us: return to the Lord with all your heart.
• Put away the rival gods.
• Direct your heart, as a deliberate act of the will, to the Lord and serve him only.
• And note the promise, he will deliver you.
• Listen to how Paul describes conversion:
• 1 Thessalonians 1:9,10 For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

1 Samuel 7:5-9 Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.” 6 So they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. 7 Now when the Philistines heard that the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. 8 And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” 9 So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.

• Samuel first called them to repentance and now he calls them to assemble.
• Israel's future as God's people is at stake.

• We Immediately see how Israel needed an intercessor.
• Their relationship with the Lord had been severed because they had departed from him, and they went after other gods.
• They provoked the Lord to anger, they sought to get rid of him by sending the ark away and forgetting about worship.
• And after 20 years in this situation, God provided in the person of Samuel, an intercessor for his people.
• He would be able to do for Israel what they could not do, effectively pray for themselves.
• “And I will pray to the Lord for you.” 
• Have you wondered what Samuel was doing during the past 20 years?
• He was praying. He was crying out to the Lord on behalf of Israel! 
• As he would say later during his farewell address “far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.” (1 Samuel 12:23)

• What happened here at Mizpah is a beautiful and solemn scene of corporate repentance. 
• The people poured out water before the Lord and fasted.
• They confessed how they had sinned against the Lord. 
• The pouring out of water is a symbolic act of pouring out the heart before God.
• We saw that in Hannah's prayer in chapter 1, she poured out her soul before the Lord.
• The water poured on the ground was a visible confession of saying, "we are emptying ourselves before you, we have nothing left.” 

THE PHILISTINE THREAT

• While this is taking place, the Philistines heard that Israel had gathered and mobilized for war.
• And when Israel heard they were coming, they were afraid.
• They had come to pray, not to fight. They were unarmed, vulnerable, and the enemy was closing in.
• Again, we see a contrast with Israel's earlier behavior in chapter 4.

• What do the people do?
• They asked Samuel to keep praying. "Don't stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.”
• They have learned the hard way, through twenty years of difficult lessons, that their strength and victory is not going to be found in themselves.
• Remember, when the elders of Israel said “let's go get the ark so that IT may save us.” They treated it like a magic talisman, a lucky charm.
• But here in humble dependence, they are crying out to the Lord and asking that not IT, but that HE would save them.
• There are moments in life when it feels like the enemy is closing in and all you can do is pray under fire. That’s exactly where Israel was and where God met them! 

ATONEMENT

• What Samuel does next is profoundly significant.
• The enemy is closing in on them, the people are crying out to the Lord, and Samuel sacrifices a nursing lamb as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. 
• The whole burnt offering was a sacrifice in which the entire animal was consumed on the altar. Nothing was kept back, it was a total offering to God.
• And while the sacrifice is burning, Samuel is interceding.
• Samuel knows his prayers, the peoples’ prayers, would not be effective and acceptable without the atonement of the lamb, a sacrifice providing a way of forgiveness and for heaven to hear their prayers. 
• Remember, it was contempt for the Lord’s offerings that started this whole disaster. Now Samuel restores what Eli’s sons desecrated.
• Samuel’s intercession for the people began with a sacrifice that acknowledged Israel’s sins and provided cleansing for the sins of the people. 

• I hope you can see the picture that is forming here.
• Samuel is a mediator, standing between a sinful people and a holy God.
• And he's offering a young unblemished, nursing lamb as a sacrifice.
• As the smoke rises, the mediator cries out on behalf of the people, and God answers!
• This is the gospel in miniature. It is a picture of what Christ has done for us.
• Every Old Testament sacrifice was designed to point forward to the day when the true and final Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, would stand between sinful humanity and a holy God.
• The sacrifice would not be with the blood of a lamb, but with his own blood. And his sacrifice turns away God’s wrath and brings salvation to his people. 
• Hebrews 7:25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
• 1 Timothy 2:5, 6a For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all
• What Samuel does in types and shadows finds its ultimate fulfillment and substance in Christ.

• When you feel the weight of your sin, when you feel that you're not good enough to approach God and to pray to God, you need to know there is a Mediator who has already offered the sacrifice.
• And he is alive right now, interceding for you.

THE LORD’S ANSWER

1 Samuel 7:10-11 As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. 11 And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car.

• The timing was extraordinary. While the sacrifice was burning, and the smoke was wafting up in the air, while Samuel was praying, while the people bowed low in worship, the enemy attacked.
• The Lord answered Samuel’s prayers on behalf of the people and God himself rises to fight for his people.
• “The Lord thundered…,” This is God’s direct, terrifying intervention.
• In the OT, thunder is repeatedly associated with God's judgment and power.
• The Philistines were not defeated by Israelite swords; they were defeated by the voice of God thundering and throwing them into utter confusion.
• That confusion could be described as a supernatural panic and when the Philistines broke rank and fled, Israel pursued them and struck them down.

• In chapter 4, Israel had presumed upon the power and presence of God.
• Here, Israel brings nothing but repentance, prayer, sacrifice, and God gives them total victory.
• God does not need our schemes; he requires our surrender.
• God fights for his people.
• Zechariah 4:6 Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

• If you're facing what seems like an impossible situation, hear the word the Lord from this text: the battle is not yours. The enemy might be advancing. The situation might look hopeless. But the God who thundered against the Philistines is the same God who sits on the throne today.
• And he is still fighting for his people! And he will fight for you!

1 Samuel 7:12-17 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen[a] and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the Lord has helped us.” 13 So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. 14 The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath, and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites.

15 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. 16 And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places. 17 Then he would return to Ramah, for his home was there, and there also he judged Israel. And he built there an altar to the Lord.

• After the victory, Samuel does something to memorialize in the minds of God’s people what God had done. 
• He took a stone and set it up at the location as a monument of this great victory and defeat of their enemies, and gave it a name, “Ebenezer.” The name means, “stone of help.”
• He plants a physical marker in the landscape so that every Israelite who passes that spot will see the stone and remember: God helped us here.
• Samuel says, “Till now the Lord has helped us.” 
• That statement is honest and faith-filled. Up to this point, the Lord has been our help. He has helped us so far; surely he will still help us.”
• Back in ch4, Ebenezer had been the site of Israel’s defeat. And after the ark was captured and taken from Israel, that period was memorialized in a name, “Ichabod,” “Where is the glory?”
• Now, the victory of God is memorialized in another name, "Ebenezer." The name functions as a promise of God’s future deliverance. 
• We understand this instinct as a culture. We build monuments. We engrave names on walls. We set aside days to remember. Why? So that the next generation will not forget. 

• For Christians, our Ebenezer is the cross. 
• At the cross, we see the seriousness of our sin, the weight of glory, and God’s generous provision and help for sinners. 
• We raise high the cross of Christ and say, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” 
• And if God has helped us by sending us his Son and giving him as a sacrifice for our sin, then surely he will bring us safely home to glory. 
• Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
• When you feel overwhelmed by your problems, or when you feel God has abandoned you and you are threatened by the circumstances of life, look to the cross. It is the greatest declaration of God’s help. 

• We need Ebenezers because we are forgetful people.
• We need physical, tangible, personal reminders of God’s faithfulness and what he has done. 
• For those of you who like to write, keep a journal and record answered prayers. 
• Tell your children stories of how God has been faithful to your family. 
• Keep a curated playlist of worship songs that anchor you in God’s character during difficult seasons of life. 
• These personal memorials transform isolated moments of God’s kindness and blessings into lasting anchors for your faith.
• Whatever form it takes, raise your Ebenezer. 

CONCLUSION

• Look what God does after the thunder. The Philistine's are subdued. The enemies who had dominated Israel for a generation are now held at bay. Cities that have been lost are restored. Territory that Israel thought was gone forever, comes back. Peace extends even to the Amorites.
• And Samuel serves faithfully as a judge, traveling his circuit year after year, and returning to his home in Ramah where he built an altar to the Lord.
• This is what it looks like when God restores a repentant people fully.

• We’ve traced a path through this text from Ruin to Repentance, from Rescue to Remembrance. The message is that this path is still open. 
• It was open for Israel after twenty years of spiritual ruin and it is open for you today. 
• If you are far from God today, the road home is not long. 
• It begins with wholehearted repentance. It is putting away whatever in your life is stealing your affections from Christ.
• It begins with looking to our Mediator who is greater than Samuel. 
• Samuel offered a lamb and prayed. Jesus offered himself and still intercedes for us. 
• Every one of us stands before a holy God as sinners deserving judgment. And if God dealt with us the way he dealt with the Philistines, with thunder and confusion and defeat, we would be hopeless! 
• But the thunder of God’s righteous wrath did not fall on us. It fell on Christ. 
• At Calvary, the Son of God absorbed the full weight of divine judgment so that everyone who turns to Him would be delivered from sin, death, and the wrath to come. 
• And now, as our risen and ascended Lord, he ever lives to intercede for those who come to God through him. 

• Here’s my charge to you:
• To the one who is wandering, come home. The road begins with honest words, “Lord, I have sinned and I want to return.’ He is waiting and he will receive you. 
• To the one who is burdened and afraid, look to your Mediator. Cry out to the Lord your God and remember that he fights for his people. The battle is the Lord’s. 
• To the one who is holding something back, put it away! Today. Whatever is occupying the throne that belongs to Christ alone, name it, and let it go! 

• And to the one who has tasted God’s faithfulness, raise your Ebenezer. 
• Tell the story. Write it down. Pass it on. 
• The next generation is listening. 

• Let's own Samuel’s words together. It’s not just Israel’s testimony. It's ours. Till now the Lord has helped us. 
• He helped us when we were lost in sin and didn’t even know we needed him. He helped us at the cross. He has helped us through every trial, every loss, every season of doubt. 
• Till now the Lord has helped us! And he won’t stop now!

APPLICATION AND REFLECTION

In light of today's message....

• What did I learn about the gospel?
• How can I apply what I learned about the gospel to my life?
• With whom can I share the gospel this week?