CALL TO CONFESSION

Genesis 17:1-3; 15-17

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face…15 And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?”

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Almighty, infinite Father, we fall down before you today as glorious saints who love and worship you, and as weak sinners in need of your forgiveness and grace. Like Abraham, we are often far more ready to fall down and laugh at your promises then we are to fall down in awe and wonder at your perfect holiness and astounding love. We fall far short of your command to walk blamelessly before you. Some of us are blind to our sin and foolishly imagine ourselves to be doing quite well. Lord, thank you that your mercy is more than a match for all our sins of self-hatred and self-righteousness.

As we struggle and fail to live lives of perfect holiness, we thank you for Jesus, who walked blamelessly in our place. When Satan tempted him to fall down and worship before him, he chose to obey with absolute faith in you and spotless holiness. With great love and confidence in your promises, he took on all the blame for our disobedience and prideful self-righteousness. By his goodness and death, we are rescued forever from ourselves. Thank you for such a precious redeemer and friend.

Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit and give us faith to believe your promises and live in joyful, confident hope that everything you say is true. When sin threatens to reduce us to despair, show us the covenant love of your Son, crucified for us. Grant us the ability to fall down before the cross each day in confession and repentance, and the grace to shake off our guilty fears and rise with great rejoicing. Give us growing delight in the blamelessness we have in your wonderful Son, and growing strength to live in holiness and obedience to you. In Jesus's name 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.” 

2 Corinthians 1:20-22

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 21 And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, 22 and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

• One of the questions that haunts the human heart more so than others is, "Will I be forsaken?”
• We feel that in our earthly relationships when we fail those we love.
• But we feel it most in our relationship with our holy God.
• When we look at the track record of our own lives: the broken promises, the wandering affections, the subtle ways we try to run our own lives, we naturally assume that God will at some point abandon us. 

• Last week, we rejoiced with Israel as Saul proved himself at Jabesh-gilead and was made king before the Lord at Gilgal.
• Yet, in chapter 12, there is a note of somberness. 
• The old prophet Samuel steps forward, and addresses the people in what amounts to a covenant lawsuit. 
• In this chapter three realities collide:
• First, a people who had sinned grievously by demanding a king like all the nations.
• Second, a prophet, who will not let them go without a final warning. 
• Third, a God whose covenant love refuses to abandon his own.
• Out of the collision of all of those realities, a blazing promise is uttered from the lips of the old prophet Samuel.
• A promise that I pray grabs a hold of your heart.
• "For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself."

• This is the glorious theme for our message today: God's covenant faithfulness is greater than his people's covenant failure.
• The Lord will not forsake his people.
• Not because they deserve to be kept. 
• Not because their hands are clean. 
• Not because they have walked a path of obedience.
• But because his name is great, and because he has been pleased to make them his own.
• And the journey Samuel takes them on is the journey everyone of us needs: from self examination, to conviction, to trembling, to an unshakeable and glorious promise!

1 Samuel 12:1-5

And Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you. 2 And now, behold, the king walks before you, and I am old and gray; and behold, my sons are with you. I have walked before you from my youth until this day. 3 Here I am; testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose donkey have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with it? Testify against me and I will restore it to you.” 4 They said, “You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand.” 5 And he said to them, “The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that you have not found anything in my hand.” And they said, “He is witness.”

• The close of ch 11 seems to be a summary of what is expanded upon here in ch 12. 
• Notice v1, “I have obeyed your voice in all that you said to me and have made a king over you.”
• Interestingly, he doesn’t say, “I have obeyed the Lord” though we know that he did. 
• Giving the people a king was what the Lord told him to do. (1 Sam 8:7)
• “Here is the king you wanted, look at him, tall and handsome. And here I am old and gray.” 
• This was a remarkable moment, Israel’s past and Israel’s present were standing before the people. 
• If you recall, the fact that Samuel was old and that his sons did not walk in his ways were the reasons the elders gave for their proposal of a king. 
• In the natural, it would have looked to the people like the old order was being replaced by the new.
• But that was not the case at all! 

• Samuel opens his own life for investigation. 
• He challenges them to impeach his integrity. They have had many years to observe his life and character. 
• He says, “testify against me before the Lord and before his anointed.” 
• The case is being presented before the Lord who is the Judge and Saul as the Lord’s anointed, will stand as a witness to the proceedings. 
• He stands before all the people and asks, “Whose ox or donkey have I taken? Have I accepted a bribe from anyone? Whom have I oppressed? Go on, testify against me and I will restore it to you.” 
• Remember from the very beginning of 1 Samuel, we saw the massive leadership crisis in Israel. The priesthood was corrupted. Eli’s two sons were crooked. Samuel’s two sons perverted justice.  
• And when the people demanded a king like all the nations, Samuel told them what to expect from the king, he would “take, take, take.” (1 Sam 8:10-18) 
• Had Samuel acted like that ever in his long history with the people as judge? 
• And the people answered, “No, you have never defrauded us, oppressed us or taken anything from us.” 
• Why did Samuel bring this up? 
• It is because he is mounting the case that the people’s desire for a new king was not a response to failure in his leadership. 
• He didn’t abuse his position, and he didn’t use his office for personal gain. His hands were clean. 
• They admit that their desire for a king wasn’t because God’s system of judges was broken, but because their hearts were wrong. 
• They were throwing away faithful prophetic leadership for the promise of royal leadership. 
• Samuel’s integrity had been vindicated in the sight of all, especially Saul. 

• Samuel's vindication was an indictment on the people. 
• “The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, you found nothing wrong in me.” 
• And they acknowledge that the Lord was witness to the outcome, “He is witness.” 

• In an age when we see so much corruption in leadership at every level, we are left longing for the better and perfect Samuel, our Lord Jesus Christ, who stood before his accusers and asked, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” (John 8:46)
• Samuel’s integrity is admirable, but it was only a shadow. 
• We have a Mediator who was tempted in every way and yet without sin. (Heb 515)
• Samuel’s integrity highlighted the people’s guilt, but Christ’s integrity provided our righteousness. 

1 SAMUEL 1:6-12

6 And Samuel said to the people, “The Lord is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. 7 Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers. 8 When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. 9 But they forgot the Lord their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. 10 And they cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.’ 11 And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. 12 And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.

• Having established that the Lord is witness to his unimpeachable character before the people, he turns the mirror toward the nation. 
• He prosecutes their sin, not starting with their failures, but with God’s faithfulness. 
• Samuel rehearses the saving acts of God, which he calls the “righteous deeds of the Lord.” 
• Samuel reminds Israel that their entire history is one long testimony to a covenant-keeping God who has always been faithful.  
• He brought them out of Egypt. 
• He gave them Moses and Aaron. 
• When they forgot him in the days of the judges, and were delivered into the hands of their enemies, what did they do? They cried out to the Lord, repented, and acknowledged that they had forsaken the Lord. 
• And what did the Lord do? The Lord raised up judges to deliver them, Jerubbaal (Gideon), Barak, Jephthah, and Samuel. And the Lord delivered them from all of their enemies. 

• He lays out the anatomy of iniquity:
• The Sin: The people forget God
• The Suffering: God disciplines them by handing them over to their enemies. 
• The Sorrow: The people groan under the affliction and cry out to the Lord. 
• The Salvation: God sends a savior. 
• V12 The present iniquity is exposed. When Nahash the Ammonite threatened them, instead of remembering their history, remembering God’s righteous saving acts, and saying, “God will save us again,” they said, “No, but a king shall reign over us.” 
• They wanted a new form of government to deal with the threat. 

• Samuel says, “When the Lord your God was your king.” 
• Their sin was that they wanted a king instead of the Lord and they wanted a king on their terms and not God’s. 
• They wanted a visible king because they were tired of trusting an invisible one.
• They wanted to be like the pagan nations.

• It is the same sin committed in the Garden. Adam and Eve wanted to be like God instead of trusting God. 
• It is Israel’s sin in wanting the golden calf, so they could have a god they could see instead of the God who brought them out of Egypt. 
• We may not bow to Baal but we have our own functional saviors. 
• For some it's financial security, you can’t sleep until the account balance feels right. 
• For some it’s your children’s success, their achievements become the metric of your worth. 
• For the teenager in this room, it might be peer approval, their ‘yes’ means more to you than God’s. 
• Samuel’s question to Israel is his question to us: “Why are you looking to a king when you already have a powerful God?” 

• We also need this reminder of the Lord’s righteous deeds because we are a forgetful people. 
• Our iniquity is often not that we stop believing in God but that we decide God is not enough for our current crisis. 
• Parents, tell your children what God has done for you. Tell them the story of how the Lord saved you. How he answered prayer. 
• The Psalmist said to "tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done." (Psalm 78:4)
• Keep a journal of answered prayer. You need those reminders! 
• We must fight to remember that God is always faithful!

1 SAMUEL 1:13-18

13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. 15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king. 16 Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. 17 Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.” 18 So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.

• Samuel is restating the blessings and the curses of Deuteronomy 28. 
• They have a new king but this does not change the terms of the covenant. 
• Israel still belongs to the Lord. He is still their King! 
• The king himself stands under the Lord.  Both the people and the king must obey the Lord and that will bring blessing. 
• If they disobey the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against them and their king. 
• The only future for this new arrangement, the only chance of success, is if they and the king fear the Lord, serve him, obey his voice, and follow the Lord only. 

• Samuel calls for a divine sign. 
• To an ancient Israelite farmer, heavy rains during the time of the white harvest was catastrophic. 
• The wheat harvest fell in late May or early June; the dry season. Rain during harvest would flatten the grain and cause it to rot in the fields. 
• For Samuel to call down rain was to threaten economic devastation and every farmer in the crowd knew it. 
• This would be a prophetic miracle of staggering proportions demonstrating the immensity of God’s power as Lord of Creation. 
• The very thing they wanted: security, prosperity, a settled life under their king, God showed that he could take all of that from them in a moment. 
• He is the Lord of the harvest, the Lord of the rain.
• The people’s response is holy fear. They greatly feared the Lord and they feared Samuel, his prophet. 
• The fear of the Lord is missing from the modern church.  We have little to no awe and reverential fear of the Lord. 
• Dorothy Sayers wrote, “We have efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” From Letters to a Diminished Church. 
• Scripture tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10)

• The rain God sent was a severe mercy. 
• It was to shake them and wake them up. It was to bring them to their knees. 
• Sometimes God has to shake our world, he has to send a storm into our harvest, to make us realize how small we are and how great he is. 
• Some of you are standing in the rain right now. God has sent a storm into your harvest (bad diagnoses, ruined relationship, career collapse), and you’re wondering if God is angry.
• Sometimes the rain is not punishment, it’s rescue. God would rather ruin your harvest so that you can marvel at his greatness and grace. 

1 SAMUEL 1:19-25

19 And all the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.” 20 And Samuel said to the people, “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. 22 For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. 23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. 25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”

• The people confess, “Pray for your servants that we don’t die, we know we have sinned.” 
• True repentance only begins when we stop making excuses for our ‘kings’ and why we need them, and start trembling at the holiness of the True King. 
• That’s what Israel does, they name their sin. They don’t minimize it. They say, “We have sinned” and they cry out for intercession. 
• That’s what genuine repentance looks like. No excuses, no bargaining, no blame game. 
• It names the sin and throws itself on the mercy of God. 

• And now we come to the heart of this chapter. 
• Samuel looks at the people and says to them, “Don’t be afraid; you’ve done all this evil. You are guilty as charged.”
• This sounds like an impossible sentence. They’ve done evil but they don’t need to fear? 
• The reason they didn't need to fear was not the smallness of their sin but the greatness of their God. 

• He goes on in v21 with a strong exhortation to the people to not run back to the very idolatry that got them into this mess in the first place. 
• "Don’t chase after empty things, for they are nothing! Don’t trade the living God for nothing!”
• All human power, in any form, to which people turn to and turn away from the Lord, must be seen for what it truly is, an empty, pathetic substitute for the Lord God. 

• The only hope and future for this rebellious nation is found in the immutability (unchangeableness) of God’s promise.
• v22 “For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.”
• This is the golden chain of Israel’s security and ours. 

• Three reasons the Lord will not forsake his people:
• First, "the Lord will not forsake his people.” 
• Notice the possessive. They are “his” people. This is a covenantal statement. 
• God has bound himself to them by a covenant oath. (Gen 15)
• Because of that, God is saying, “I have bound myself to you. Even when you try to walk away from me, I will not walk away from you.” 
• The Lord does not forsake what is his!

• Second, “for his great name’s sake.” 
• This is the deepest motive in the universe. 
• Why won’t God forsake his people? He won't forsake his people for the sake of his great name. 
• God’s ultimate concern is not for our reputation but for his own. 
• God’s reputation is tied to your salvation. He saves sinners so that he might be glorified as Savior. 
• Ezekiel 36:22-23 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.
• This is why you can have peace and assurance. Your eternal security doesn’t rest in your mutable (changeable) feelings, but on the immutability of God’s glory. 
• The surest ground of your security as a Christian is not your love for God but God’s love for his own glory in saving you. 
• He saves you to show off his mercy. 
• He can’t lose one of his because his reputation is at stake. 
• If your perseverance depended on you, you would have fallen away long ago. 
• But it depends on him, and he will not allow his name to be made small by losing one he has called.

• Third, “Because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.” 
• This is the doctrine of sovereign election in the Old Testament. 
• In Deut 7, God states that he did not choose Israel because they were the largest of nations or the most righteous. He chose them because it pleased him. Because the Lord loves them and is keeping his covenant promises to their fathers. 
• Why are you Christian today? You aren’t in Christ today because God saw something pleasant in you. 
• He chose you because it was pleasing to him to love the unlovely. 
• Paul reminds the Corinthians that God chose what is foolish, weak, low, and despised, so that no one can boast in his presence. ( 1 Cor 1:26-31)
• And to the Ephesians he wrote, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world; and that in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons, according to the purpose of his will and to the praise of his glorious grace. (Eph 1:3-6)
• His love is not a reaction to our goodness or anything in us to make us savable, it is by decree of his own will for the praise of his glorious, sovereign grace. 
• This is the unshakeable ground of our salvation, the absolute sovereignty of God’s grace. 

CONCLUSION

• Samuel closes his address by stepping down as judge. He is passing on the baton of leadership to the king but he is not stepping down as their intercessor and teacher.
• He even says it would be sin against the Lord to stop praying for them and he will continue to instruct them in the good and right way. 
• He concludes with a call to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully and wholeheartedly; to consider what great things he has done for them. 
• That is the response to God’s holiness, covenant faithfulness and sovereign grace. 
• The reason to obey is not the threat of being swept away, though that warning is real. 
• The reason to obey is that he has done great things for you! 

• This chapter calls us to lift our eyes to Christ. 
• For everything Samuel was, Christ is more. 
• Everything the kings of Israel were meant to be, Christ is perfectly. 
• Samuel rehearsed the saving acts of God; Christ is the saving act of God in the flesh. 
• Samuel called for thunder and rain to convict Israel of sin; Christ bore the thunder of God’s wrath at Calvary so that we might never be condemned. 
• Samuel was a faithful intercessor for a season; Christ is faithful as an intercessor forever. 
• Samuel said, “The Lord will nor forsake his people”; Christ proved it, he was forsaken at Calvary so that you would never be! 

• The promise of v22 finds its loudest echo in Hebrews 13:5 “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 
• And in the promise of Romans 8:38-39, For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• And in our Lord’s words, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:28)
• The God who did not forsake faithless Israel will not forsake his blood-bought people. 

• Here is the charge for us:
• Practice Gospel Remembrance. Consider what God has done. Rehearse how the Lord has saved you, how he delivered you, what he brought you through. Let the history of God’s faithfulness in your past kill any anxiety of your future. 

• Rest in Christ. Why will God never forsake you? Because he already forsook his own Son in your place. At Calvary, Jesus absorbed the full weight of the abandonment you deserved. Because of him, God will never forsake you for your failures.

• Serve him wholeheartedly. Let’s refuse to chase after empty things that cannot profit or deliver. Let us not stop praying for one another. Let us continue to stir one another to love and good deeds. Let us all consider what great things he has done for us. 

• And if you’ve never trusted Christ, hear this: The King who will not forsake his people is the same King who said, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” Come to him today. He will not turn you away.

• And so we leave this place today not with a list of things to do, but with a promise to stand on: The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.

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?