Two Paths
Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 48:16
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Notes
Transcript
A. Rapport for the time
Have you ever tried to be two different things at the same time? Happy when you are really sad inside. Perfectly fine on the outside while you are miserable on the inside but feel like no one should know?
B. Reading of the text
C. Review of the text
D. Relevance of the text
Let the trial begin!! Samuel will present the case of his credentials first then those of the Lord’s and then the history of the people.
I. Faithfulness of Samuel
I. Faithfulness of Samuel
1 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.”
Samuel has come to the end of his tenure as judge of Israel but he has been faithful to what God has ask of him. As a servants of God you in no place to negotiate with God on the best way he could use you.
People ask for a King.
3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah
5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
Samuel desires for the people to admit that he has represented the Lord to them. This is not about him puffing up his ego. Instead, this is leadership at its finest. He want them to think about his standing before them and remember that he has not been in this for himself. The desire of his heart has always been for the people to guide them as God directs.
He would have no one bring charges.
2 “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor
They had nothing against Samuel in anyway yet they decided they wanted the king that would oppress them..Remember he had warned them and there was not any reason not to listen to Samuel
11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.
12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
T.S. With the Judge being found to be representing the Lord Samuel would not remind the people of What God had done vs.what the people had done.
II. People vs. God
II. People vs. God
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.
The case vs. the people will now be laid out before them so that they might understand the faithfulness of God to his people even when they are not faithful to him. But God is always working to bring his people back to repentance and walking with him.
He begins with the Exodus and how God used Moses and Aaron to bring the people out of Egypt. But make no mistake it is also God who decided he would build the nation of Israel inside the walls of Egypt.
The people of Israel continually forget what God has done for them.
Righteous deeds of the Lord
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
4 Pharaoh will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment.
12 to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
The greatness of God has cared for his people to make his name great.
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.
vs. 9—They forgot the Lord—The people’s pride as God’s people took them to take God for granted and forget the Lord.
They had been warned not to do this by Moses.
2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today,
The covenant the Lord established with his people has always been to establish them as different among the nations.
19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.
Expositor’s Bible Commentary:
“The language of vv. 9-11 is heavily dependent on terminology characteristic of the book of Judges. The dreary cycle of
rebellion
retribution
repentance
restoration
described throughout that book is reprised here: rebellion v9a, retributions 9b, repentance vs. 10, and restoration v. 11.
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.’
This is:
15 And the people of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you. Only please deliver us this day.”
16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and he became impatient over the misery of Israel.
1, 2 Samuel (9) Samuel Admonishes Israel to Avoid Further Disobedience of God (12:1–25)
Israel’s troubles were the direct result of one fundamental sin; they had violated the sacred relationship with their divine King. When they turned aside from devotion to the Lord, the people had not created a spiritual vacuum in their lives; instead, they had replaced the one God with many gods, filling their lives with a polytheistic fertility cult marked by devotion to Canaanite male (“Baals”) and female deities (“Ashtoreths”).
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.
Judges: Jerubbaal—Gideon, Barak, Jephthah and Samuel. In all that the people did in not following the Lord he never broke his covenant with his people for he called them for his name sake. They are continually unfaithful to him but he continually sends judges and voices to them to save them out of the judgement the people got themselves into and bring them to repentance and back to himself.
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.
13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you.
Request made by the people but don’t think that it’s not for the purposes of God that all this has happened. God did not lose control and have need for the people to request a king. He was not doing a poor job.
God is faithful
The people looked to manipulate God to get the benefits of him as their King but not the responsibility to an actual King.
T.S. Samuel the Judge, Priest and Prophet brings them to a place of decision.
III. Make a Choice
III. Make a Choice
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.
Fear of the Lord vs. 14
Lack of fear—no obedience vs. 15
LORD WILL BE AGAINST YOU AND YOUR KING..OH MY
1, 2 Samuel (9) Samuel Admonishes Israel to Avoid Further Disobedience of God (12:1–25)
Samuel also makes it clear that Israel could experience blessing under the new system of government, but that blessing was possible only as long as the Lord’s position of superiority in society and religion was retained. Even the king must be a servant of the Lord.
All of this should sound familiar
14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
What you going to do?
We are either pursuing the things of God or the things of our flesh this very day, no other options? Have been called by name by the Lord yet followed your own desires? Is that following the Lord?