Israel's Call To Repentance (1 Samuel 12:12-18)

Israel’s Demand for a Human King and God’s Covenant Warning

This morning we will be in Samuel chapter 12, verses 12 through 19, or possibly 18. So I'll read the passage which will be in, beginning with verse 12, in chapter 12 of 1 Samuel. When you saw that Nahash the king, the sons of the sons of Ammon came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us.

Although the Lord your God was your king. Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for, and behold, the Lord has set a king over you. If you will fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God.

If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the hand of the Lord, the command of the Lord, the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was against your fathers. This great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes, even now, it is the wheat harvest today.

I will call upon the Lord that he will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, asking for yourselves a king. So Samuel called to the Lord and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day.

And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Then all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord, your God, so that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king.

Father, as we look at this text this morning, I pray that we would be understanding the work that you did through these men, your people in the Old Testament, and through your judge and prophets. We ask, Father, that you would guide us and that you would illuminate this to us and that they would all be edified and that most of all, you would be glorified.

We pray this in Jesus' precious name, amen. So in the days of judges, God had sent heroes like Gideon and Barak and Jephthah. And finally, we have Samuel. Now there were more judges, but Samuel is the one who served God all his days.

We find the Lord's faithfulness throughout scripture in delivering his chosen people, Israel. Both in the Old Testament and New Testament, we know that God loves his chosen. God worked through his prophets and judges, even though his faithful kings also were servants to him, especially David.

In our present text in 1 Samuel 12, the Israelites had faced the threat of Nahash, the Ammonite king, whose evil plot was to maim and disfigure all the men of Jabesh by gouging out their right eye, every one of the Israelites in Jabesh.

By carrying out this evil deed, he wanted to reproach, he wanted to bring reproach upon Israel. So the people of Jabesh were given seven days so that they could send messengers throughout the territory of Israel in order that someone might deliver them from this wicked king.

When the messengers came to Gibeah, Saul heard of this wicked plan. Then the mighty spirit of God came upon Saul, or the spirit of God came upon Saul mightily, and he was angered. So Saul took a yoke of oxen, and he cut the pieces of these oxen and sent them throughout Israel.

Then he commanded, whoever does not come out after Saul and after Samuel, so it will be done to his oxen as well. So as Saul was angered, he wanted to gather the Israelites to battle against these Ammonites who wanted to disgrace Israel.

As he did so, the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. He numbered them in Bezek, and the sons of Israel were 300 ,000, and the men of Judah, 30 ,000. So then King Saul devised a strategy, how he was going to overtake the Ammonites.

So he split the troops, and they made an attack, and overcame the Ammonites. Even so, they scattered them, and there's not two of them left together. Samuel told the people of Gilgal to go to Gilgal, and when the Israelites gathered in Gilgal, Samuel addressed the people.

He first told them that he had listened to their voice in all that they had said to them, and he appointed a king over them as they requested. Then he addressed the people and pointed out his lifelong service, and before the Lord, he did nothing to disgrace his office.

Samuel asked the people to bear witness against him if he had taken anything from the people, or if he had defrauded them, or anyone had taken a bribe, or influenced them. The people responded, you have not defrauded us, or oppressed us, or taken anything from any man's hand.

The Threat of Nahash and the Rejection of Jehovah

So as we begin in verse 12, Samuel said, when you saw that Nahash, the king of the sons of the Ammonites, Amen, came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us, although the Lord your God is king.

So they insisted upon having a king, and this began back in chapter eight of 1 Samuel. According to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text, it was most likely the threat of the Ammonites that was their impetus for demanding a king.

To rule over them.

The threat of these Ammonites was so great that they feared them so much, and they were so sinful, and continued in their idolatry that they didn't want to call upon the Lord, nor could they, because they were living in disobedience.

So Samuel rebuked them, and yet he went before the Lord and told them their requests. And God says, give them a king. We have to understand that they were under the covenant of the Old Testament law. In Deuteronomy 28, one, Moses penned,.

Now it shall be,.

If you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. So that was a contingent.

That was the prerequisite for God to prosper them, to spare them from their enemies, which there were many, and to give them peace in the land. Instead of obeying God's law, they turned to idols, and they were living in complete idolatry.

So the consequences of their disobedience would be that the people who, Israel would be cursed amongst the people, and would be constantly attacked by their enemies. But also in Deuteronomy 28, verse 15, he pens this, but it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe, to do all his commandments, and his statues, with which I charge you today, all that these curses will come upon you, and overtake you.

So he gives them a list of all the curses that will come upon them, if they're disobedient to God. They're obedient, God will reward them, and give them peace. Disobedience brought his judgment. God would always use the enemies of Israel to bring judgment upon them.

Saul, Human Kingship, and God’s Sovereign Authority

Verse 13, we read, now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for, and behold, the Lord has set a king over you. So now, he points out to these people that are gathered in Gilgal, as their judge, he instructed him to do the following, after the victory over the Ammonites in chapter 11.

Now Saul being present with them, Samuel points out the fact, in their presence, that they had chosen Saul, to be their temporal king and leader. This was just another evidence of their rejection of their true king, Jehovah.

Back in chapter eight, verses one through three, Samuel was old, and had appointed his sons, Joel and Abijah, judges over Beersheba. Since his sons were dishonest, and took bribes, and perverted justice, this caused the people of Israel, to demand a king.

They didn't ask, they went to the elders of Israel, and demanded a king. They didn't even have enough respect, to go through the proper aspect, of presenting this to Samuel, they just demanded it. They showed no respect for Samuel.

In the second half of verse 13, the Lord has set a king over you. Israel was led by judges, who were led and directed by God. That was his governing way, in the Old Testament, until they demanded a king.

These judges would rule, they would keep them, direct them back to the Lord, and when they disobeyed, they would bring judgment upon Israel. So they were in direct communion, with the Lord, and they were God's vessels.

When we read the book of Daniel, as Cornell is going through that, he's already been through this, but in chapter four, Daniel says this, that the most high is ruler, over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom he wishes, and sets it over the lowliest of men.

Daniel 4 .17. So in verse 13 of Romans, chapter 13, Romans, verse one, we read this, every person is to be in subjection, to the governing authorities, for there is no authority, except from God. So that's God's pattern.

He's the one that sets authorities. He raises them up, and he also takes them down. They're all under God's sovereign providence. Also, Paul also gave the purpose of the governing authorities, in Romans chapter 13 as well, verses three and four.

He writes this, for rulers are not a cause of fear, for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same, for it is a minister of God to you for good.

But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil. That was God's intent. However, in many cases, those in authority are corrupt and wicked.

God will sometimes use these wicked rulers to bring chastening upon his people when they sin against him. We know that oftentimes, corrupt authorities will be used of God also to bring God's testimony forward to his people.

So many times when people are suffering for the Lord, God will use that to bring glory to himself. He'll grant them the grace and the ability to do so, but he gets the glory. There are two sides to the appointment of King Saul.

The people had desired and chosen this king and appointed by themselves, this is what they thought, to represent their nation in temporal matters. Jehovah gave them a king to represent his people, but the authority came from God and was limited by God.

Many of the kings of Judah were true representatives of Jehovah as of many of the judges who had been, perhaps David more than most. The people of Israel didn't just request the king to be appointed over them, but they demanded it.

This was the warning that Samuel had given the people if they were going to have a king, they would take their sons, they would be used for horsemen, I'm paraphrasing. The king would also take their daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.

He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a 10th of your seed and your vineyards and give to his officers and servants. He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work.

He will take a 10th of all your flocks and you yourselves will become servants. The people's response when Samuel gave him this warning, nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and they said, no, but there shall be a king over us that we will be like all nations, that our king may judge us and come out before us and fight our battles.

That's what they wanted. They had no desire to serve or obey God. They wanted someone to fight their battles. They could live in peace. They didn't care if their sons and daughters had to be servants of the king, so they'll give them a 10th of their flocks or 10th of the vineyards.

They didn't mind. They didn't care because they had no desire to obey God's law. This would be the easy out for them. That's what they thought. They had no idea how God would use these kings to bring about the judgment of their disobedience.

As we continue in verses 14 and 15, if you will fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord, your God.

If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was against your fathers. There was plenty of history that these Israelites had.

They knew what their fathers had gone through and they knew of the deliverance of their people by God in Egypt. They were slaved. They were being mistreated by the Pharaoh. God finally delivered them and destroyed Pharaoh's army in the process.

Since the Lord had given them a king, the welfare of the nation would depend upon whether they would follow the Lord from that time forward or whether they would rebel against him. Their historical past showed that they had a continual rebellion.

God would judge them, bring a group of their enemies against them, battle against them, annihilate them,.

Many of them.

They turned back to the Lord and asked their judges to pray for them or their priests. They had the same cycle all the way through judges, through Joshua. As we read this, we see the wicked heart. And yet we have to look at the New Testament church.

As Christians, we also know that God desires our obedience to his word. We're continually reminded as we see those professing Christians living in continual practice of sin and disobedience. These who do so are following the way of the antinomians.

Remember the antinomians which Paul rebuked in Romans. They were recognizing the grace, the gospel of grace. And so they figured, well, the more we sin, the more grace of God abounds. And then Paul rebukes him sternly, of course, in chapter six, verse one, may it never be.

We're not to use God's grace as license. We're to understand God's grace is so that we are able to be obedient to his word. So here's the prerequisite in verses 14 and 15. If you will fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord, your God.

Since the Lord had given him a king, the welfare of the nation would depend upon whether or not they would follow the Lord and obey his commandments. Samuel tells the people of the conditions required for them to have victory over their enemies and to live peacefully as his people.

Samuel does not continue with blessings. He just told them the conditions and the consequences of their disobedience. He didn't tell them of any blessings that they would have if they were obedient. He wanted them to realize the consequences of disobedience.

We know as Christians that God desires our obedience. He doesn't change. We serve the same God. As Jim is going through the book of Hebrews, this verse in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 31 is striking to parallel with that of what the Israelites did against the Lord.

It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Chapter 10, verse 31. Samuel continues in verse 15. He says, if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was your father's.

So what does it mean to listen to the voice of the Lord? It's not only to hear audibly, but it's to hear, understand, and to practice in obedience his law. Even through the Israelites, even though they're under a kingdom rule, or this time under the judge and now a kingdom rule, they must understand that to be obedient to Jehovah, their king, and obey his commandments, the king of Israel as well was subject to God's law.

If he disobeyed God's law, he would have the consequences as well. God is always gracious when his people repent and turn to him in humility and repentance. He will always bring forgiveness if there's sincere repentance.

Samuel’s Miraculous Sign of Thunder, Rain, and Divine Judgment

Now Samuel is going to call on God to bring forth a powerful and also an empirical example of the greatness of his power over the elements, as well as the entire universe. Verse 16, even now take your stand, see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes.

Now we have to realize something. God's judges had the ability to pray and intercede to the Lord, and they had communication with the Lord. We read in Psalm 99, the psalmist pens this in verse six, Moses and Aaron were among his priest, and Samuel was among those who called on his name.

They called upon the Lord and he answered them.

Think about it.

The priests and the judges had the privilege of going directly before the Lord and interceding for his people. They had this judge, Samuel, who served God from his youth. He first sat under Eli, who turned out to be a failure as a high priest, yet Samuel was devoted to God all his days.

He had failures, yes, but he loved the Lord and he followed the Lord all his days. He says, even now, take your stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. When he says, take your stand, it is better translated, stand forth.

He wanted their complete attention because God was gonna do this great miracle before their eyes. And see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Samuel's about to call upon the Lord to perform a miraculous sign.

Now, he had done that earlier. If you remember back in chapter 10, once Saul had been anointed by Samuel, he did this in chapter 10, verses two through six. So Saul gave three signs. There would be the report given to him.

He gave Saul three signs. So one of them would be that the report would come to him that the donkeys had been found. The second sign given to Saul by Samuel, he would meet three men going to Bethel. And the third, he would have an encounter with the prophets.

God has performed signs and miracles through Moses, Aaron, as well as Elijah and Elisha and Samuel. In the New Testament, God has performed signs and miracles through the apostles. God has always used signs for this purpose.

They were miraculous signs so that they would know that both the message and the messenger was from God. That was the purpose for God using signs. In verse 17, is it not that we harvest today? I will call to the Lord that he may send thunder and rain.

Then you will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourselves a king. Though thunder and rain was very rare, it did happen. In this period of harvest.

Now the general time of harvest in this portion of Israel was in May or June. And they usually would not get any rain. But on this occasion, it was not an unusual thing. This was a miracle because there was no evidence of rain.

There was no sign of rain. And now Samuel is going to call upon the Lord to bring a sign of rain, thunder, and the display of his mighty power. I was working on this manuscript this past week and Tuesday morning, I don't know how many of you may have been in the line of the storm, but we had a pretty significant storm.

Thunder and lightning about four in the morning woke both Marsha and I up. It lit up the room, it shook the house. It was right over us. And I thought, well, maybe this is a sign that I'm doing a good job on this text.

Just being facetious.

God is always glorified when he demonstrates his power over the elements. Job tells us this in Job 26, verse 14. Behold, these are the fringes of his ways and how faint a word we hear of him. But his mighty thunder, who can understand?

This thunder and lightning is seen and known by all who are in the area that God displays it. It reveals his awesome power and glory. And in verses 28, or chapter 28, verses 24 through 28 in Job, he pens this.

For he looks to the ends of the earth and he sees everything under the heavens. When he imparted weight to the wind and meted out the waters by measure, when he set a limit for the rain and a course for the thunderbolt, then he saw it and declared it.

He established it and also searched it out. And to man, he said, behold, the fear of the Lord. That is wisdom, and apart from evil is understanding. So God's purpose is always to bring glory to himself and to always reveal his power to his people as all creation sees his mighty power.

The people clearly recognized that this was Jehovah bringing judgment upon the Israelites for denying their true king, and that their demand for an earthly king was sinning against Yahweh. Because God had brought thunder and rain that day would not only have revealed his power and his might, but the rain would possibly have destroyed the harvest.

So this was not only a revelation of God, but a rebuke of his people. And we continue, the people cried out, do not cease to cry out to the Lord, our God, for us, that he may save us from the hand. Oh, I'm sorry, this is a text where this period of time in chapter seven, the Philistines had come against Israel.

They had destroyed 1 ,000, 30 ,000. So God revealed to them their sin through Samuel. So the people, chapters seven, verses seven through 11, when Samuel had called to the people of Israel to gather at Mizpah, the Israelites had heard that the Philistines were launching an attack against them.

So they called upon Samuel to intercede for them. Do not cease to cry out to the Lord, our God, for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. At this time, not only was part of the office of Samuel being a judge, but he was also a prophet.

He was able to intercede on behalf of the Israelites. They called upon him knowing that he was God's faithful servant. And yet they had been living in sin and not even considering obedience to God until God brought enemies against them.

So once again, now in chapter 12, verse 18, Israel sinned against the Lord. They recognized it, and because of their idolatry and disobedience to God's commands, he once again, in his goodness and mercy, gives Israel a chance to repent and turn to him.

Following God's mighty display of his awesome power, the Israelites now call upon their judge, Samuel, to intercede and cry out to the Lord that he might save them. This was all too familiar occurrence for the Israelites.

As we looked at previously, they had continued the sin. I have a question at this point. What similarities do we see today amongst Christians? Is there any forms of sins, the sin of idolatry? The apostle Paul gives us this command in the letter to the Colossians in chapter three, verses five through eight.

Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.

And in them, you once also walked when you're living in them, but now you also put them all aside, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. That's Colossians three, five through eight.

So God not only made that an imperative, but he reveals what that is. Those sins as the sin of idolatry. Israel's continual disobedience to the Lord always brought consequences, which Jehovah had brought upon them.

He used the judgments powerfully to turn them back to himself. That was an act of pure love. God still shows that to us today. The Israelites had already seen God's judgment carried upon them before when they disobeyed his commandments.

Back in chapter six, verse 19, we read, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, he struck down the men of Bathshemus. Because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, he struck down all the people, 50 ,070 men.

And the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter. We have to realize at this point, Israel was so disobedient that they had taken the ark of the covenant into battle.

That was what caused this. They had taken it into battle. The Philistines defeated them and captured the ark. It went from one of their tribes, one of their kings to the other kings, five different areas of the Philistines.

Finally, God was judging them through each one that held the ark of the covenant captive. And he judged each territory of the Philistines. Finally, they sent it back to Israel. And the people seeing it rejoiced.

They saw it when they were working in the fields, coming through, and they rejoiced and shouted. And yet they disobeyed the very commandment that God had given them in the law, not to ever look into the ark, for in it were all the holy implements.

Anyone that did so would be struck dead. That's what they did, had no fear of the Lord. So this was a stern warning to anyone who may try to look at the ark of the covenant. It was strict law from God, strict commands from God.

So back in chapter six, verse 19, they called upon Samuel again. Then all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord, your God, so that we may not die. After they saw these Israelites who had looked into the ark, be struck dead by the Lord, they were in fear of God's judgment.

For you have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king. These people were disobedient continually. Many of us today have seen God's great display, and yet we sometimes take it for granted.

The Contemporary Church, the Gospel, and a Call to Obedience

We have to think, in closing, I'm gonna continue next week in this text, but I want us to consider, where is the contemporary church today? Where are we today? I know that there's many professing Christians, they have market-driven church, and they're full of false professions.

They no longer give the gospel of Jesus Christ and his death on a cross and his resurrection. They just call people to Jesus, saying, well, they'll have a better marriage, a better life, and they tell them all the benefits of turning to Jesus.

Yet they omit completely the sin of mankind and their desperate need for a savior, by which only one can bring salvation. There's no other name under heaven and earth by which men may be saved. So we have this commission to proclaim the gospel.

We recognize that we each have that responsibility, and God, when he brings people into our lives, we must always consider that and bring forth the truth of the gospel. What a privilege God has given us, and yet, why do we have such fear?

Paul didn't. He was not ashamed of the gospel. He brought the gospel clearly, whether his life was threatened or whether he was placed in jail or the threat of jail, didn't matter. He was a faithful servant of the gospel, to the Jews first and then the Gentiles.

So as we look at this text, it must remind us of God's great desire for us and his command for us to be obedient to his word. He has done this work to give us this great privilege of salvation and the great privilege of prayer, but also his word revealed.

He has given us and complete. Father, we just thank you for your servant, Samuel, and for the great work that you did in and through him, but we also thank you that you are a sovereign God and that you don't turn away from those who obey you, but you bring consequences of sin.

We thank you that you are a loving God, a merciful God, and yet a just God. We ask that you would be glorified and that your word would edify your people, and we pray, Lord, for the remainder of our worship time here that you'd be glorified once again through the proclamation of your word and through song and praise and hymns that we bring forth.

May you be glorified this day. In Jesus' precious name, amen.