1 Samuel Chapter 7

Sovereign Grace Family Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

1 Samuel chapter 7, verse 1, And the men of Kiriath-Jerim came and took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill, and they consecrated Eliezer his son to keep the ark of the Lord.

00:24

And from that day the ark remained at Kiriath-Jerim.

00:29

That time was very long, it was about 20 years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

00:35

Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to the Lord with all your heart and remove the foreign gods and the Ashtoreth from among you and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him alone, he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.

00:50

So the sons of Israel removed the bales and the Ashtoreth and served the Lord alone.

00:56

Then Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.

01:02

They gathered to Mizpah, they drew water, they poured it out before the Lord, and they fasted that day and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.

01:10

And Samuel judged the sons of Israel at Mizpah.

01:14

Now when the Philistines heard the sons of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.

01:21

And when the sons of Israel heard it, they were very afraid of the Philistines.

01:26

Then the sons of Israel said to Samuel, Do not cease to cry out to the Lord for us, to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.

01:35

Samuel took a suckling lamb, he offered it as a whole burnt offering before the Lord.

01:39

And Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.

01:43

Now Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, and the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel.

01:48

But the Lord thundered, and a great thunder on that day against the Philistines, and confused them so that they were routed out of Israel, or routed out before Israel.

01:59

The men of Israel went out from Mizpah, and they pursued the Philistines.

02:02

They struck them down as far as below Beth-kar.

02:06

And Samuel took a stone, he set it between Mizpah and Shem, and named it Ebenezer, saying, Thus far the Lord has helped us.

02:15

So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not come any more into the border of Israel.

02:19

And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

02:24

The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath.

02:30

And Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines.

02:33

So there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

02:37

Now Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.

02:40

He used to go annually on a circuit to Bethel, to Gilgal, and to Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all of these places.

02:49

Then his return was to Ramah, for his house was there.

02:53

And there he judged Israel, and he built there an altar to the Lord.

02:57

Okay, so last week the Ark had returned to Israel.

03:02

It went to Beth-shemesh.

03:04

It killed a bunch of people.

03:06

A discrepancy in that number of how you want to understand that, but it killed a bunch of people for their disobedience and how they handled the Ark.

03:14

So the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh called for the men of Kiriath-Jeriam to come get the Ark.

03:26

New pins.

03:29

It was here to Beth-shemesh, and then it went from here kind of up at this angle to I ain't gonna try to spell it.

03:58

Kiriath-Jeriam.

03:59

That's where it stayed in the house of Ben-Adav.

04:03

It says it went to the house of Ben-Adav on the hill.

04:07

Interesting they put it on a hill for whatever reason.

04:11

Maybe it was to if the Philistines maybe tried to come again to try to recapture it.

04:16

At least this time they could see him coming.

04:19

Don't really know, but it's up on a hill.

04:21

Maybe it's for an elevated place to show honor and reverence to the Ark, but we don't know.

04:27

But it says it's put on the hill.

04:29

And then he consecrated Eleazar, his son, to keep the Ark of the Lord.

04:34

So we do see that when it did come here that the Ark was no longer treated as a superstitious device.

04:43

It was actually a person was consecrated to take care of it, and we know that that person was a Levite because it's the one that's taking care of it, and God hasn't struck them dead.

04:55

So Eleazar is his son.

04:58

He takes care of it from that day forward.

05:00

In verse 2 it says, from the day that the Ark remained at Kiriath-Jeriam was about 20 years.

05:07

So 20 years it was here when this event we're fixing to talk about takes place.

05:16

So it says that it was there a very long time, about 20 years, and Israel lamented after the Lord.

05:25

Why do you think they lamented after the Lord? Anybody got any thoughts, ideas? I think they lamented over the Lord because there was nobody pertaining to the tabernacle anymore.

05:45

The tabernacle was a place where they would go and meet with the Lord.

05:48

Here it is.

05:49

Remember, they see the joy of those people when they saw the Ark coming into Beth-shemesh.

05:55

What did they do? It says that the loudness of the joy that the Lord had returned.

06:01

Well, remember the tabernacle's been destroyed.

06:05

The tabernacle is gone.

06:07

The only thing we have is the most important piece of furniture that goes in the tabernacle.

06:11

It says that they lamented after the Lord.

06:14

In verse 3, then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying this, if you return to the Lord with all of your heart, remove the foreign gods, the Ashtoreth from among you, and direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him alone.

06:30

He will deliver you from the hands of the Philistines.

06:33

So we have, we have lament and then we have repent.

06:51

Israel repents before the Lord or is lamenting.

06:55

There's a call from Samuel to repent.

06:57

He said if you remove all of the foreign gods from you, remove the foreign gods.

07:02

There's some, some, y'all say Baals there? Does the Baals and the Ashtoreth, well, they were commonly came together.

07:11

Both of them were fertility gods.

07:12

The Ashtoreth certainly was a fertility god.

07:16

It says, and direct your hearts and serve him alone.

07:22

So the word alone there is to tell them that, hey, you're still living in syncretism.

07:30

They were still doing the things in their land that God told them not to do.

07:34

You can't worship Baal and worship God.

07:36

So he says you're gonna have to worship him and serve him alone and then he will deliver you from the hands of the Philistines.

07:44

So the sons of Israel removed the Baals and Ashtoreth and they served the Lord alone.

07:50

Huge point.

07:51

Here it is.

07:52

They now had lamented over the removal of God's presence within them.

07:56

Now they've repented and it says that Samuel said gather all of Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.

08:07

They gathered to Mizpah.

08:09

They drew water and poured it out before the Lord and they fasted there on that day.

08:13

I have no idea what the the drawing of the water and the pouring it out means other than we're trying to make an inference and a conclusion from the text that it showed some type of contrition or some type of brokenness before the Lord because pouring out water was not anything we see in the Mosaic legislation as an offering before the Lord.

08:39

What were the things that y'all remember reading through the Mosaic law? What were the things they normally poured out? Wine and oil.

08:47

Wine.

08:48

A drink offering was wine or they used oil with flour and all that.

08:54

Well this is an odd situation where they used water and we have no any other indication.

09:00

We do have in some of the Psalms where it says like in Psalm 22 it says my life is being poured out like water.

09:07

So is it a representative of the brokenness of David when he was speaking? We're not sure.

09:14

But it says that they called a fast which means they humbled themselves before the Lord on that day and they said we have sinned against the Lord and Samuel judged the sons of Israel at Mizpah.

09:28

Interesting that we have seen in the judges they've been delivered by knives, blades, swords, a tent pen, and a jawbone of a donkey.

09:42

All those things that they use to deliver this for the first time from the time that they've come into the through the time of the judges we're actually seeing them cry out to God in prayer for deliverance.

09:55

God was having through all 450 years.

09:58

What did he have to do? He had to raise up somebody who was a bad judge but God used them for a purpose in time.

10:05

They were a failure most of them in their lives just like God can only have failures to use.

10:12

I mean is anybody in here perfect? So what does God have to use? He has to use sinners and use sinners raise them up to deliver.

10:20

But in this case they actually do what God wanted them to do the whole time which was lament that he had had had departed from them to repent of their sins and then cry out to him and him alone for safety.

10:35

So it says that Samuel judged the sons of Israel at Mizpah in verse 7.

10:42

Now Israel heard the sons of Israel had gathered at Mizpah and the Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.

10:58

So if the was here this would be the Dead Sea again about right here would have been Gilgal and here would have been Jericho just so you kind of know where these places are at and then Shiloh would have been up here this is where it would the the tabernacle was with the Ark of the Covenant at one time and then down here we've got Bethel and Mizpah.

11:50

It says that he went from Samuel judged the Israel at Mizpah.

11:58

So here it would be here is where Samuel's home would have been.

12:08

This will make a little bit more sense when we get to what he does towards the end.

12:13

So it says that the Philistines heard that they had gathered verse 7 they gathered at Mizpah the Lords of the Philistines went up against them.

12:20

So all of the nation of Israel is gathered here they have heard the discourse of Samuel about repent turn to the Lord and he will save you and he will return to you and it's here that the Philistines go okay here's our opportunity we've had 20 years to gather our act together now we're going to get back with some get back for what y'all did to us with the tumors and the mice and all that.

12:44

So in verse 8 then the sons 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.