1 Samuel 7 (Samuel Judges Israel / God's People Must Turn from Idols)

Samuel’s Ministry and Israel’s Need to Turn from Idols

So, let's turn to the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 7. In this chapter, Israel defeats the Philistines, and the chapter also gives us a brief summary of the life and ministry of Samuel, who was not just a prophet, he was Israel's judge.

But first, and he was the last judge, by the way, we'll get into that in a second. But first, picking up the story from last time, you remember the Ark of the Covenant was captured, it was in the hands of the Philistines, then because of the plagues the Lord brought upon them, they sent it away to the Levite city of Beth Shemesh.

We looked at this last time. But because the men of Beth Shemesh looked into the Ark, which they were not allowed to do, they were struck, the Bible says, with a great slaughter. So now, the Ark will be moved, and it will come to rest at a place called Kirjeth Jerim.

So once it's there, once the Ark safely arrives, as you can imagine, because of the path of death and destruction that it's left with the Philistines and the men of Beth Shemesh, now nobody wants to move it again.

Okay, we got it here safely, it's in place, let's just leave it there. Don't touch it, because anytime we move the Ark or touch the Ark or do anything with the Ark, it seems like bad things happen. And all of this, it really gets across the message that God must be regarded as holy.

So the Ark has already been removed from the tabernacle where it belongs, I mean, that's the first problem. Then it was captured by the Philistines, they tried putting it in the temple of their false God, Dagon, that was a bad idea.

Then as I said, the men of Beth Shemesh, who are Israelites, they had the Ark, they looked.

Into it.

So it's just one catastrophe after another. And even when it gets moved again, you know, jump ahead 40, 50, 70 years, when it gets moved again, when King David will call for it many years in the future.

You remember when David has it moved in 2 Samuel 6, a man named Uzzah will touch it and he will be struck dead. So the Ark, it's something that to mess around with the Ark, to not handle the Ark properly.

We said the application past couple studies. It's like tampering with the gospel. God has a zero tolerance policy. So let's pick up the story. The Ark is being moved to Kirjath-Jerim. 1 Samuel chapter 7, we'll start by reading verses 1 through 6.

Then the men of Kirjath-Jerim came and took the Ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eliezer his son to keep the Ark of the Lord. So it was that the Ark remained in Kirjath-Jerim a long time and it was there 20 years and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord.

Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel saying, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the astreths from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only.

And he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. So the children of Israel put away the bales and the astreths and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you.

So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water and poured it out before the Lord. And they fasted that day and said there that we have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the children of Israel at Mizpah.

The Ark as a Symbol of Christ and the Corruption of the Gospel

Okay, so considering again, how the Ark has been treated up until this point, it kind of shows you the spiritual state of the nation. And I've been trying to make this point in previous studies that the Ark, again, is symbolic for the ministry of Christ.

So we could look at maybe how the gospel is treated today. So how Israel treated the Ark, it reflects the spiritual condition of the nation and how we, I say we, as you know, all professing Christians, how we treat the gospel kind of reflects upon the spiritual state of the church.

And even if you don't promote this, what's happening right now? You have the gospel being corrupted.

How?

You have the prosperity gospel. You have the social gospel. The social gospel, you know, just think of socialism. It's really not much of a difference. And then you have people who just deny the gospel or redefine it and what they're teaching is a form of universalism where everyone's a child of God and everyone is saved no matter.

What.

So you can sort of tell the spiritual condition of the church based on how we're treating the gospel, just like the spiritual condition of Israel, how they were treating the Ark. And either way, it's not good.

So notice how they transported the Ark from Beth Shemesh to Kierjeth Jerom. How did they transport it? Well, we know how the Philistines transported it. They put it on like an ox cart and presumably they did the same thing here because jumping ahead to that story with Uzzah, that's what they did there.

That's what David did. Here's the thing. The Ark is not supposed to be transported by a cart. Yeah, they did it several times. However, if it was moved by a cart, God is gracious because he could say what God should do, but he could judge the people for mishandling it that way.

It's supposed to be carried by the Levites. They stick the staves through the rings and they carry it by hand. That's the way the Ark is supposed to be carried. But these days we're reading that they just put it on an ox cart and they send it on its.

Way.

So however they moved it, probably the wrong way because that's what happens again and.

Again.

But it finally comes to this place, Kierjeth Jerom. It says that it ended up in the house of Abinadab, presumably a prominent Levite. It says he lived on the hill. So he probably owned something like an estate.

It says that he consecrated his son to watch over the Ark. The word consecrate, you know, think of it as a ceremony. It's like setting someone apart for a sacred task, much like a pastor is ordained for the sacred task of the gospel ministry.

So this man, Eliezer, the son of Abinadab, was appointed to watch over the Ark and make sure that it was cared for. Just as a side note, because this whole story and talking, we've been talking about the Ark of the Covenant a lot lately.

One question people often wonder, what happened to the Ark? Where is the Ark today? And of course, the short answer is nobody knows. There's several theories. We know that it disappeared around the time of the Babylonian captivity.

So that's around 586. The Ark disappears. Some think that the prophet Jeremiah hid it away. That's one popular theory. Others think that the Babylonians probably got it and destroyed it, melted down the gold,.

Whatever.

Of course, Hollywood says it's sitting in a government warehouse somewhere after Indiana Jones found it. Pretty sure that's not the case. I think there's a monastery in Ethiopia that claims to have it.

And I've even heard people theorize that God took it up into heaven. The bottom line is the Ark is lost.

It's gone.

It served its purpose. And at this point, it doesn't even really matter. Jeremiah the prophet wrote in Jeremiah 316, that it shall come to pass when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord.

So this is God's word about the Ark, that they will say no more. The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and that it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be any more.

So God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah and said, you know, the day is coming when the Ark isn't going to be around and everyone's going to forget all about it. Some say that that happened after the Jews returned from their captivity.

Certainly, certainly the Ark wasn't present at that point. But that verse, Jeremiah 316, probably a reference to the millennium when Christ will be present. So when that happens, nobody's going to miss the Ark.

Why?

Because the Ark is the symbol of the Lord's presence. So when the Lord is actually there, nobody's going to desire the symbol when they have the real thing. So back to the story, the Ark is resting safely in the house of Abinadab.

Verse 2 says it remained there a long time. And then it says 20 years. And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. So a few things, if you pay attention to detail and remember at the close of our last study, I had said that based on the biblical timeline, that from the time the Ark was brought here to Kirjath-Jerim, from that time to the time that David called for it to be brought to Jerusalem, it was about 70 years.

But here, it makes it sound like it's only 20 years. So just to quickly explain this, anytime you give dates, anytime scholars estimate dates and periods of time, the past and scripture, it's rarely a certainty that it's exactly this amount.

Even in the Bible, it rounds up numbers. People do this all the time. So I've read that it was a period of 46 years. Some scholars say 50 years, some 70 years. So what's the statement about 20 years? The 20 year number is likely the time period when the Ark was forgotten about.

So it was put away in this man's house and people forgot about it for 20 years. Then came the time of Reformation where because of Samuel's preaching, then people began to lament and turn back to God.

So it was 20 years forgotten about, and then maybe 46 or 50 years after that, equaling about 70. And again, that's sort of a round number. Either way, something new is happening in the nation. They forgot about God for 20 years.

They're in this spiritually backslidden condition, mishandling the Ark. It gets put away at Kirjath-Jerim for 20 years. People forget all about it. Then there's like a revival through the preaching of Samuel.

Now people are lamenting and they want to turn back to God. If you remember our study of the book of Judges, there is this cycle, right? Israel is faithful. Then they get complacent. They turn away from the Lord.

The Lord sends adversity, and that's what's happening here with the Philistines. Their enemies afflict them, so they cry out to God. He sends a judge to deliver them. Of course, Samuel is the judge here.

And then the judge restores the nation to a godly state. Things are good again, and then history just repeats itself. And that's something like what's happening here. Israel is worshiping false gods. This time period, at least the 20 years where they forgot about the Lord, probably longer.

Israel is worshiping Baal, right? In fact, the city of Kirjath-Jerim is known for its worship of Baal. And because of this, the Lord allowed the Philistines to defeat Israel. The Philistines are afflicting Israel, but now Samuel begins to speak to the nation.

He goes from place to place on a circuit, preaching. And he says to the people, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then and only then will God deliver you from the hand of the Philistines.

Turning to the Lord with All Your Heart

Now we have to ask the question, what does it look like to turn to the Lord with all your heart? This isn't just a feeling, you know, like I just feel really strongly about this. That's not what it is.

Not to say that feelings aren't involved, but there's a specific request. And that is you need to stop worshiping the false gods. So to turn to the Lord with all your heart specifically means stop worshiping Baal, stop worshiping Ashtoreth.

Baal was the male deity of the Canaanites that Israel adopted the worship of Baal on and off throughout their history. Ashtoreth was the female deity. And there were many Baals, many different variations and many different variations of Ashtoreth.

Another variation, this is mentioned a few times in the Bible, it says that Israel would worship the starry hosts. I think of people today who are into astrology and they base their life around the constellations.

What are the stars telling us? That's the same type of thing. Israel would worship the starry hosts. Also the queen of heaven. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest that what we call the star of David might actually be tied into this false system of idolatry.

In the book of Acts, Stephen, before he was stoned, he rebuked the Jewish leaders and he reminded them how God turned and gave Israel up to worship the hosts of heaven. And Stephen says, you also took up the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your God, Ramphan.

So if you, and I know this doesn't prove anything, but if you Google star of Ramphan, guess what comes up? Yeah, the star of David, because the star of David is not mentioned in the Bible. So it's something extra biblical outside of the Bible.

And yeah, this is what Stephen said. You made images of your star, Ramphan, which you worshiped. So they worshiped Ramphan. You know, they have this star, the starry hosts, Baal, Asteros, the queen of heaven.

Queen of heaven is a Babylonian deity. Of course, today the Roman Catholic church has renamed Mary as the queen of heaven. This of course, Catholicism and I, you know, I mean this with all due respect because people need to know the truth.

Catholicism is a blending of paganism with Christianity where they're worshiping or they call it venerating the queen of heaven. So they're worshiping Jesus and venerating the queen of heaven. It's blending it all together and that's what Israel did.

They worshiped Jehovah, but they also worshiped Baal and Asteros and the queen of heaven and the starry hosts and Molech and Ramphan and everything else. And this is important because I think a lot of people don't realize this.

Contrary to popular belief, Israel didn't necessarily abandon the worship of Jehovah. Just because they worship Baal, it doesn't mean that they forgot all about the Lord. But here's the thing. God is a jealous God.

He says, you need to worship me and me only. And that's what Samuel was talking about. You need to turn to the Lord with your whole heart. Stop worshiping, stop venerating, whatever you want to call it.

Stop giving attention to all these false deities. There is no queen of heaven. So Israel did not necessarily abandon the worship of Jehovah. They just added all these other deities. So now they're praying to all these other entities.

But here's the thing. Over time, those other deities eventually took precedent. It's sort of like how in our country, we say one nation under God, and we all know that originally meant the Christian God.

But today we allow and promote, at least Americans, promote the worship of all sorts of other.

Deities.

In the town where our church is, the most popular religious site in the town of Leveret is the Buddhist Peace Pagoda, where you have a giant golden idol of Buddha. And the leaders of Leveret most certainly have more love for that place than any Bible-believing church where Jesus is worshiped.

It's the same type of thing. Oh, well, we still respect the Lord too, but we also, we really love Buddha though. See that same type of thing. I heard a prominent Southern Baptist leader, a man named Russell Moore, extolling the virtues of how wonderful it is and how he defended the building of Islamic mosques all over the U .S.

And he vigorously defends their right to build these temples to this false deity. It's like, hello? So my point is there's nothing new under the sun. What they did in Israel and allowing and worshiping and then allowing these false gods to take precedent.

I mean, that is happening right here, right now in this country. And it's like, we're blind to it or we just accept it as like, oh, well, you know, that's the way it is. Now, obviously the most important thing is that you don't take part in this, but it's hard for that type of thing not to affect us.

And sometimes it affects us and we're not even aware of it. And then something comes out of our mouth where we're defending the Buddhist temple or the, well, you know, you need to allow the mosque to be built.

Well, that's like, well, we don't really have control over it, but why would you as a Christian defend that? It makes no sense. So nothing new under the sun. So here in 1 Samuel chapter seven, here's what the Lord wants.

And he still wants this, by the way, the Lord wants his people to worship him and him alone. If you're going to defend any deity, you're going to defend the Lord, him and him alone. That's what God wants.

And of course I realize this is a personal decision that every person needs to make for themselves, but this is why this stuff needs to be addressed because the nonsense that was happening back then is still here.

It's still alive today. There's only one true God. And if you want him to bless you, and if you want him to bless the nation, we need to worship him and him only. And that's what Samuel did. That's what Samuel's message was.

Worship the Lord with all your heart. Turn to him and to him alone. That is the message Samuel preached. Verse four, so the children of Israel put away the bales and the ashtoreths and served the Lord only.

Praise God. Then a ceremony is held and the water being poured out, it represents their repentance. Just like when a Christian is baptized, right? The water is symbolic of several things. The washing away of sin, being baptized into Christ's death.

These types of things are important to have something visible or physical to represent that which is spiritual. Something that you can see, that picture is something that you can't see. So the people fasted and they said, we have sinned against the Lord.

They confessed their sin. And then it says that Samuel judged the children of Israel at misput. So here we get that statement that Samuel was not just a prophet. He was Israel's judge. Who is the previous judge of Israel?

Well, it was Eli. So after Eli died, at some point Samuel, Samuel became the next judge. And Samuel is the final judge of Israel. Since in the next chapter, first Samuel chapter eight, you remember what Israel does in the next chapter?

Yeah.

They demand a king. So let's continue reading first Samuel seven, verse seven. Now, when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at misput, the Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.

And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. So the children of Israel sent 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.

And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him. Now, as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day.

So, and it's so confused them that they were overcome before Israel. One commentator says this in literal manner, the Lord did to his enemies. What was said by Hannah in her prayer in chapter two, verse 10, what did Hannah pray?

She prayed to the Lord and she said, the adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces.

How?

Because from heaven, he will thunder against them. So we don't call this a prophecy by Hannah, but she prayed. Hannah prayed this would happen and it came to pass. The Hebrew, this is really interesting.

The Hebrew word translated thunder is also translated elsewhere, commonly translated as voice. So thunder is either being used as a metaphor for the voice of God, or this was more than just thunder, which I tend to think it was more than just a thunder.

Think for a moment. It's been a while since I've seen a thunderstorm like this, but the, when it's right overhead, think of the loudest crackling thunder you've ever heard, right? You can feel it inside of you.

It can shake your house and it's can be quite frightening. So this doesn't appear to be normal thunder. You know, think of that, the loudest thunder you've ever heard times 10 or times a hundred. This doesn't seem to be normal thunder rather God, whether God literally spoke or whatever he did, it's so shook the Philistines that they could barely fight.

They were rattled to their core and Israel because of that defeated them. So what's God doing again? We've seen God do this back in the book of Exodus, right? The Lord once again is fighting for his people, Israel.

Verse 11, and the men of Israel went out of Mishpah and pursued the Philistines and drove them back as far as below Beth-char. Then Samuel took the stone and set it up between Mishpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer, which means a stone of remembrance, sort of like we would put up a monument.

Samuel erected the stone and he said, thus far, the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come anymore into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

Then the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Ekron to Gath and Israel recovered its territory from the hands of the Philistines. And also there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

You see what happens when God's people turn to him and worship only him. They defeat their enemies and there is peace. Verse 15, it says, and Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. And he went from year to year on a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal and Mishpah and judged Israel in all those places.

The Final Judge of Israel and the Call to Examine Ourselves

So before we close, let's not forget how this story began a few chapters earlier. Eli's two sons, remember they took the ark out of the tabernacle. They tried to use it something like a good luck charm.

The thinking went, if we have the ark with us, then we have God with us. And we can't lose. And yet they did lose. This time the ark is safely hidden away. It is not with them. But this time God is. So as important as the ark was, what's most important in regards to the people, what's most important for them, and it's still what's most important for you, is your heart right before God.

Are you fully trusting in him? Have you put away your idols? Is your heart for the Lord and for him only? That's the question. So the takeaway for us, we need to examine ourselves and make sure we are not guilty of what Israel was guilty of.

Within broader Christianity, this is happening. So we need a voice like Samuel to call to the people, turn to the Lord with all your heart. You say, pastor, I don't think there are these idols today. I don't think that's true.

Well, are there professing Christians today who bow down to statues and pray to them? Yes, they're called Roman Catholics. And again, I say that with all due respect. And if you love someone, you need to tell them the truth.

And that is something people should stop doing. Another form of idolatry. We have what? The Lord's Day. Sunday. Is church being neglected? Is the worship of the Lord being neglected by Christians so they can spend their time focusing on something other than God?

Whatever you put ahead of God is an idol. That's happening as well. I'm recording this as of June 2023. So this is June 2023, where we see the new false religion of pride. Right where even so-called churches are ignoring Christ as they wave the rainbow banner of idolatry.

It's idolatry just in a new form. Honestly, think about it for a moment. What if Samuel saw all of this? The banners, the graven images, people bowing to them, people putting recreation and other things ahead of the worship of God.

What do you think Samuel would say if he was here? I think I know what he would say. He would say, turn back to the Lord. Worship the Lord with your whole heart. So I encourage you to think and pray on these things.

1 Samuel chapter 7 closes with these words, but Samuel always returned to Ramah for his home was there. There he judged Israel and there he built an altar to the Lord.