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

So let's turn to the book of 1st Samuel chapter 7 in this chapter Israel defeats the

Philistines and the chapter also gives us a brief summary of the life in 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 Kierjeth Jerom So once it's there once the

Ark safely arrives as you can imagine because of the 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 2nd

Samuel 6 a man named Uzzah will touch it and He will be struck dead so the

Ark It's 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 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 Kierjeth Jerom 1st

Samuel chapter 7 we'll start by reading verses 1 through 6 then the men of Kierjeth Jerom 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 Kierjeth Jerom 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 Asterisks 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 asterisks and served the

Lord only And Samuel said gather all Israel to Mishpa and I will pray to the

Lord for you So they gathered together at Mishpa 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 Mishpa 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 in 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 that story with Uzza.

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, it was moved If it was moved by a cart

God is gracious because he should be he could be 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 You know, they stick the staves through the the rings and they carry it by hand

That's the way the Ark is supposed to be carried But you know 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 think of it is 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 Something 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 or the bottom line is the Ark is lost

It's gone. It's served its purpose and at this point it doesn't even really matter

Jeremiah the Prophet wrote in Jeremiah 3 16 that I 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 gonna 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 3 16 probably a reference to the Millennium when Christ will be present

So when that happens, nobody is 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 in Scripture It's it's rarely, you know a certainty that you know

It's exactly this amount even even in the Bible it rounds up numbers. I mean 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 around number either way

Something new is happening in the nation. They forgot about God for 20 years, right?

They're in this spiritually backslidden condition Mishandling the Ark it gets put away at Kierjeth Jerom 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 Kierjeth Jerom 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 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 astereth Baal was the male deity of the

Canaanites that Israel adopted the worship of Baal on and off throughout their history Astereth was the female deity and there were many

Baals many different variations and many different variations of astereth 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 and what are the stars telling us? Well, 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 even 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 Remfan so if you and I know this doesn't prove anything, but if you google star of Remfan 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

Remfan Which you worshipped so they worshiped Remfan, you know, they had this star the starry hosts

Baal asterisk 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 Astereth and the

Queen of Heaven and the starry hosts and Molech and Remfan 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 Abandoned 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 or 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, you know, 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, right? In the town where our church is the most popular religious site in the town of Leverett is the

Buddhist peace pagoda where you have a giant golden idol of Buddha and the leaders of Leverett most certainly have more love for that place than any

Bible -believing church Where Jesus is worshipped. It's the same type of thing.

Oh See that's same 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

US 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 Worshipping 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 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 the

Buddhist temple or the well, you know, you need to allow the mosque to be built It'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 1st Samuel chapter 7, 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 gonna defend any deity you're gonna 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 4 so the children of Israel put away the bales and the asterisks 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

The 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 8

You remember what Israel does in the next chapter? Yeah, they demand a king So let's continue reading for Samuel 7 verse 7

Now when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had gathered together at Mizpah 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 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 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 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 2 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 where 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 Or this was more than just thunder which

I tend to think it was more than just 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 ten or times a hundred this doesn't seem to be normal thunder rather God Whether God literally spoke or whatever he did it 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 Car then

Samuel took the stone and set it up between Mishpah and Shen and Called its name

Ebeneezer, which means a stone of remembrance sort of like we would put up a monument Samuel erected this 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 in 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.

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 He said 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 first Samuel chapter 7 closes with these words

But Samuel always returned to Rama For his home was there there.

He judged Israel and there he built an altar to the