Good morning. We are in chapter 12 this morning, or first Samuel, and we are going to read a few verses because it's a long chapter. Read verses 1 to 5 and then verses 13 to 15. So if you're able, would you please stand with me as we read God's holy word. And Samuel said to all Israel, behold that obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you. And now behold the king walks before you and I am old and gray and behold my sons are with you. I have worked before you from my youth until this day. Here I am, testify against me before the Lord and before he's 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, a bribe to blind my eyes with it, testify against me and I will restore it to you. They said, you have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand. And he said to them, the Lord is witness against you and is anointed, is witness this day that you have not found anything in my hand. They said he is witness and in verses 6 to 12, he gives them the history from the Exodus to the Sinai covenant to the time that they went to conquer the land up to this point. And he points them to verses 13 and he says, and now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked, behold the Lord has set a king over you. 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. 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. Now, therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not weathe harvest today? I will call upon the Lord that he may send thunder and rain and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the Lord in asking for yourselves a king. So Samuel called upon the Lord and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord your God that we may not die, but we have added to all our sins this evil to ask for ourselves a king. Samuel said to the people, do not be afraid, you have done all this evil yet do not turn aside from following the Lord but serve the Lord with all your heart and do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver for they are empty. But the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. Marauvers, for me, far be it for me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you and I will instruct you in the good and the right way only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart for consider what great things he has done for you. But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king, the word of the Lord this morning, we pray that you would encourage us Lord as we consider your word would you help us to believe it and having believed it to walk in faith for what you are teaching us. We pray this in your holy name, man, please be seated. You have heard it on the news, you have read it on the newspapers, you probably have experienced it, you probably have met someone who has experienced it, you probably are getting tired of hearing about it, you are probably getting really, really tired of hearing of men of faith, great evangelical leaders that have come and gone, that have failed morally in life and have quit their ministries because of lack of integrity. I have had so many people claim or question the Christian faith because they say why should I believe in God? Why should I take this Christian faith seriously? If all this great and amazing and awesome evangelical leaders are the ones that are failing and they have no integrity, why should I believe in God? Leaders committing adultery and bazzling money, others living ministry and disgrace because of their greed and pride. But the question of people asking why they should or should not believe in God because of integrity aside, what about a question for us when we hear and see and read and experience this story? Whenever I read about someone who is a great evangelical leader that has fallen yet again, I am saddened but I wonder what goes through our mind as we think about these leaders and I wonder this morning a question that I am my post to all of us. Do we ever think that this could actually happen to us? Does it ever remind us of our own secret sins and what we would dare do if our sins this morning, this very moment, were to be exposed for all to see? Does it ever convict you to turn to God in repentance and seeking to move forward right now this very day in new obedience to His Word and to His will? Samuel has gotten to a place where the kingdom is changing, Samuel's role is changing as we've read. This is not a farewell, this is not a goodbye that is giving to the people, it is Samuel's role that is changing for me and being a judge and a priest to being a prophet. And he is confronting the sin of the people. And Samuel decides that the best way for me to do this is by putting a few people on the dark, in the dark as if they are in a court of law. I am going to stand right there and testify or ask you to bring your accusations before me and exonerate myself and we will put God to test and then we will see if you can stand the same test. Remember how chapter 11 ended, it ended with celebrations with a renewal of the kingdom but Samuel knows all too well that people of God have not come to grips with the reality of what they have done by asking for a king to replace him. The people haven't gotten into their heads that their trust is in a monarchy, in an institution, a man-made institution. So Samuel here wants to set the record once and for all to clarify things for his people, for the people of God so that they may know how to move forward because there is no way for them to move forward unless, until they understand what has happened. And so in this formal and legal manner, if you will, he challenges them to renew not the kingdom of Saul but their covenant relationship with the Lord. Like I said, he puts himself in the dark and asked them, bring your accusations before me. Have I exploited anybody? Have I stolen anything from anyone of you? Have I bribe? Have I received bribe from anybody? Have I oppressed any of you instead of serving? You remember in chapter 8, verses 1, 2, 11, that Samuel was told by God to warn the people of what was going to happen if they asked for an earthly king? You remember? He told them, the king will take and take and take and you will serve and you will become his slave. So the people respond. The only way they can respond is with a one word, actually, one phrase, the Lord, he is witness. Why? Because the people have nothing, absolutely nothing against Samuel. You have nothing to say to him. All you can do is only agree with him. And by agreeing that Samuel is here vindicating himself, you're actually inditing yourself by showing you unbelief, that it was your unbelief that has led you to ask for a king to replace Samuel. Having vindicated himself, you can only imagine that as we read, Saul is standing right next to him. And here is Samuel pointing to the people and saying, you see this king that you've elected? This is sin. This was wrong and Saul is just standing there. I can only imagine, I would have just walked away and never looked back. I stand there as a king and yet I'm being told, I am the fruit of a mistake. So Samuel, I set the standards, I told you how to walk faithfully before the Lord. Now here is your king, let's see how he's going to do. See Samuel's ministry was a ministry of example. He stands before the people and this is what he's saying. I am here exposed before you, look at my life and how I've lived before you, testify against me in the presence of God who is my judge and in the presence of my witness who is Saul, the new king that you have elected. He's my integrity before you. I am the same man all the way through. My actions, my motives are integrated into the way, into what I say. Can we stand before brothers and sisters and make the same claim that Samuel makes before his people? Here's a question for me that I was haunting me this whole week as I thought about this particular sermon. As the preacher quench his own thirst and drink what he offers his people to drink, serving God is not a substitute for knowing God, I tell myself you think about that. What is the point in all of this, this is quite a long introduction because it is a long introduction that Samuel gives here in verses 1-2-5 before he gets into the flesh, to the meat of what he's saying. While Samuel is showing his people that he's been a faithful judge, a prophet and priest, that is not really the point. Samuel wants to point God's people into this, into the one God, Yahweh himself was remained faithful to his people through the rebellion. That is the purpose of Samuel. I want to look at verses 6-12. If you have your Bible or the few Bibles, I want to read those verses because we did not read them and just see how he recounts this history. If you have your Bible open for Samuel 12-6 to our read verses 6-12. And Samuel said to the people, the Lord is witness who has appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. 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. When Jacob went into Egypt and the Egyptians oppressed him, 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. But they forgot the Lord God and he sold them into the hand of Cicero, the command of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the King of Mo'hab. And they fought against them and they cried out to the Lord and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served Bels and Asherah. But now deliver us out of the hand of all enemies that we may serve you. And the Lord San Jerubah was Gideon and Barak and Jeffitha and Samuel delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side and you lived in safety. Samuel was not vindicating himself to save his own reputation. Rather Samuel is vindicating himself to show his own trustworthiness, which is actually a preamble of his main concern, which is this. I want to remind you people of God that there is a greater God, one who is faithful. Here's the one that you have offended by asking for a king. He shows them that it was God that called them. It is God that they had appointed as we read Moses and Aaron and Gideon and Barak and Jeffitha and Samuel and all of these people as verses 8 to 11th shows us. But in all these circumstances, in all these instances, that the people rebelled against God, but God never abandoned them. The people must face the reality of what's going on here, that they are rejecting the very order, the very instrument, the very institution that God had chosen to bless them and to provide for them. He wants them to know this, that God was not to blame for all their problems, for all their troubles, for all their oppression. It wasn't God's fault. It is your fault as we read in verses 9, what do they do? They committed their sin by forgetting the Lord, forgetting who he was, and giving their lives to idolatry. Yet God continues to act so righteousnessly towards them. When they cry for help in verses 10 and 11, guess who is out there coming to save them? And again and again, we read in the Old Testament the cycle of sin, God's people sin of oppression, they get into trouble because of their sin, of repentance, they cry out to God because they realize what they have done. And then God sends them the judges, the period of judges, and he provides deliverance. And so often, this is how God preserves people through this cycle, sin, oppression, repentance, judges, and all of these things. Samuel wants them to know this. I want you to consider the wonderful things that the Lord has done for you in the past, for your four fathers that is able to do that for you as well. What have you done by asking for a king? You have trusted in yourself, you have trusted in a man, in your own stupidity. You're exchanging the great and awesome God for a good-looking man, Mr. Israel himself, in your own blindness and insanity, you're putting your trust in an institution and not in God. Samuel is saying, remember God's faithfulness towards you in verses 70 says, I want to plead. Let me plead before you, before the presence of God concerning all the righteous deeds that I have done and we ask ourselves, what are the righteous deeds that God has done for this people? It is this. You have the saving acts of God in history, God's rescue, God's deliverance wants to show them that the Lord has never forsaken you not once, that over and over and over again and again, God has always come to you a rescue. He has saved you and then he gives them an ultimatum. What is the ultimatum? If you fear the Lord and serve Him, it will be well. Both you and your King must fear the Lord in order to succeed. You must repent your wickedness. A rejection of God, if you do not submit to Him and to His rule, the alternative is disaster. It is what Amos the Prophet sees and talks about in Amos, chapter 8 verses 2, it is this, disobedience will lead to complete rejection of your whole nation. disobedience will lead to the end of your history. This will be your end right now unless you turn back to God. It is giving people a choice as He tells them in Deuteronomy, choose life or death to a choice. Obedience leads to blessings, disobedience leads to death. They don't have a choice though. You know why they don't have a choice? Because like we said it was God that chose them, right? Out of His goodness and love for them, God chose these people and He said, You are mine. And what that means is this, that God's hand would always be upon them. Remember, you as you sit here this morning, that God's hand will always be upon you. You have no choice. The choice you have is this. You can either have God's hand to be upon you for His blessings through faith and repentance or you can have your hand be His hand be upon you for His unpleasant discipline. It's your choice. Until the question I asked all of us this morning is this, Have you ever made an unwise decision in your life? Don't raise your hand. Have you ever committed sin in your life? Have you ever made bad mistakes? Do you feel like a wreck? If you don't think you have, I bet you will. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we commit sin, sometimes we make unwise decisions that we cannot go back and write the wrong, that we cannot correct. We buy a house with no money. Some people feel like they're caught up in bad marriages. Some people feel like they had children when they were not supposed to have children. We make bad investments where we lose everything that we had. We fail. Warren. We commit great and grievous sins before God. What is Samuel telling the people after they've committed this great sin to do? He's telling them this. There is only one thing you can do when you have committed sin before the Lord, and you have made a mistake before the Lord. The only thing that you can do to rescue yourself is this, turn to God precisely where you are. Samuel yourself before him and his word and begin now, not tomorrow. Begin walking within faithfully, because here's the message, God's grace will be with you even in the most difficult and uncertain circumstances. You know why? Because there is no situation. There is no problem. No mistake that cannot be blessed by God's great mercy and help. But we must turn to him in sincere faith and humble ourselves and renew our commitment before him and his word. The only way is this, repentance, faith, and new obedience. It is the way to move forward. There is no other way. You know what God's people are here when they were asking for a king, what were they saying? They were saying we want the king that's going to fly to a battle, someone to protect us from our enemies. They forgot that the one person that was supposed to fear was God himself, not their enemies. What does Matthew tell us in 1028, and do not fear those who killed the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. That is who you're supposed to be fear. We talked about history. I just read verses 6 to 11 about the history. What difference does it make? Why do we care about history? Why should we care about the history that God is giving to His people here? That He's been faithful, that He's remained faithful. Why does it matter to them? It's extremely important. Do you know why? Do the people of God are hearing Sam, you speak, what are they doing in Gideon's time? What are they there when Moses was rescuing people from the land of Egypt? What are they there? No. Do you know why they're there? They are there because God was faithful to their four fathers. Do you think we would be here if God had not been faithful to Israel? Do you think we would be here if God had never been faithful to the church to the saints of God that have gone on before us throughout history? We would not be here. History is important and God is reminding them to know that they are beneficiaries of faithful saints who are preserved by God throughout history. That the way we live now matters, that your faith, the way you live your life right now matters before God, because it testifies to us of the faithfulness of God a promise that we can definitely cling to, that He is the Lord of history. And because of that, we have a great promise in Him. The second point that is also related, as I'm losing my voice, that is related to this is the same, that He promises that I've been faithful to you through history in the past, but that doesn't change that God continues to be faithful to you now and forever. We see that from verses 15, 16 and all the way to the end. And so in the midst of this convicting message, Samu is offering a great hope for them. He says in verses 16, now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. And His God displaying His majesty, His power, His glory by performing this miracle of a thunder. The miracle is meant to show this one thing. I wanted to see what a grievous sin that you've committed before the Lord so that you may turn to Him in repentance. You know, it's symbolic. What does thunder and rain do, especially at a time of harvest? Do you need rain when you're about to harvest? You need it to be dry, nice and dry. What is telling them this? This is a sign of the sin that you've committed, but I can destroy. And I do not, I'm a God who is holy and I can destroy the wicked. But though you are wicked, He's telling the least great hope, great hope for you. What a strange kingdom renew, or that we see here, as the people are being convicted of their sin. And yet God is saying, I'm going to continue to be faithful to you. So I'm going to continue to demonstrate my faithfulness to you. And then the people get afraid in their life, why don't you pray for us? Please pray for us that we may not die. We do not want to die. And then Samuel says, do not be afraid. What a strange thing. Samuel, what are you talking about? You're telling us not to be afraid. You just called upon the Lord to bring this thunder and this rain, to show us of the great sin that we've committed. And now you're telling us not to be afraid. You must be out of your mind. Why should we not be afraid after foolishly turning to empty promises? Look at verses 20, and what a great promise Samuel gives to his people. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. See, the Lord's willingness to forgive us and to restore us to a covenant relationship is not about us. Not about what we can do, or what we're able to do. It's based on God's faithful character. It is because of his name's sake, that he relents and forgives us to your failures, anything that you think that you've done in your life, any mistake that you think you've committed before the Lord, anything that you think you've done that is not right, it is incorporated in God's great plan for your life. And God overcomes the people's failures, and he's actually able to turn those failures into a means, a means of salvation. God gives us second chances, gives us a new start. The God is telling His people, I am going to recommit myself to you, time and time after you fail, I'll fix it. As Isaiah says, I have called you mine, I have called you by name, you are mine, but you know we struggle with that. We struggle in hearing about what God says, I've done all these things in my own plans, and I control all things, and yet I hold you accountable. We struggle with the old question and theological question of God's sovereignty and the human responsibility. Because it doesn't fit nicely in our own minds, I don't get it. Sometimes I think I do in my own mind, but my heart refuses to accept it. But we're supposed to deny one or the other, and we're supposed to minimize one, just so that we might comprehend what God's sovereignty and all responsibility is all about. I don't think that's what this passage is teaching us. I think we're supposed to understand that God's good purposes would not be destroyed, not even by Israel's wickedness. Man, how great is that? There's nothing that you can do to afford the plans of God and His purposes, that He somehow, because He loved them and called them by name, because they belonged to Him, God would bring them to repentance, that they would come to fear Him, that their ultimate future relied on something greater, something better, something much bigger than they could ever imagine. It relies on something that's utterly reliable on the gracious will of God to make them a people for himself. What a fickle and undependable people are the Israelites. What a fickle and undependable people we are. Yet God continues in His mercy to give them grace, to forgive them time and time again. This was not the first time God's people were sinned, it would not be even the last time that they would do so. They would continue to do so, and yet God's unmerited grace towards them, to end undeserving people, would continue to be shown to them. I think we must wonder, at what point does God get tired with these people and say, enough, we are done. I'm not going to forgive you anymore, I will never look at you anymore, I will never hear your prayers anymore. My grace is exhausted, my mercy is exhausted, I cannot be gracious to you anymore, there is no limit to God's mercy, there is no limits to God's grace, because His grace is what acts in convincing, convincing, convincing and uncovering our hidden sin. Do you know that one man that God says in Scripture, he was a man after God's own heart? Do you know that man? I don't even want to say his name, you know why? He was a butterer, he was a liar, he was a thief, he was an adulterer, and yet God would say, you are a man after my own heart, but you know what David did? His sin was convicted, he realized what he had died, we have a Psalm, Psalm 51 that tells us of his conviction. Because God's grace goes beyond simply for giving our actions and other things that we have done. Did you hear that? God's grace goes beyond simply for giving our sins, it does more than that. God's grace transforms and remakes us, Titus 11 to 15 is the best summary of the gospel of Jesus Christ, of a grace that appears bringing salvation to us and yet transforms us into Godly people. Do you see what God does here? He transforms the new arrangement, an institution that was supposed to be sinful, into an instrument of God's grace. He uses the demand for a king, for a national king, to bring about the Savior, paving the way for David, who is going to replace Saul as the king, and guess who comes after David? David's greatest son, Jesus Christ himself. God's church in the hands of God, even our failures and our sins, tragic sins sometimes and bad choices can be completely remade into something new and redemptive. And I have one perfect example for you. God himself killed his son on the cross, Jesus was killed on the cross because of his sin. If God can use such a torturous and sinful incidents to bring redemption to our life, how much more confidence should we have in his sovereign grace and mercy towards us? That our meager service, no matter how flawed, can become a mighty ocean of love and grace in the hands of God. There's a future for you if you repent. There's hope for us who turned before the Lord. There's a hope for us if we put our confidence in him, no matter how much we failed. Do you feel like you've made mistakes in the past? Do you feel like you've failed your children? Do you feel like you've failed your church? Do you feel like you've failed your husband, your mother, your father, your wife, to actually reminding us, put your confidence in God, not you, not in yourself, but in God's faithfulness. Because you know why he adopted you to be his child. He made you his own. You belong to him. But he's something that you need to consider. You've got to do it now, you've got to do it today. That's what he's saying, that now is the day of salvation. That's what Samuel is saying, consider his salvation even though you have been sinful, even though you have failed, if you dare continue in your wickedness, you and your king, you will be swept away versus 24, 25. Again, sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? Sounds a little contradicting, Samuel, you're telling us all is going to be well? It's all good. We're good to go. And then you're telling us, but wait, you might be swept away. I don't think it's contradiction. This is what I think Samuel is saying, Samuel is saying this, that God will not forsake you. He will not forsake his people. He will preserve them. He will preserve those who belong to him. But remember, whose reputation is in question here? It is God's. The question is, are you going to be part of God's promise? He never promised that every single Jew will be saved. He never promised that everybody will be saved. But he has promised that all who come to him, he will not turn them away, and he won't save him. So the question is on us, again, the big question about God's sovereignty and all human responsibility. But the question is this, will you forsake the Lord and go another direction? Because he will not forsake you. As I mentioned, this is Samuel's role being changed, and we see him yet not giving up on his people, on the people of Israel. He says he continues to pray for them, to instruct them. He's a perfect priest. He's a perfect child. He's a perfect king, which is the kingdom that we find in Christ Jesus, isn't it? So the question for us is, so how do we move on from here? I have mentioned my grandfather before to you. I've mentioned that my grandfather was still his, he's alive, he's 97 years old. He will go down in history as a great man who helped found the Presbyterian church in Kenya. There's one thing I never told you about my grandfather. My grandfather failed. My grandfather failed. I never thought that I would have a relationship with him. For being a pastor for so many years, he committed a grievous sin. Years went by, but God got a hold of his heart. One of my father calling all of us and telling us that my grandfather had confessed his sin. He cried like a baby in front of all his children and his friends. He confessed his sin and they forgave him. I forgave him. My relationship with my grandfather is now much better than we ever want, because he saw his sin. He was given the tools to move forward, but he had to come into a place of repentance, with confession. That's how we move forward as a church. That's how we move forward because we have been given God's grace. We have been given the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of Christ who is the perfect priest, prophet and king. We are reminded that God is a gracious God who forgives us when we confess our sins, but you know what Satan does to us? When we think of our sin, he reminds us of what we have done and he tells us it's all over. He tells us that all is lost, that there is no way back for us, that we have totally and completely ruined our lives and there is no reason to turn to the Lord. But God is here giving us hope. He's giving his people hope and giving us hope when we have sinned. Because as John tells us if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all our righteousness. Remember Samuel? Samuel was just a man like you. When he needed someone, he needed a better Savior, a better king to stand before him, before and be a mediator before him, before Heavenly Father. And that mediator for us is the great high priest. He's the one who never grows old. He never grows fever. He's not fickle. He's not undependable. His kingdom is forever. It is permanent. And we can move forward trusting that he is able to forgive us, but we must do something. We must pursue him. When we fall short, we must admit what we have done. We must never let guilt or regret stop us from ever moving forward because that's what Christ accomplished on our behalf on the cross of Christ. And He says to you this morning, I have been faithful. I am faithful and I will forever be faithful to you and you can rest on that promise that I will never leave you, you are forsaken. Do you rest on that promise today? I hope you do. Pray with me. Lo, we thank you that you've given us your word that reminds us that you have been faithful to us, that you continue to be faithful to us, though we are sinful, though we fall, though we sin before you. And Lord, if we confess or sins, that you are faithful and just to forgive us. So do you help us to bring all of our sins before you this morning to help us to rest upon this promise that you are faithful to us? Pray this in Christ's name, amen.