Talk—Marc Debu
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What I would like to do is.
Can I get some practical lessons from First Samuel Chapter 7? So if you're going to turn there to First Samuel Chapter 7. But before I start there, I'm going to give a little setting here. You know, in the early chapters of the book of Samuel, we learn a little bit about the House of Eli and his two wicked sons. And then Simon comes on the scene. And what happens in the chapters before this, there's the war with the Philistines.
And the people are not in a good state. Israel is not in a good state.
But they think if they get the arc into the camp, then for sure they will win the battle. But it doesn't go that way because people's heart is not with the Lord and the Lord wants reality in our hearts. And so the art gets taken by the Philistines, get put into the temple of their idols. But you know, God is sovereign. And we see how the idols are just dumb idols, powerless idols and they fall over and so on. And the Philistines that we need to get this out of the.
And so they send the arc back to the people of Israel. But what's interesting is that the people of Israel really hadn't even asked for it back. And it tells us in the first few verses here that the ark is put in the House of Abinadab, and somebody has sanctified his son for the ark of the Lord. And then it says that 20 years long the ark was in the house.
And finally, there starts to be an exercise in Israel to bring the ark back into their midst. And what I would like to do from the lessons we get in this chapter to kind of make them personal. You know, the Lord gives us these stories in the Old Testament that are, you know, very interesting stories in themselves, but we can apply them in our lives both individually and as assemblies collectively.
So here I think we get a picture here it's a nation, but we can take it personally to of a person, you might say.
Who belongs to the Lord? These were God's people, Israel.
But for a long time, their heart was far from God. But what's interesting is we have a nature, a new nature, that cannot be satisfied unless there's some type of communion with the Lord. And so sometimes there might be times in our lives where we're not close to the Lord, but we'll feel that. And here it took 20 years for the nation of Israel to feel their loss, of not having the ark in their midst. And so they want the ark of the Lord back. And they turn to Samuel.
Very faithful man. And Samuel shows him what to do. And the first thing they need to do is they need to get rid of some things in their lives before the earth can be brought back. And so often we'll find too, that if we're not close to the Lord, we start allowing things in our lives that are adding to a distance from God, that are hindering or commune with the Lord or hindering coming back. And so Samuel say, put out the idols. That's the first thing you have to get rid of.
Which is country to the will of God. And so they do that. And then in verse six, it says they gather together and Miss Ben will talk a little bit about Miss pay at the end. But they do certain things and I think it's very good for us to meditate on these things. The first thing they do is they draw water and they poured it out before the Lord. And I think that it's it's it's a picture of kind of showing their own weakness.
Now usually when we're not doing well and we're not close to the Lord, it's because we're self confident, we trust in ourselves, we can do this.
But they realize they can't do it. Things were not going well and so they realized we need to confess before the Lord.
That we have no strength in ourselves. You know, during this time the Philistines were ruling over them and then they do the second thing and it says that they faster than that day. You know, if you want to return to the Lord, we can't keep feeding the flesh because that's usually what gets us.
In, you know, away from the Lord. In the 1St place, if we allow the flesh within us to act, it will desire things to come in our lives that hinder us from having communion with the Lord.
And then they do one more thing. They say we have sinned against the Lord. They confess their sin. And that's vital if you want to be restored to communion with the Lord. And the beautiful thing is, no matter how far we have gone from the Lord or how many times that has happened, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. And that's forgiveness in the sense of being restored to communion. Why can He do that?
Because there's the blood of Christ. There's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:05:03
And no matter how far we have gone out of communion from God.
Because of what the Lord Jesus did, God can bring us back in communion. So it's beautiful. But then.
What happens next is very difficult. So we might say there's a work going on here amongst the people that might be work going on in individuals of Restoration and it says in verse.
A No in verse seven. And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to miss thee, the Lords of the Philistines went up against Israel.
As long as you're far away from the Lord and not doing His will, the enemy is going to leave you alone.
Because that's exactly where he wants you. The enemy knows very well that if you truly belong to God, he cannot do anything about your salvation. He can't do anything about that. And that gives us peace and security. But the best he can do is to have you as a Christian walk far from God and not walk for the glory of God. And so it seems like those 20 years, we don't have any record of the Philistines coming.
Up against the people of Israel. But as soon as there's this work of restoration going on, the Philistines come up and right away it's like they're being tested. They're putting their trust in the Lord. Now, what are you going to do? And so if there's one here that you know, might look at themselves and just because of what we heard in these past two days, said, yeah, I'm farther away from the Lord that I should be. I want to walk closer with the Lord, expect the enemy.
To immediately come up and try to hinder that work of restoration. But we don't need to despair.
They turn to the Lord, they travel, they ask Sano to pray for them. Samuel offers up a sacrifice and what happens? Verse 10 the Philistines do near to battle against Israel that the Lord thundered with a great Thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomforted them and they were smitten before Israel. How wonderful is that? They didn't even go out to battle. The Lord took care.
Of you might say, Satan the enemy, trying to hinder that work of restoration.
And you'll find the same in your lives. Yes, the enemy will rise up and will try to say, hey, it's not worth it to go back to the Lord. It's not worth it. Do what you, what you were doing, you were kind of comfortable there, but it is worth it and the Lord will take care of you. And then let's read when verse 12, it says Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mispy and Shan. You know when you read in the Old Testament of a stone or a heap of stones or a pillar or something like that.
It's a reminder, it's so that people could look back at that and say remember what the Lord has done for you. You see that several times, quite a number of times in the history of the people of Israel and even before that, you know, with Jacob and so on that they would put something there to remember. And that's good for us too. Every time we go through life and there's difficulty and the Lord shows that he's at our side and he helps us. Let's not forget about that because if we remember that the next time a difficult.
Life comes, we can have that experience and say, you know what, this looks very hard. This looks terrifying sometimes the trials that come in our lives. But I know because I've experienced it not once, but probably many times as you grow older. The Lord is very capable and he's very willing to help. And so there was this reminder for the people of Israel here. The Lord took care of the Philistines. You didn't go out to battle. It's very interesting because you go back a few chapters.
They go out to battle and there's complete defeat here. They don't even go out to battle and there's complete victory. So when we trust in the Lord, that's what will happen in our lives. And then in verse 13, so the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel.
From Ikron even to gas.
And the coast thereof did Israel deliver out of the hands of the Philistines? Isn't that beautiful? You know, people of Israel, God, God's people, they were an earthly people. And so their inheritance was the land that was promised to them. And now when they trust in the Lord, they get more of that inheritance back to enjoy. Our inheritance is not a piece of land. Our inheritance is our spiritual blessings that we have.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we walk with the Lord and trust in the Lord, we'll be able to enjoy those things because when we're not walking with the Lord, we don't enjoy the fact that we're sons. We don't enjoy the fact that we're justified. And there's many more spiritual blessings like that. The one who walk with the Lord, those things mean something every day to us. And so it's beautiful to see that here in the picture, the Lord gives them the victory and as a result, they enjoy more of their inheritance. And it can be the same for us.
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But I didn't read the last few words of that verse, and I'm going to say until a few months ago, and I read this story many times. I always kind of read over that. And a few months ago I was reading this and it really struck me because it seemed so out of place. Here's this chapter of Restoration. Everything seems to be going well. They get, you know, the cities back. And then it says this at the end of verse 14. And there will peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Seem like a strange phrase. It seems kind of out of place.
But nothing is out of place in the Word of God, and nothing is without a reason. And so I pondered upon that, Why is that there? What does it mean? And I think we get the answer in the next chapter. So if we go down to chapter 8.
A problem arises and it has to do with Samuel sons who are not like Samuel.
They're not good judges. They're not faithful like Samuel. And the people say we need to change this, this is a problem, but this is what their solution is. They say at the end of verse 5, now make us a king to judge us, like all nations. And I think that's an answer to what we have in that phrase where it says and there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.
Are you guys probably all remember that when Moses took to the people of Israel just before they went into the land over and over, he says.
Destroy or defeat the enemies that are in the land. Don't make peace with them. No treaties, no nothing. The Canaanites and the Amorites were part of those. I think there were like seven people, Jebusites, highlights and so on. They were supposed to get rid of them because there was nothing that they had in common. And here it says there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. And then when a problem comes.
Their thinking for the solution is let's be like the nations around us.
And I think if we want to apply that, what lesson can we get from that is I think if we.
Willingly or or knowingly in our lives allowed things that the Lord has said. Those are not good. We cannot expect to have clear discernment. So in the New Testament we get expressions like flee youthful lusts. We get expressions like mortify the members of your body in connection with immorality.
We get expressions like putting off malice, lying and old things like that. Those are clear instructions of things that we should not be occupied with whatsoever.
It even tells us those are things that it says to separate from those that do not walk orderly. So it's things and people will get clear instruction of that. What if we say we do pretty good in our lives, 95% but there's this one thing, the amorite, whatever that might be, that we know it's not according to God's will, but we're OK with it. There's peace between us and that very thing.
Can we expect blessing from the Lord?
Could Israel expect blessing from the Lord here when there was peace between them and the MRI's? The answer is no. And so when a solution, a problem comes and will always get tested in our lives, when a problem comes, their spiritual discernment is gone. Instead of saying your sons are not doing right, let's turn to the Lord, see what solution He has. They say let's become like the nations because they were living at peace with a nation that had nothing to do with God.
And to them probably made a lot of sense. If we're not in communion with the Lord, we can reason and make things very plausible. Maybe the nations around them, it worked well with kings, but that was OK. They were not God's people. We're not the same like the nations around us. And so people in the world, and we had it in one of the songs that we sang that seems like people around us don't get bothered. They're not walking according to the.
They're not God's people, and they seem to prosper. Well, that might work for them, but that won't work for us because we're God's people and God has standards for his people. And so if we.
You know, have peace with the amorite, whatever the amorite is, if it's something that's God tells us not to do or not to be occupied with, we cannot expect blessing. We cannot expect to have discernment in the decisions we need to make. And I was thinking this too.
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You know it leads to soul becoming the king, right? Because God tells Samuel. Tell him what it will be like with a king. It's not going to be a good time.
But they said we still want to do it. And I was thinking, what if there were some people there that are your age?
20 you know, whatever 1525 and they said we want a king like the nations, and God says OK, for the next 40 years Saul ruled over Israel.
Was not a good time for Israel. We might allow things in our lives that cloud or discernment and we make decisions.
For the next 40 years are going to bring misery in our lives. How sad is that, that there would have been people there that their whole, you know, best time of their life.
They lived under soul, and soul never ever defeated the Philistines. He was a man of the flesh, and he could not once defeat the Philistines, the enemies of God's people. You know, later on, when David, the man of God, was made king, he never lost to the Philistines. Isn't that interesting? So let's be careful with that. But now I want to go back just for a minute before we're done here.
You know, look at this scene that we have here and again, it's it's a low state.
Seems like in Chapter 7 it kind of went up and it was positive. There were some restoration and then it all goes down again. Because they want to be like the nation, so there's a low state.
But there's always a path for a faithful man. And let's go back to the last two verses of of Chapter 7. Here's Samuel, the faithful man. He grieved because of what was happening. It really affected him and so much so that God almost had to tell him stop grieving because he wanted the people to do well. The Samuel himself, even though he's kind of from now on, he's not the main figure anymore. Saul is the main.
Still shows up, does the work of God, he anoints David, he rebukes Saul, he can in a way kind of passes into the background. But what did he do as the faithful man? What can we do as the faithful man here at verse 16 of Chapter 7? And he went from year to year in circuit to Bethel in Gilgal and misbehave and judged Israel and all those places and his history. Stern was to Raymond, for there was his house.
And there he judged Israel, and there he built an altar into the Lord.
You know, you've probably all heard many times that names in the Old Testament have a lot of significance. And so here was the circuit that Samuel took every year. Battle means the House of God. That's where he spent his time, the House of God. Gilgal, we know, is that where the people went when they went to Milan. It means the rolling away. The rolling away of the reproach of the of, of Egypt has to do with the cutting off of the flesh. So he walked in the sanctuary, the House of God.
Apart from the ways of the flesh, that's what we need. What does Mr. mean? It means watchtower. It's a high place because he was close to the Lord. He had good discernment. And in a watchtower you see the enemy coming. And so he was aware of what the enemy was doing and he wasn't caught up by it. The people, they had no idea what the enemy was doing, and they fell for it all the time.
But he did not, and then where his house was. Rhema means the high places.
I love that. That means that most of the time where his house was, he was in that which signified closeness to the Lord. He was in the high places and he had an altar there, which in the Old Testament that was the way of approach to God, the way of communion. We don't need an altar there because because of what the Lord Jesus has done, the veil is read and we have permanent access to the throne of grace.
But how wonderful that is that Samuel, you know, he was able to make that circuit every year.
And it all had to do with places that were significant of closeness to the Lord.
You know what here and thinking about that in the Northwest, a lot of us kind of make a circuit too on a yearly basis and not everybody does it or not all. But you know, a lot of us are here now in Walla Walla and that's kind of our, you know, beginning of spring.
And quite a few of us, maybe in a few months we'll head over to Aberdeen for the conference and then some might be in Stillwater. Scam. I know in the beginning of fall, usually here in Walla Walla, there's a harvest party.
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And some of us in winter time, we head down to Burbank. That's a beautiful circuit, isn't it, to make every year. And in between maybe we visit some other assemblies, some all day meetings and so on. How wonderful that is. But if we in the meantime, when we go back home, it's not, I mean it's always kind of a little bit of a let down when you have to say goodbye to the friends and so on. But.
If our home is a little bit like Rhema, the high places where we live in communion with the Lord, where we have that approach to God because as believers we have access into the holiest we can be, like Samuel, Israel was in a low state. And in the New Testament, in the epistles, we get plenty of indications that that will be the state of Christianity in the last days.
But there's always a path for those that want to walk with the Lord, and I would encourage you to really look at Second Timothy, because that's the epistle.
That talks about the path for the faithful person in a day of general ruin. And you'll see it talks there about separation quite a bit. But it also tells us that we can walk with those who are not alone. Will we find those that want to walk in that path? But so let's as much as we can, as much as we're able to seek for fellowship with the Saints. You know, when Samuel went from place to place, I'm sure there were faithful ones in those places that he met up with.
But when he came home.
It was not a downward course. He stayed on high, he stayed in the high places. And so I trust that.
You know, the lesson we can get from this is that let's be careful not to allow things in our lives.
That the Lord tells us, don't be occupied with that because it will hinder us. We might not think that people of Israel, obviously they didn't think it was a phone in the flesh. They were at peace with it. They were okay with it. But then as soon as this problem arises, you can see that it really hindered them and actually set them on a path of 40 years of a low stay, of a lot of sorrow for the people of Israel. And we don't want that in our lives. We don't want that in your lives.
So let's, when the Lord gives us these exhortations, don't do this or separate from this, let's heat those because He's all wise and He knows what best for us, and that's why He wrote those things. So let's look to the Lord.
Adam, Father, we to give thee thanks for thy word, and we need it so much daily in our lives, the guidance that we get from it.
But especially Lord, that Thou has to reveal thyself to us, and Thy word help us to learn more of thee and we think of.
The Lord Jesus and.
Always doing thy Father's will. There were no Amorites in thy life. It was the separate man, the holy man. And we pray that we might be like thee. 2 Lord Jesus, walk in communion with thee. Be an encouragement to thy people. Be one that are pleased in from day-to-day. Lord Jesus, we just thank you for this time. We thank you too for the refreshments that are provided Lord, and just pray for the rest of the evening.
Fellowship, it might be pleasing to thee. Lord Jesus, we pray this and my worthy name, Amen.