Take careful heat. to do the commandment. And the law which Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. What is wrong with that?
Well it gets in the way of fun. The flesh. The flesh says that. The Spirit says, It's on. It's a fight.
I'm up for this fight. I'm gonna do this. I'm not gonna let my flesh win. all the time. Hmm.
You're listening to Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Samuel. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of 1 Samuel 7 as he begins his message: One Man's Influence.
1 Samuel chapter 7, One Man's Influence. We know As believers, we love to worship the Lord. But I don't know that a lot of believers understand that. Worship Involves more than just holding one's hands up and praising the Lord and adoring Him. There is the pursuit of obedience.
There is Enduring hardship. Blessed are those who endure. There is, of course, unity. with the brethren. But in fellowship, there are several things that Make up worship, no single thing.
Truth and love, of course, from the New Testament standpoint, Jesus said, He who believes in me, as the Scriptures said, out of his heart, will flow rivers of living water, Well, that's an act of worship. Obedience is an act of worship. Telling God that He is there and you know it. And that you Not only need him, but you want him. And not only that you want him, but you want to do something for him.
And this is, I think, packed into this chapter.
So we look at verse one. Then the men of Kirijath Jeram came and took the ark of Yahweh and brought it into the house of Abinadab. on the hill. and consecrated Eleazar. His son, to keep the ark of Yahweh.
Well, remember from the previous chapters the Jews had lost The ark to the Philistines in battle, the battle at Aphek, and of course it ended up traveling around the cities of the Philistines before God restored it to the people. And it appears that for twenty years Samuel's off the scene. We don't hear of him. Until We come to this chapter here. This verse probably fits better in chapter six.
But It still has its purpose here. For setting the tone for worship, because that's what the Ark was all about: the presence of God, and in the presence of God. You know, take the sandals off your feet, the ground you stand upon is holy, this that worship, the presence of the Lord.
Now it's taken to Kirjath Jiram, which is about eight miles from Rama.
Now Rama is where Samuel lived. all the days of his life. It was in Shiloh, which is 20 years from where Samuel lived, 20 years, 20 miles from, that's a long country road, 20 miles from where. Samuel lived, and so now it's closer to his home. I think that stands out in the story to me because I believe he's got very much to do with where that ark ends up.
The fact that Eleazar is not killed. Being a caretaker for the ark signals that he is a Levite. That ark, the center of worship. What about the tabernacle at Shiloh with the altar and the laver? I mean, What happened to the incense altar?
may have been largely damaged by the Philistines when they lost the ark in battle. But now the Ark is restored. And the tabernacle, tabernacle worship is paused. It is inactive And I think one thing that comes out of that is we see that there's a separation between the Ark and the Tabernacle. Ritual worship is again paused.
Suspended. While God works through the man Samuel to influence the people to get them right again, to get them on track as a people. There were individuals that were devout. Always there's a remnant. Ritual is an expression of obedience, but it is not a substitute for obedience.
And this is what Samuel is going to inject into the culture. And again, Samuel is the man that wasn't supposed to be. His mother, Hannah, prayed so hard for him. It seems, you know, as you look at the story, there are bigger things involved. But just looking at the story, She could not have a child.
And she goes to God and she has this man. And this man influences kings. We talk about that because largely this seventh chapter is an introduction to the ministry of Samuel. We've already met the man, the boy, the young lad, and the young man.
Now we're meeting him. in full public ministry. In verse two So it was, the ark remained in Kirijath Jeram a long time. It was there twenty years. And all the house of Israel lamented after Yahweh.
Now a lot of the Things in the Bible aren't exact. Where is this 20-year period? Where does it come from? I believe it's from the time the Ark was restored to the Jews till now, when Samuel is coming forward, and that's how I'm going to approach it. The ark would remain here in Abenadab's house For Another No, sixty or more years.
That's a long time. Because you have to factor. It stays there until David brings it to Jerusalem.
So you factor 40 years under the leadership of Saul, the years leading up to his leadership, then David, the time he comes in, the 20 years from Aphex's battle.
So you've got quite a bit of time that it's going to rest there before he brings it in. And so maybe we can understand when we get to it that David is dancing before the ark with all of his might. He's not just doing this little soft shoe dance. He is just throwing it out there. It's athletic.
Because of his passion for God, not letting it get out of control. And you take six paces and they stop and they worship. And of course, we are attracted to these things. They don't dim when you get to the New Testament. They come to the New Testament, it's like, well, the Old Testament was so full of action.
So was the New Testament. You just have to know what you're looking at. And you see Paul say, except for these chains, I wish you were just like me, O king. The kings in their robes, and their wives are with them, and they're looking down at Paul the apostle. You almost persuade us to be Christians.
Can you catch the power behind that? Here he is a prisoner of Rome, and he is convicting them. to come to Christ. He's not sitting there talking about Or influencing them in any other direction but to come to Christ, so much so, the king says, You almost persuade us. To be like you.
To which he says, of course, those immortal words: I wish you were altogether like me, except for these chains.
So, yeah, don't for one moment think. That somehow The momentum of the Holy Spirit diminishes by the time we get to the New Testament. You just don't have as much history time.
So coming back to this. 2 Samuel chapter 6.
So they set the ark of God on a new cart.
Now, this is later, how it gets to Jerusalem, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart. And that, of course, is a disaster waiting to happen. But that's what's coming. That's going to be down the road in the history of the Jews.
And so for these twenty years Samuel. Is lost to us. This 20-year gap. What happened? Where is Samuel?
He's In this wild and disobedient world, but God is working in him. Maybe Samuel was pulling at the bit. Come on, Lord, send me in. Have me do something to restore the heritage of Israel. But he had to wait.
And weight training is a part of serving the Lord. And so From the time that Samuel first heard God speak to him. And we all know those first words Samuel first heard God say to him: Samuel, Samuel. He isolated him. He knew him.
He identified him. Called him out to serve him. What would have happened to Israel? If God did not raise a Samuel, if he didn't raise a Hannah, if he didn't have an Elkinah. to marry Hannah.
What would have happened? There'd be no David. Who cares if there was King Saul? There'd be no David. And David is a direct result of God's work through this man Samuel.
What does that say to me? is that I can influence. I have the power to influence in righteousness or unrighteousness, And so already his influence was working beneath the surface In the hearts of some. Going back, looking back at chapter 3, 1 Samuel, now, the boy Samuel ministered. To Yahweh before Eli, and the word of Yahweh was rare in those days, and there was no widespread revelation.
Well, that's stopping. It's going to stop with Samuel the man in chapter 4, and the word. of Samuel came to all Israel. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. That was God's word.
And so looking again at verse 2, and all the house of Israel lamented after Yahweh. There's a heartfelt craving for God. At the same time, there's a stir amongst the people, they were being revived.
Now, Samuel is writing this more than likely. He certainly is part of the writing. And he doesn't come out and say, yeah, I did that. I've stirred them up. But I believe that's what was happening.
Because, where else does it come from? We don't believe in magic. We don't have to believe in magic. It's not necessary to believe in magic. We believe in the power of God, the presence of God, the influence of God.
the day of Pentecost when they heard the sound of a mighty wind and the fire that accompanied in their Presence It wasn't magic. It was God. There's no alternate power in the universe that we're interested in. in joining, except that of God.
So Samuel was the man God used to bring his people to crave him and to repent from idol worship and all the junk that goes with idol worship. It's not just you put a little statue there and you're worshiping the idol and there's really nothing else. Oh, there's a lot more that goes with it. Like immorality goes with it. All the commandments concerning morality are flushed away in the interest of, I want to worship this God instead.
You know why? He gives me permission to do things that Yahweh does not give me. That's one reason why many become apostates to Christianity. And so the spiritual climate which David would be born into was already being shaped through this man Samuel. And if not through Samuel, who else?
Well, we don't know of anyone else, but we do know of him. And so, before David influenced others, Samuel influenced David's generation. In verse 3, Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to Yahweh with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtareths from among you, and prepare your hearts for Yahweh, and serve him only. and he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. You see, where it says in verse 2, and all the house of Israel lamented after Yahweh.
Samuel didn't say, Oh, that's very nice. See, that's worship. That's all you have to do. It's just raise your hand and say, I praise you, Lord, I love you, and then you're good. No, he doesn't.
He says, No, there's work to do. It's not enough. To avoid the seat of the scornful, you have to delight in the law of the Lord. There's other things that make us. This is more than just gravity and sunlight and water that causes the planet to survive with the whole package.
Not just one thing. It's not going to be one single thing that causes me to influence others. And We should rejoice in this. It says, with all your heart, Samuel spoke to the house of Israel: if you return to Yahweh with all your hearts.
Well, what should he say? If you come back with a half-hearted response, God will honor that. No, he won't. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Is that goes back to the days of Moses.
Should it be any less?
Now, we start off as Christians saying, Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to serve God with all my heart and soul. I'm going to dance before God with all my might. I'm going to prepare for the house of God with all my might. And then life ends.
Challenge, as you said. We're going to see about this. And all of a sudden, the rhetoric becomes war. Put away the foreign gods. In other words, in other words, because we need them.
Stop trusting junk. Stop making up things to believe. That's what God is saying. That's what He's saying through Samuel. Put away the fake stuff.
Stop trusting in things that insult me. And many uh professed Christian refuses to do so. No, no, thank God, not all. Joshua Working so hard to get the people to not go into what we now know as the period of judges. Joshua 22, but take careful heed.
To do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded you, to love Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. What is wrong with that?
Well, it gets in the way of fun. The flesh. The flesh says that. The Spirit says, It's on. It's a fight.
I'm up for this fight. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to let my flesh win. all the time. Again.
If you feel good about yourself, you probably don't drive much. If you feel too high about your faith. Or you don't get anywhere on time. Leave a day early to get any okay. Joshua twenty four, verse twenty three.
Now therefore he said, Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart To Yahweh, God of Israel. See, when you come to church, we're supposed to be inclining our heart, preparing our heart. What do you have for me, God? You don't have to like the pastor. I know you can't help it, but that's another story.
But you don't have to. God doesn't say, Did you like the pastor? No, I didn't like him.
Okay, then you don't have to listen to anything he said that was right. Yeah, that would be a mess. It's what's the content? He mentions Ashtareth. A Canaanite goddess.
Who cares? It's fake! Who cares what she's supposed to be about?
Well, there's some of it that does have some bearing, and it is this. She is connected with immorality. She gave the people what they wanted, the pleasures. Yeah, she's a goddess of fertility.
Well, how do you get to that fertility?
Well, you indulge yourself. And then there was Baal. He was the God that provided the rain and the necessary things for life. We'll come back to him in a minute. But he says, put away Ashtareth, that Canaanite goddess.
And You see, there it is again. It's not enough just to put away the idolatry. Not enough to fix one thing when there are many problems. And so we must not only say no to wrong, we must say yes to right. That's why we come to the house of God.
And not isolate ourselves and bury our talent. You know, Jesus did not pronounce a great blessing on the ones that buried their talent, He actually came on them pretty hard. They would have had a lot of critics in church that day. Did you hear what that means, Pastor? Said?
They're just telling you the truth.
So Again, prepare your hearts for the Lord, he says to them.
Well, the first step in preparing your heart for the Lord is serving Him only, no other gods. Is those surrender to him? Without that, there's no preparation. There's no getting ready for God. And as Christians, we're always supposed to be prepared.
This lesson must be shared.
So Boy Scouts first rule, right? Because God can do anything does not mean He'll do everything. And it is up to us to fulfill our responsibilities and to do them with zeal. and the confidence that it is going to please him and is going to be a blessing. And so these people were to take a deep look into themselves in the presence of Yahweh.
It would be pointless to say I'm going to examine myself in the presence of Ashtareth. That would have been not only pointless, that would have been damning of the soul. Verse 4: So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Astarephs and served only Yahweh.
Well, again, these gods represented. Provisions, necessities for life in the thoughts and the heads of the people, they were non-existent. They were Creations of demons, and God told the Jews that this was the case with them. And so the Lord is not interested in them. The things that we need to survive and prosper, yes, we need that, but these are forgeries.
These aren't gods. John says this in his third letter. He says, Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health.
Well, what's the opposite of that?
Well, I hope you suffer and are sick.
Well, of course that'd be hellish.
So he says, I want you to do well. Not this junk prosperity teaching. You know, just God becomes some sort of a cosmic bellhop where he just runs off to get you what you want. That's not. Prosperity.
Prosperity is To have what you need to survive, yes. And more? as God gives. And then he says this. Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.
Well, how does the soul prosper? In Christ's likeness, that's how the soul prospers. And without that, without that feature, there's no prosperity. And how does what is the Christ's likeness?
Well, sacrifice out of love. based on truth. Take those two away, you got what do you got? You got nothing. Verse 5.
And Samuel said, Gather, All Israel to Mizpah. And I will pray to Yahweh for you. You gotta like this guy. He says, get the people together. He's talking about all the tribes.
He's going to bring unity and obedience into the front line of the nation's life. Gather all Israel to Mizpah. He chooses the spot. He's a man of prayer, and he's also a man of answered prayer. That's significant, is it not?
And he makes this distinction. Between Yahweh and anything else somebody else might believe. And so he says, Gather all Israel to Mizbury, and I will pray to Yahweh for you. Not Ashtareth, not Baal. Yahweh, He is God.
Now he saw that the wages of sin is death when he was growing up in the temple, and Haphnai and Phineas were around him. He saw that junk. He learned what bad ministry was all about. by having to endure it. And so he takes two major steps to heal the nation.
From centuries of fragmentation. Oh, we come across that. You come across a life that has been spent in debauchery, and then we preach the gospel to them, and God starts to rebuild. He restores. It makes things a lot different.
So obedience to Yahweh. Because there was flagrant disobedience. Carefree. And that carefree attitude towards obedience dammed up the flow of blessings, it stopped them. And so they were oppressed by the Philistines.
And the Philistines are going to make a move on them in this chapter. They had to stop tolerating and sheltering idolatry. Not only the toleration of idolatry had to go, but sheltering the ideas and thoughts that came with it. To this day, we Christians have to guard against sheltering things that are offensive to God as clearly laid out in Scripture. I mean you cannot Excuse somebody for stealing, you know.
to make to go buy themselves something nice. Tribal unity was the next step. Isolation. The tribes were isolated, even the clans were isolated largely. to a fault.
And that enabled the idolatry. The enemy has armies. And armies are not isolated. Not if they're going to be victorious. And he is telling the people, we have got to be One nation unto God, indivisible.
That used to be a pledge of allegiance in this country to the flag and has been outlawed in the minds of many. There's a lot of wisdom to it, but there's more so here. And so he's trying to centralize the nation under God. This was his solution, and it was right because it came from God. And God would take Three steps to pull this off or to bring the nation into her golden age.
So when Solomon ascends the throne, they're in the golden age, literally. Silver was like, what is that?
So Samuel would begin. to take them back to the basics of what? The law. The law of God. The Christian has to go back to the basics.
You know the Sermon on the Mount is not the basics of Christianity. Turn him out as a wake-up call. It's an alarm clock. That continues to ring in the background at the very least. But there's more.
to Christianity that we get through the precepts and the teachings. Samuel began to take them back to the law of Moses. And he would be used to give them a king of their choosing to shut them up. But they were the one that said, yeah, not enough that God's our king. We want a real king.
Just like the other nations, that to me was the the worst part of it. When the church looks to the world, how's the world doing it? Let's find out how to be a church from the world. It's like, why not from the book of Acts? Why not from the Corinthian letter?
And there's a lot to learn about how to be a church and how not to be a church. Just from the Scripture, just from the New Testament.
Well, Samuel was going to give the nation a king also after the one of their choosing, the one of God's choosing. The one that God would speak to. Of course, I'm talking the difference between Saul and David, and this would issue in about 200 years of the Golden Age.
Now, notice he does not act presumptuously and say, I will pray for you, and God will do what I pray. He doesn't promise them anything, I'm going to pray to Yahweh. What Yahweh will do after that, well, we're going to find out, aren't we? Verse 6.
So they gathered together at Mizpah, drew water, and poured it out before Yahweh, and they fasted that day. And said there, We have sinned against Yahweh, and Samuel will judge the children of Israel at Mizpah.
Now this is not every single person in the nation, of course. For sure it's the tribal leaders and heads of clans. They are most certainly there because they're the ones that will spread the influence. Whatever they receive from Samuel will spread from them. And so by assembling the people, And calling them to repentance, he's acting as the leader of the nation, as a judge.
Now, Samuel's not a priest. He is a judge. And he is a prophet. And he oversees the priest. Because he's got that much influence from God without violating the priesthood, which is critical because he is a Levite.
But he gives the word: We're going to go here and we're going to serve the Lord and we're going to sacrifice. And the priests are going to carry out the ritual, but it's on Samuel's word. And we remember. That God put him there, what would happen if he wasn't there?
Well, we know what would happen. We look back at two books back to the book of Judges, and we find out that they didn't have anything like this. Uh Thanks for joining us for today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Rick is in the book of 1 Samuel.
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