1. "The root problem in each of these cycles is that how you respond to the problem makes the problem worse. You do the same thing that got you into the problem in an effort to solve the problem and it only compounds the problem. If you're already standing in a hole, continuing to dig only drops you deeper."

2. "They wanted the Lord's benefits without his demands. They wanted Yahweh's help but not Yahweh himself. They wanted rescue without repentance. They wanted what Yahweh could give them without their having to give themselves to him."

3. "Many people hold others, especially leaders, to a standard not of integrity but of perfection. And they have no category for forgiveness. It's easier to dismiss someone for a single failure. Forgiveness and forbearance are hard and tiring and messy and time consuming and humbling."

4. "God's providence doesn't read itself. Sometimes God is teaching you a lesson, but you're zoning out in the classroom and doodling in your notebook."

5. "So often we harden our hearts against conviction. We turn our hearts into shields rather than soft pincushions that God's word can stick through. So often we screen out all critical voices. We refuse to listen to anyone saying anything bad about us, even if the one saying those things is God himself in the pages of Scripture."

6. "Let that ping of conscience grow louder until it sounds like thunder from heaven. Turn from that sin, renounce it, disown it, confess it to God and others, get help, bring it into the light, declare war against it with all your resources, put nothing back in reserve, go all in."

7. "God's love is tougher than you think and his toughness is more loving than you can imagine."

8. "Our culture would instead tell you, do not be afraid because you're perfect just as you are. Only God's grace can say, do not be afraid, you have done all this evil. Only because God's grace is so huge, it can sink your biggest sins all the way, leaving no trace, no ripple, no reflection on the surface."

9. "Biblical religion is not a market transaction, but a marriage. In a market transaction, you give some agreed upon amount of something valuable, like money, in exchange for some specified object you want. In marriage, you give your whole self and you're changed forever."

10. "You can't break yourself out, but God can break you out. So let God's severity lead you to despair of yourself and let God's kindness lead you to entrust yourself fully to him."

Observation Questions

1. In 1 Samuel 11:1-2, what brutal terms does Nahash the Ammonite demand for making a treaty with the men of Jabesh-Gilead, and what does he say this will accomplish?

2. According to 1 Samuel 11:6-7, what happens to Saul when he hears about the threat to Jabesh-Gilead, and how do the people of Israel respond to his call to arms?

3. In 1 Samuel 11:13, how does Saul respond to the suggestion that those who opposed his kingship should be put to death, and what reason does he give?

4. In 1 Samuel 12:6-11, what pattern does Samuel describe regarding God's actions toward Israel and Israel's repeated response throughout their history?

5. According to 1 Samuel 12:12, what did the people say to Samuel when they saw Nahash the king of the Ammonites coming against them, even though "the Lord your God was your king"?

6. In 1 Samuel 12:20-22, what two contrasting statements does Samuel make to the people, and what reason does he give for why the Lord will not forsake them?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that "the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul" (11:6) before he was able to rally Israel and defeat the Ammonites? What does this reveal about the true source of Israel's deliverance?

2. In 1 Samuel 12:9-10, Samuel recounts that Israel repeatedly "forgot the Lord their God" and served other gods, yet when oppressed they cried out acknowledging their sin. What does this cycle reveal about the nature of Israel's repentance, and why did it fail to produce lasting change?

3. How does Samuel's rehearsal of God's covenant faithfulness (12:6-11) serve as the foundation for his rebuke of Israel's request for a king? What should Israel have concluded from this history that they failed to learn?

4. What is the significance of the thunder and rain during wheat harvest (12:16-18)? How does this sign function both as confirmation of Samuel's prophetic authority and as a warning of potential judgment?

5. How can the statement "Do not be afraid. You have done all this evil" (12:20) hold together logically? What does this reveal about the nature of God's grace toward sinners?

Application Questions

1. The sermon identified several "blinders" that can keep us from recognizing our spiritual need—prosperity, good upbringing, public virtue, and focusing on others' sins rather than our own. Which of these blinders are you most susceptible to, and what specific step could you take this week to see your spiritual condition more clearly?

2. Israel wanted God's benefits without His demands—rescue without repentance. In what area of your life are you tempted to want what God can give you without giving yourself fully to Him? How might you address this divided loyalty?

3. Samuel committed to praying for the people in such strong terms that ceasing to pray would be sin (12:23). Who are the specific people in your life—family, church members, neighbors—for whom you should commit to consistent, faithful prayer? What would it look like to make this commitment concrete this week?

4. The sermon challenged listeners to stop resisting conviction and instead let it do its full work. Is there any sin your conscience has been "pinging" you about that you have been silencing, excusing, or minimizing? What would it look like to bring that sin into the light through confession to God and others?

5. Samuel's summary command was to "fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart" because of "what great things He has done for you" (12:24). What specific "great thing" has God done in your life that should fuel wholehearted devotion to Him? How can you remind yourself of this regularly to guard against spiritual forgetfulness?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Judges 2:11-23 — This passage describes the recurring cycle of rebellion, retribution, repentance, and restoration that characterized the period of the judges, providing the historical backdrop for Samuel's rebuke in chapter 12.

2. Deuteronomy 28:1-24 — This passage outlines the blessings for covenant obedience and curses for disobedience, including agricultural disasters, which illuminates the warning implicit in the thunder and rain sign at wheat harvest.

3. Romans 2:1-11 — Paul explains how God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance while His severity warns of judgment, reflecting the sermon's theme that God uses both kindness and severity to free us from sin.

4. Acts 3:17-26 — Peter's sermon calls for repentance so that "times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord," echoing Samuel's call to repentance and the promise that God will not forsake His people.

5. 2 Timothy 2:11-13 — This passage declares that even "if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself," supporting the sermon's emphasis on God's unshakeable commitment to His people for His name's sake.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Destructive Cycle of Sin and the Need for Deliverance

II. God's Rescue (1 Samuel 11:1-11)

III. The Renewal That God's Rescue Secures (1 Samuel 11:12-15)

IV. God's Rebuke (1 Samuel 12:1-19)

V. The Repentance That God's Rebuke Requires (1 Samuel 12:20-25)

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Detailed Sermon Outline

How can you break the cycle? There are all kinds of bad cycles you might fall into. Let's say after a long day's work, you're so tired that it feels like all you can do is veg out in front of Netflix. So you binge watch episode after episode. Why not just go to sleep?

You're too tired to fall asleep. So then you don't get enough sleep and you wake up even more tired tomorrow. Or consider credit card debt. You spend more than you can afford, then you have to pay steep interest rates on top of paying off the amount that was more than you could afford. But then you don't really like having your purchasing power constricted, your cash flow tightened, so you buy more stuff on your credit card.

Or more seriously still, consider any type of addiction. Someone might get drunk in an effort to dull some physical or emotional pain. Getting drunk then harms yourself and others, causing still more pain. So then you drink to dull that pain.

The root problem in each of these cycles is that how you respond to the problem makes the problem worse. You do the same thing that got you into the problem in an effort to solve the problem and it only compounds the problem. On some level, it feels easiest just to keep doing what you were doing. But the problem is, if you're already standing in a hole, continuing to dig only drops you deeper.

Are you today stuck? In any destructive cycle?

Is the way you're responding making the problem worse?

How could you escape from that cycle?

If you're not a believer in Jesus, you might be surprised to learn that all of us, by fallen nature, are trapped in a destructive cycle. Its outward expressions vary, but sin, specifically unrepentant sin, is the most destructive cycle of all. And it's the root of every destructive cycle. You've probably heard the word sin and maybe you've dismissed it as overly fussy rule-keeping or moral busybodiness. I wonder if it would help you to understand sin better if you saw it as a self-destructive cycle of self-centeredness.

That's not all that sin is but it's one crucial component. If you're not a believer in Jesus, you also might be surprised to learn that a huge portion of the history that the Bible narrates consists in the people of God falling into self-destructive cycles just like some of the ones I've mentioned. The basic pattern goes something something like this. First, God intervenes in history to rescue his people from whatever is most threatening them. Shortly afterward, surprisingly quickly, God's people turn away from him.

They forget all about him. It's as if that thing he did for them never even happened. And so they start worshiping other gods. This leads to all kinds of destructive consequences. Idolatry always breeds injustice.

False worship always breeds false living. And then God gives his people over to more and more of the consequences of their own sin. Sometimes God sends a temporal judgment. He sends some kind of trial or suffering that's meant to be like an alarm clock to wake them up to the consequences of their sin. Then the people start to hear the alarm.

The pain starts to pinch. They wake up and realize they're in a bad place so they cry out to God, Lord, help us, save us, rescue us, get us out of this mess. And then God does. He again acts in a dramatic way to save his people. And when he does, the people acknowledge their guilt, that they were in the wrong and they resolve to worship him as he alone deserves.

But then the cycle starts to repeat. Rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, relapse. That's not our outline, but I'll say that cycle again in case you want to write it down: Rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, relapse. Relapse. That cycle is the shape of the whole book of Judges.

And 1 Samuel, which I've been preaching through and which we're considering this morning, starts in the time of the judges and continues the story that sort of leaves off in the book of Judges. So, God here is continuing to persevere with a people who have proven unfaithful again and again, but He's also working towards something new. He's doing something in them that's pushing in a new direction. He's showing them what it takes to break the cycle and he's showing them that ultimately, he alone can do it for them. Our passage for this morning is 1 Samuel chapters 11 and 12.

It starts on page 233 of the Pew Bibles. The context, as we've seen in the past few weeks, is that the people have asked God for a king and he has given them one. In chapters nine and 10, the prophet Samuel anoints Saul to be king and then God publicly chooses Saul, demonstrating that he's God's man for the job. The people wanted a king primarily so that they would have a military leader to fight their battles for them. And our passage is going to pick up with just one such military threat.

So here's the big question our passage answers: How can you break out of the worst cycle of all?

God's kindness and severity free us. From the destructive cycle of unrepentant sin. How can you break out of the worst cycle of all? God's kindness and severity free us from the destructive cycle of unrepentant sin. Just to give us a preview and an overview of the passage before we dive in, in the first part of chapter 11, we'll see God's kindness on display and how he rescues his people.

Then the last few verses of chapter 11 will see them respond by renewing their devotion to him. He rescues them and they respond. Then in most of chapter 12, we'll see God's severity on display in the prophet's rebuke of the people. And then in the last few verses, we'll see the repentance that this rebuke aims at. God's kindness and severity are a two-armed pincher movement.

Pressing the people toward repentance like two different defenders coming out of soccer player from opposite sides. God's kindness and severity are working in concert to try to bring his people to repentance. Psalm 119 verse 67. Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep your word. So in each chapter we'll focus first on how God works and then see the response that God's work either enables or requires two chapters, each with two parts, so here comes a four-point sermon.

Point one, God's rescue. God's rescue. We'll see this rescue play out in chapter 11, verses 1 to 11. Look first at verse 1. Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-Gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, 'Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.' the Ammonites are one of the idolatrous polytheist peoples who neighbor Israel.

The Ammonites lived just to the east of the tribes of Israel that lived on the east side of the Jordan River. Their king's name, Nahash, means serpent. So this is not just a physical war, but a spiritual one. In Genesis chapter three, God promised enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent. So what the people now need is for the Lord to raise up an offspring of the woman who will crush the head of the offspring of the serpent.

But how do the people respond? They offer to surrender. They offer to become Nahash's servants. This isn't just a kind of political capitulation. This is a rejection of their covenant privilege of being the people that the Lord had redeemed.

The Lord did not redeem his people out of slavery in Egypt in order to deliver them into the hands of being the Ammonites slaves. So what's going on here? Nahash has the upper hand. Nahash starts laying down terms of surrender, terms of a treaty. Look at verses 2 to 4.

But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, 'On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.' the elders of Jabesh said to him, 'Give us seven days' respite, that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you. When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter in the ears of the people and all the people wept aloud. Nahash's terms are brutal and humiliating. If he gouged out every man's right eye, This would not only be painful and humiliating and devastating, it would also cripple their military because typically the left eye was shielded.

Held up a shield here, fought with the right hand. So no right eye, no fighting. And so the people of Jabez Gilead appealed to all the other tribes of Israel for help. One tribe is in trouble, one city, it's going real bad for them. So they ask around, can anybody else, anywhere else in Israel, come to our defense?

The end of verse 4 shows us a representative response. They reported the matter in the ears of the people and all the people wept aloud. The people are helpless and hopeless. Their future looks to them like it's going to be slavery to the Ammonites with a heaping side helping of shame. Right at this moment, Israel's need for deliverance is obvious.

They know they need saving and they know they can't save themselves.

What about you? The Bible teaches that all of us, by default, through our fall into sin, are in desperate spiritual trouble. The Bible teaches that all of us are fundamentally corrupt. All of us are enslaved to sin. All of us are in deep spiritual trouble, a hole so deep we can't dig ourselves out of it.

That's what the Bible teaches is our native condition after the fall. Now, if you're not a believer in Jesus, do you have any sense that you're in some kind of spiritual trouble? Do you have any sense that you need delivering, you need help and you're helpless to help yourself? Assume for the sake of argument, just for a moment, that the Bible is true. Assume that you are in deep spiritual trouble.

What might be some things in your life that could blind you to that reality? If that really is the case, what could keep you from seeing it? Here's a few suggestions of potential blinders: outward prosperity, skill and success, abundance, affluence, good health. Another one might be coming from a good family who taught you right and taught you how to live and surely you're a kind of moral, upstanding, salt of the earth type person. Another would be your loud agreement with publicly approved virtues.

Some people treat publicly proclaiming virtue as identical to being personally virtuous. You also might be more focused on how others wrong you than on how you wrong others. You might view other people's sins through a microscope and your own through a telescope. As the 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal said, Man's sensitivity to little things and insensitivity to the greatest things are marks of a strange disorder. Do you need saving?

Are you trapped in any cycles you can't free yourself from? The Israelites sure seem to be.

But God. Look at verses 5 to 7.

Now behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen, and Saul said, 'What is wrong with the people? That they are weeping?' so they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen. Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man.

I don't think Saul's farming activities mean that he is shirking his newly acquired kingly duties. I think it's just at this point, being king is not quite a full-time job yet. Although it's about to be. In verse 6, we see the crucial provision God gives in order to equip him for his task. What's going to save the people is not the fact that they have a king, it's not the king's native strength or abilities, what's going to save the people is the fact that God gives their king his spirit.

That's where the power comes from, that's where the deliverance comes from. It's the fact that God graciously causes the spirit to rush upon Saul, and all of a sudden, Saul is the commander in chief that they've been asking for. Now, some of you might have been studying the passage this week and finding verse seven to be graphic or jarring, cutting up an animal and mailing it around Israel. Is Saul acting like a mob boss and making them an offer they can't refuse? I think that's not exactly it.

You have to remember that in ancient Israel, cutting up an animal was the way you made a covenant. Which is a binding pact between two parties. The parties would then walk between the pieces. And the message of the cutting up and passing between was, if I'm unfaithful to my promises that I'm making right here and right now, may this same thing that happened to the animals happen to me. So when Saul cuts up an animal and mails it around Israel, he's reminding all the tribes of Israel of their existing obligations to each other as God's covenant people.

They shouldn't just sit idly by when one tribe gets decimated and falls into slavery. They have an obligation to their kinsmen. So what will happen if they fail to show up and fight for their kinsmen? I don't think the implication is that King Saul is going to come after them. I think the implication is God himself will.

Look at verse 7 again where it says, Then at the end of the verse, Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people and they came out as one man. That was the result of Saul's mail campaign that they feared the Lord and so they did what they were not otherwise motivated to do. So the Spirit enabled Saul to do what he couldn't on his own and Saul's leadership enabled the people to do what they couldn't on their own. What was that? Look at verses 8 to 11.

When he mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were 300,000, and the men of Judah 30,000. And they said to the messengers who had come, 'Thus shall you say to the men of Jabesh-Gilead: 'Tomorrow, by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation.' When the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, they were glad. Therefore, the men of Jabesh said, just pause here, this is the men of Jabesh saying to Nahash and the Ammonites, not talking to their fellow Israelites but talking to the threat. Then the men of Jabesh said, 'Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.' and the next day, Saul put the people in three companies, and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And those who survived were scattered so that no two of them were left together.

In verse 10, the men of Jabesh deceive Nahash and the Ammonites. They say they're going to surrender, but they have no intention of surrendering. Instead, look at the middle of verse 11, they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch. In ancient Israel, they divided the roughly 12-hour night into three watches, so four hours each. So this is the morning watch, so-called, it's the third watch, that's about 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. from dark until just when it's starting to dawn.

So Saul here is carrying out a surprise attack by night, a little bit like the attack on Redoubt 10 at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. That proved decisive in the American Revolution. Was this deception justified?

They're lying to Nahash. We'll give ourselves up to you. Well, it seems to be justified in the sense that Israel was clearly fighting a just war. And it's hard to win a war if you never deceive your enemy about your tactics. So between verse 4 and verse 11, Israel goes from hopeless to victorious.

They go from terrified to triumphant. God's Spirit enabled God's chosen deliverer to rescue his people. This was an act of undeserved kindness. We've seen again and again that by asking for a king, the people are in fact rejecting God. But God did not reject his people.

Instead, he keeps on rescuing them. How did they respond to this rescue? That brings us to point two: the renewal that God's rescue secures, the renewal that God's rescue secures. We see this renewal in verses 12 to 15 of chapter 11. Look at verses 12 and 13.

Then the people said to Samuel, 'Who is it that said, 'Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. But Saul said, Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel. So Saul has his theology in order. Saul does not have an inflated sense of his own importance.

He knows the Lord worked through him. But he knows it was the Lord who was doing the work through him. That's why Saul proves himself here to be both a stern commander and a merciful ruler. He refuses to take vengeance on those who opposed him. These people approach Samuel and say, Hey, let's get rid of those folks who opposed Saul and Saul butts in.

Saul interjects mercy and says, no, we're not going to do that because today is the day of the Lord's victory. This is a promising start to Saul's reign. Look how well he begins. Now look at verses 14 and 15.

Then Samuel said to the people, 'Come, let us go to Gilgal, and there renew the kingdom.' so all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced. Greatly. What are the people doing here? They're renewing their covenant commitment to God and each other and there's a kind of further confirmation of Saul's kingship now that all the tribes of Israel have sort of mustered under his leadership.

There's a recognition that he's king over all of them. And so the people are recognizing God's provision in the person of Saul. It was sinful of them to ask for a king. For him, but God's kindness showed through even in how he responded to that sinful request. Remember, having a king isn't wrong in itself.

What's wrong is the reason they were asking for a king. So they're responding to God's kindness by recognizing his provision and by renewing their commitment to him and each other. That's what the peace offerings embody. Peace offerings were not atoning, they weren't sacrifices for sin, they were sacrifices for celebration. To give thanks to God for some act of deliverance.

And in peace offerings, everybody who participated in the offering would share in the meat that was obtained through the sacrifice and so it caused a communal celebration. This is a time of feasting and rejoicing. So for those of us who trust in Christ, what does it look like for us to renew our commitment to God in light of his saving kindness toward us? In one sense, everything we do in corporate worship each week aims at and involves a renewal of our devotion to the Lord who has saved us. So we come together eagerly and joyfully to hear his word read and preached, and so be reminded of who he is and what he's done for us.

We gather together to sing, to loudly declare the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. We gather around the Lord's Supper regularly, a repeated time of corporate covenant renewal. In all this and more, we declare through our corporate worship that Christ is Lord and we're happy about it. He is our Savior and we need and want no other. He is all we need and he is all we most desire.

So in verses 12 to 15, except for those grumbling against Saul, the signs are positive. The people are taking action to commemorate God's saving work. He's intervened in a big way. And they're recommitting themselves to him. But how deep does that commitment go?

Point three, God's rebuke.

God's rebuke. We see this rebuke in most of the chapter, the first part of Samuel's speech, chapter 12, verses 1 to 19. God's rebuke. And it seems to be that we're still in this covenant renewal ceremony in Gilgal. So Samuel the prophet is going to take this opportunity to deliver what amounts to a farewell speech to the people.

Start with verses 1 to 5.

And Samuel said to all Israel, Behold, I have 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 walked before you from my youth until this day. Here I am.

Testify against me before the Lord and before His 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 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 his anointed is witness against, excuse me, is witness this day that you have not found anything in my hand. And they said, He is witness.

Just like Paul in his farewell speech that Joan read to us earlier from Acts 20, Samuel's point is that he never enriched himself at their expense. He never abused his authority to serve himself. He never succumbed to corruption. Now, this is not a self-righteous parade of self-promotion. Instead, Samuel's reminding Israel that he has been a faithful steward of the authority that God entrusted to him.

His life matched and therefore backed up his teaching. But what about back in chapter 8, verses 1 to 3, where Samuel appointed his unfit sons as judges? Certainly that was a sin, but it doesn't invalidate his whole track record. If you had just chapter 12, you might be tempted to think Samuel was perfect. If you had just chapter 8, verses 1 to 3, you might be tempted to think he was pure villain.

The reality, as always, is more complicated. In this fallen world, no one is perfectly righteous or perfectly wicked. In our cultural moment, I think many of us would be far more tempted to dismiss Samuel as a villain and to hear his self-defense as a kind of hypocritical posturing. Many people hold others, especially leaders, to a standard not of integrity but of perfection. And they have no category for forgiveness.

It's easier to dismiss someone for a single failure. It's easier to relationally nuke someone over a single offense. Forgiveness and forbearance are hard and tiring and messy. And time consuming and humbling. It's a far bigger boost to my ego to just write someone off because of one harsh word or because of one thoughtless oversight.

So Samuel attests his own integrity and the people agree invoking the Lord himself as witness. Then Samuel turns the tables. What else is the Lord witness to? His own covenant faithfulness toward the people. Look at verses 6 to 11.

And Samuel said to the people, the Lord is witness, who 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 them. 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 their God, and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab.

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 the Baals and the Asherah. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve youe. And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered youd out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. And when you saw, oops, excuse me, verse 12, save that.

Wanted to keep going. Pause. Verse 11. There's the track record of the Lord's covenant faithfulness. So here's the cycle that I mentioned earlier.

Rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration, Relapse. In verse 7, the word translated plead could be more fully rendered that I may put the case against you. Samuel is delivering a prophetic rebuke that aims to convict the Israelites of their guilt before the Lord. His case as a prosecuting attorney has two main planks. God's faithfulness and their unfaithfulness.

Verses six to 11 highlight God's faithfulness to his covenant promises. From the time God brought up Israel from Egypt, he has always provided the deliverers they need. From Moses and Aaron to judges like Jephthah to Samuel himself, God has rescued his people every time they needed rescuing. That's the conclusion of verse 11. The Lord delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side.

And you lived in safety. Every time an enemy arose that was too strong for them, God proved that he was stronger still. Whenever they needed one, he raised up a deliverer in his own way and on his own terms. And he always came through. Every time he sent and empowered someone to save them.

So what have the people done in the face of all this dramatic divine deliverance? Verse 9, But they forgot the Lord their God. Verse 10, When God allows their enemies to get the upper hand and to oppress them, they cried out, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But then whenever the Lord lifted the pressure of oppression, they sprang back to their old idolatrous ways. The cycle kept on spinning.

Yahweh's relationship to his people was like someone bailing out a friend who always gets him or herself into the same trouble and never seems to really want to change. Yahweh kept bailing them out, but Israel never really showed any buy-in.

What did they want? What were the people of Israel after? What was motivating them in this cycle? They wanted the Lord's benefits without his demands. They wanted Yahweh's help but not Yahweh himself.

They wanted rescue without repentance. They wanted what Yahweh could give them without their having to give themselves to him. What are some ways we fall into this trap today? One would be only praying when you get into trouble. Another would be putting off obeying God's commands until it seems more convenient to you.

Another would be bargaining with God. God, if you give me this, I'll give you that. And by the way, you first.

So Israel kept rebelling but God kept delivering. And the message of the gospel is this: He always will. None of us deserve to have God deliver us. None of us has any claim on God for salvation that he has to save us. But in his overwhelming, overflowing mercy, he has provided the perfect deliverer we all need in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's our creator and we owe him everything, but we've all sinfully refused to give him anything of what he truly deserves. We've tried to save that for ourselves instead. The deserving punishment for that rebellion is eternal condemnation. But God is faithful in grace and gracious in his faithfulness. He promised from the very day that Adam and Eve sinned to send a deliverer who would rescue our hopelessly fallen race by crushing the head of the serpent.

And Saul's victory in chapter 11 is a pale little foreshadowing of the victory that Christ himself would win on the cross through dying in our place. What did Christ do on the cross? He paid the penalty for our sin, which we could never do for ourselves. He took the punishment for our sins so that we'd be reconciled to God simply through trusting in him. He broke the power of sin to liberate all who trust in him from sin's tyranny.

By rising from the dead, he broke the power of death to guarantee eternal resurrection life to all who trust in him. None of that is anything you could do for yourself. All of that Christ has done for all those who trust in him. If you've never trusted in him, and if maybe it's starting to dawn on you that you are in a spiritual pit you've dug for yourself, all you have to do is turn from sin and believe in him. All you have to do is recognize this as a free gift and lay hold of it, grab it, let his saving work fill your empty hands.

Come to him helpless and you will find him completely sufficient. Only Christ can break you out of the worst cycle of all: sin and unrepentance leading to eternal condemnation. Now, if you trust in Christ, you can confidently look forward to the day when on his return, he breaks forever, every destructive cycle. Listen to how the apostle Peter puts it in his sermon in Jerusalem in Acts 3:18-21. What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

Repent therefore and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago.

Looking back over that whole section, verses 6 to 11, Samuel has rehearsed God's perfect track record of covenant faithfulness. Whenever the people needed a deliverer, God provided one. So what should they have concluded? That he always will. But they can trust him fully.

Human deliverer or no, forward, you know, positive earthly prospects or no, God is enough. That's what they should have concluded. But what did they conclude? Now we come to verse 12.

And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us when the Lord your God was your king.' this verse gives us a little more historical background to the people's request for a king back in chapter 8. Apparently, Nahash was already putting pressure on Israel's eastern flank. That was part of their fear and concern. What's going to happen to us? And yet it tells us that the people of Israel learned precisely the wrong lesson from hundreds of years of God's perfect covenant faithfulness to them.

They wanted a king even though God was their King. God's providence doesn't read itself. Sometimes, God is teaching you a lesson, but you're zoning out in the classroom and doodling in your notebook. That's what Israel did for hundreds of years. But all is not lost.

This isn't the end of the story. God has given them this king. It's a new sort of phase in their whole life as a people, but they still face the same basic choice. Look at verses 13 to 15. 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. What the Lord requires of them is devotion, submission, and obedience. Giving him their whole selves. This is not a kind of like legalistic works righteousness, just rule keeping.

This is an expression outwardly of a total devotion to God inwardly. Those are the terms of the covenant. If they do that, all will be well. This is the structure of the Mosaic covenant that governed their relationship with God. But also part of the structure of that covenant, there's a warning.

If they don't devote themselves completely to God, worse consequences than anything they've yet suffered will follow. Because of their sinful motivation, the Israelites' request for a king was a big problem. But now the Lord is confronting them. So what are you going to do about it? It's like you're sitting there on the couch talking to Deepak, you lay out all the problems.

Deepak says, so what are you going to do now? That's what the Lord is saying to the people. How are you going to respond? Are you going to escape the cycle or fall deeper into it?

There is a word of possibility here. They have sinned in a big way but there is a way out. While there's life, there's hope. No matter how badly you've messed up your relationship to others, no matter how badly you've messed up your relationship to God, no matter how big a hole you've dug for yourself, God's arm is long enough to reach down and pull you all the way out. That's what he can do for you.

That rescue starts with your recognizing that God is the one you should fear more than anyone. The recognition starts with recognizing that God is the one you have to give an account to, that whatever God says is right and whenever you disobey it, you're wrong, it's that simple. That kind of conviction is what Samuel aims at throughout his speech. And it's also what verses 16 to 18 aim to bring about. Look at verses 16 to 18.

Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, very different kind of calling 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.

Wheat harvest took place in May or June. It was an extremely dry time in Israel. Hardly any rain fell. So if you get a thunderstorm out of the blue, that is clearly God saying something. When Samuel says, I'm going to ask and it's going to rain, that's the Lord doing it.

Why is he doing it? To confirm Samuel's authority. To underscore, from heaven, listen to my prophet on earth. This is him speaking for me.

But this isn't just prophetic special effects. There's also a warning of judgment here. When the time of harvest comes, that means months of painstaking work are about to pay off. This is the crucial moment when all that labor is going to turn into a year's worth of provision. Now, what happens if that thunderstorm starts and doesn't stop?

What if it rains for not just a little while but three hours or three days or three weeks? Bye-bye wheat harvest. By, by food. The Lord is reminding his people that life and death are in his hands alone. They're not in the Israelites' hands, they're not in their king's hands, they're not in any false God's hands.

Life is his to give and his to take away. And there's an undertone of warning here. Running out of crops, having famine, crop failure, all this sort of thing, that's one of the curses of the covenant. He's warning, saying, if you disobey the covenant, remember what is in my power to do. Remember what I would be and will be totally justified in doing to you.

So what does this Pincher Movement of God's kindness and severity bring about? What's the payoff? Verse 19, and all the people said to Samuel, Pray for your servants to the Lord your God that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king.

A key educational outcome in the Lord's classroom. Is bringing you to conviction of sin. A key element of coming to know God truly and relate to Him rightly is recognizing how bad you are. One thing God wants for you is to see your sin clearly and own it fully. So often we harden our hearts against conviction.

We turn our hearts into shields rather than soft pincushions that God's word can stick through. So often we screen out all critical voices. We refuse to listen to anyone saying anything bad about us, even if the one saying those things is God himself in the pages of Scripture. So we blame shift. Make excuses, hide behind circumstances.

Well, he said, well, she did. We act as if other people are the only ones who have a mouth.

Even when we experience conviction, we often try to just get it over with as quickly as possible so we can move on without examining the root causes of sin in our own hearts?

Are you resisting any conviction of the Lord today? Has your conscience given you a little ping and you've silenced notifications from the conscience?

Is there any sin you're resisting, doing business with God about?

Let that ping of conscience grow louder until it sounds like thunder from heaven. Turn from that sin, renounce it, disown it, confess it to God and others, get help, bring it into the light, declare war against it with all your resources, put nothing back in reserve, go all in.

You should Be open to conviction. You should expect conviction. You should submit to conviction. Let it do its work. Sit patiently under it.

Sometimes, recognition of your sin dawns gradually. I'm not talking about a kind of morbid wallowing in guilt. That can become its own sneaky form of pride and self-centeredness. Oh, I'm so bad. You can take it overboard.

You can be wrongly focused on yourself. Instead, I'm talking about letting the body blow of Holy Spirit conviction reverberate until it does its full work. I'm talking about letting God's Word knock you down as low as it means for you to go.

God's love is tougher than you think and his toughness is more loving than you can imagine.

God's rebuke aims at your repentance. And that repentance is the gateway to joy, assurance, transformation, lasting growth. Let conviction lead you to repentance. That's how to break the cycle. And that's the main burden of Samuel's response to the people in the last six verses.

Verses 20 to 25.4, the repentance that God's rebuke requires, the repentance that God's rebuke requires.

Look first at verse 20. And 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. Note those very strong flavors pressed up side by side.

Do not be afraid, you, have done all this evil. Do not be afraid, you, have done all this evil. Why not be afraid? Clearly not because of anything good in themselves, because there isn't any. Our culture would instead tell you, do not be afraid because you're perfect just as you are.

Only God's grace can say, do not be afraid, you have done all this evil. Not being afraid can't depend on self-esteem, not being afraid can't depend on high self-regard. You cannot find your ultimate strength or security in your self. And that command, do not be afraid. Can stand next to that reality, you have done all this evil.

Only because God's grace is so huge, it can sink your biggest sins all the way, leaving no trace, no ripple, no reflection on the surface. That is the only way those two statements can stand together. Do not be afraid, you have done all this evil. So what does Samuel command the people to do in verse 20? Do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart Hollow your heart.

Biblical religion is not a market transaction, but a marriage. In a market transaction, you give some agreed upon amount of something valuable, like money, in exchange for some specified object you want.

In marriage, you give your whole self and you're changed forever. In marriage, your whole self goes into the relationship never to be taken out. In verse 21, Samuel warns, and do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

What idols are you tempted to turn aside after? Are you more tempted to believe that some empty thing will make your life better or that it will keep your life from getting any worse? In other words, are you more drawn to pleasure or protection? It'll be a little bit of a guide to what idols you might most be tempted by. In verse 22, Samuel gives the people of Israel and us a reason to cling to God.

For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great namesake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. God has staked his reputation on his faithfulness to his people. He's put his own name on the line. And he can no more be faithless toward his people than he can disown himself. As we read earlier in 2 Timothy, if we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself.

So God's faithfulness deserves our faithfulness in return. God's faithfulness demands our faithfulness in response. God's faithfulness should woo and win our faithfulness. God's faithfulness enables and undergirds our faithfulness. Verse 22 tells us why God called and chose Israel.

A people to himself because it pleased him. His good pleasure alone, his grace alone. That's enough to turn everyone who believes into his treasured possession forever. So that's what the Lord has done. That's what Israel and all of us must do.

But what about Samuel saying goodbye? What's he going to do? This sermon of Samuel's, as I mentioned, is a farewell address. But even though Samuel is stepping off the stage of public leadership, he is not exactly retiring. Look at verse 23.

Moreover, as for me, far be it from 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. Here Samuel lays out the profile of the prophetic office for everybody who succeeds him in it. He's going to intercede for the people and he's going to teach them God's ways. That's what the prophets would do throughout the rest of Israel's history in the land. And Samuel commits to praying for the people in such terms that it would be a sin if he didn't.

Who are the people in your life who if you stopped praying for them, you'd be sinning against God. If you're a member of this church, the answer in one sense is the whole church. In our church covenant, we make the promise together that we will not neglect to pray for ourselves and others. Our former pastor, Isaac Adams, had a godly mother, Jan, who prayed for him constantly. I say had because she died a year ago.

Isaac preached her memorial service that many of us attended. And I remember Isaac saying in the sermon, One day it just dawned on him that his mom constantly prayed for him. He asked her about it. She quoted verse 23 to him. Far be it from me, Isaac, that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.

And in response to his mom's faithful witness, Isaac exhorted, Mothers present, especially moms of young kids, he said, I didn't know you could change the world by standing in one place and praying for 40 years.

So in keeping with the work Samuel's going to do in his retirement from public service, in verse 24, he tells Israel the one thing necessary.

He reduces his whole message to a single sentence. That's what the word only is there for. Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.

Fear God and serve him with your whole heart because he alone deserves your total devotion and he alone can deliver you from the death and destruction that you deserve. So devote yourself to God in all his ways Because he alone can break the cycle. He alone can rescue you from unrepentance and all its consequences. He alone can rescue you from his wrath. He alone can rescue you from yourself.

And then Samuel closes with a warning. It's a sober note to end. It's a sobering passage. Verse 25, But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away. Both you and your king.

This is a warning of exile, that they and their king would be swept clean out of the land. Sadly, it's a warning that four or five hundred years later would come true. They didn't follow through on the repentance and the renewal that seemed to have begun here. They didn't follow through on fearing the Lord and serving him with their whole heart, so they and their king would one day be utterly swept away. Brothers and sisters, we who trust in Christ, praise God, Christ was swept away for us.

Praise God he suffered the full flood of exile in the wrath of God so that we would stand on dry ground by his grace forever. Praise God that Christ became a curse for us so that we would receive the blessings that he alone deserves. Mark Feather and I were discussing the passage this week and he observed that in this passage, God has given his people so many resources to enable them to break out, to achieve escape velocity from this cycle of unrepentance. The deliverers he sent, his word, his prophet, his track record of covenant faithfulness, his reminder of his love for them, of all the things he'd done for them, all that aimed at liberating Israel from this cycle. But they never turned on the rocket boosters of repentance and achieved escape velocity.

What can break you out of the worst cycle you're stuck in?

You can't break yourself out, but God can break you out. That's the message of our whole passage. So let God's severity lead you to despair of yourself and let God's kindness lead you to entrust yourself fully to him. If you do, then as verse 22 says, He will never forsake you. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not, I will not, desert to its foes.

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. Let's pray.

Father, we praise you for the great things you've done for us. We praise you for your promise never to forsake us. Father, we pray that you would enable us to love and serve and fear you with our whole heart. In Jesus' name, amen.