1 Samuel 7 we are right smack bang focused on this recurring issue of idols and the worship of other gods. This problem in the human being that cannot seem to sustain the worship of the invisible God, but always wants the things of the senses. What they can touch, see, hear. Something to worship they can reason with human logic and intellect, one that is formed with their own hands.
1 Samuel 7
Here we can see Samuel is telling them to deal with these ‘strange gods’, and he names here Baalim and Ashtaroth. These gods are still at play in the world today. And not just these gods in the sense of this explicit idolatry, because in Western Christianity, many would say ‘we would never do that’. But we have made gods out of other things, we have not loved the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our minds, all our soul. Even the family has become an idol in that sense.
‘If ye do return unto the Lord all your hearts…..and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only…..’ 1 Samuel 7:3
Heart. Heart. Serve.
The people repent. Samuel prays. And then something absolutely fantastic happens.
And what amazes me here is Hannah had declared these things in her prayer, aka prophetic utterance in 1 Samuel 2.
Hannah had said:
‘The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them: the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; and he shall give strength unto his king and exalt the horn of his anointed’.
1 Samuel 2:10
And now, 1 Samuel 7:10;
‘..the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines and discomfited (put in commotion) them, and they were smitten before Israel’.
Think about that.
Psalms talks about the ‘thundering’ from God.
The voice that spoke from heaven to declare Jesus to the people, thundered (John 12:29).
A gospel associate told me years ago of three different occasions when he heard the voice of God, clearly, terrifyingly, thunderingly, and irrevocably. It’s rarely spoken of because it was so incredible. But the description of the experience always reminded me of John 12.
But in 1 Samuel 7 this says the Lord thundered with a great thunder. It must have been terrifying. I imagine in the days described in the book of Revelation it will be similar.
It describes what happened to the enemy as a result.
As Christians, what our expectations, our faith, our spiritual understanding, of how God wants to deal with the enemy?
1 Samuel 8
Here it seems Samuel has run into the same problem that Eli had. His sons walked not in his ways.
How many Christian parents have children that do not walk in the ways of the Lord? Personally, I think the whole structure of the modern church has created systems and communities that are not the book of Acts kind. We’ve embraced religion, and not the dynamic of that demonstrative gospel that revolutionised the world. Some have told us it doesn’t happen anymore, it’s in days of old. God forgive them. They have robbed the believers of the ‘power’ to be witnesses. Religion is never a substitute for that life as a child of God.
But now, Israel as a people, start to demand a king. Samuel is not happy.
They want to be like every other nation. They want a king over them.
And you know what, God says to Samuel, give them what they want. It’s me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want this invisible God that delivered them from Egypt, they’ve gone with other gods. Tell them what they’re going to get, warn them.
Oh my! The description here…..
It reminds me of the verse in Psalms 106:15
‘And he gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul’.
What are we asking God for? Are we, maybe without being aware of it, rejecting the spiritual, the Holy Spirit way? Are we asking for carnal things and not allowing God to be our king? And how much of our life is frustrated because of it?
