(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Number one here in chapter 12, if I were you, if Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice, and all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you, and I am old and grey-headed, and behold, my sons are with you, and I walk before you from my childhood unto this day. Now, basically in chapter 11, we saw Saul lead the people into battle and defeat Nahash, the king of the Ammonites, and so now he's really become king. Before that, he'd been anointed king, and he wasn't really ruling over the people, again, led them into battle. But at the end of chapter 11, if you remember, everyone's rallying around King Saul and rejoicing and saying, you know, who are those guys that said, Shall Saul reign over us? Bring him and put him to death. And of course, he said that they shouldn't be put to death just for saying that. And so in chapter 12 here, Samuel is telling the people, okay, you've got what you wanted now. And that's basically what this chapter is. He's saying, look, you asked for a king, and behold, I have hearkened unto your voice, and all that you said unto me, and now have made a king over you. And then in verse 2, he begins to talk about his life. And he says, Behold, the king walketh for you, and I am old and grey-headed. And behold, my sons are with you, and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am, witnessed against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose axe have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? And I will restore it you. And they say, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us. Neither hast thou taken aught of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, and is anointed as witness this day, that ye have not found aught in my hand. And they answered, He is witness. This is great that he's able to do this at the end of his life, to stand up and say, look, I walked before you, here I am. He's just putting his life on display and saying, look, I have not defrauded anyone. I haven't taken any bribes. I've done right. And this reminds me of what the apostle Paul was able to say at the end of his life, when he said, I've fought a good fight. I've finished my course. I've kept the faith. We ought to be able to get to the end of our life and be able to give this kind of testimony and say, look, I've done what I was supposed to do. I am an example that my children and grandchildren can follow. And that's basically what Samuel's saying here. Now look at verse number 6. It says, And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was coming to Egypt and your fathers cried unto the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt and may even dwell in this place. And when they forgot the Lord their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the host 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 unto the Lord and said, We have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served Balaam and Asherah, but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies and we will serve thee. And the Lord sent Jerubel and Bedan and Jetha and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side and you dwelled safely. And when you saw that Nahaz, the king of the children of Ammon, came against you, you said unto me, Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king. Now what he's explaining to them is that for hundreds and hundreds of years, and if you think about it, the time of the judges was about 400 years. And then before that, he sent Moses and Aaron. And right after that was Joshua. And so what he's saying is, you've already been enslaved in Egypt as a nation. You cried out to God, you put away your sin, and you did what was right in his eyes. He sent Moses and Aaron, they delivered you. When you turned away from God, he sent all these other enemies, whether it were the Philistines, whether it were the Moabites, whether it were the Adamites. And every time they got right with God, every time they put away their idols, every time they did what was right, God sent them a deliverer. God answered their prayer and sent them someone and he listed some of the deliverers there, whether it were Jerubel, Bedan, Jetha, Samuel. He sent them a deliverer every single time and delivered them out of the hands of their enemies. So isn't it silly that after 400 and some years of this pattern playing out over and over again, commit sin, do wrong, worship other gods, become enslaved, lose prosperity, become a reproach among the nation. And then every time you do what's right and serve God and cry out to the Lord, he sends some man, some leader, that would rally the people behind and rally the people behind a righteous cause and lead them out of bondage. Why would it be any different now 400 years later where they say, no, we need something different. We need a king like all the nations. They didn't need a king. God's system was fine of having the judges and having God be their king and just having judges on this earth that would lead them into battle and rule over them and so forth. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that they were in disobedience to God. The problem was that they were rebelling against God. It wasn't God's system that was the problem. It was them that was the problem. And so it was ridiculous for them after 400 years of this pattern to turn around and say, well, no, we're scared. We're not going to be able to get out of this one with Nahash, king of the Ammonites. We need a king to be set over us. That's the same thing in our lives, though. We have the Bible giving us all the same examples, and we have even more examples because they had, okay, this many examples. We have all these other examples that God gives us later showing, for example, where David said, I've never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed bathed in bread. They didn't have the book of Romans telling them if God be for us, who can be against us? Nay, but in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. We need to realize that the Bible is true, and it has all these examples of people who went through a lot worse things that we're going through. We need to seek first the kingdom of God, and God's going to lead us out of it. God's going to see us through it. You know, people are worried about their finances because the economy's bad, or that's probably the biggest problem that a lot of people are dealing with right now, but there are other problems that people are dealing with, whether it be health problems or family problems, and the bottom line is that God is the one that can deliver us from these things, and whether it be that we're worried about where our food and raiment's going to come from, Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. And so instead of being fearful and unreasonable and thinking, well, you know, we're all doomed, it's all going to fall apart, do what you're supposed to do, put church first, put God first, put the Bible first, and God's going to take care of you because he took care of all these hundreds of people in the Bible, and that's what Samuel's showing them. He said in verse 7, Now therefore stand still that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord. He's saying, let's reason together here. Look how many times this has happened. Look how many great leaders and great deliverers God has sent you. Don't you understand that God is the one that saves you? God is the one that lifts you. It wasn't Moses that got you out of Egypt. He said it was the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. It wasn't Jerubel, or does everybody know who Jerubel is? Gideon, that's the name that he got. Let me tell you how he got that name, by the way, because it's a great name, and I like the fact that Samuel uses that name to call him because he wasn't born with that name. He was born with the name Gideon, and the Bible calls him Gideon a lot throughout the Bible, but it also calls him Jerubel, and the reason that his name was Jerubel is because we mostly think of a story of Gideon where Gideon went down with just only 300 troops and defeated an army of just hundreds of thousands, just this mass army that was assembled, and against all the odds, he defeated them with 300 people. Not through great fighting skill or anything like that. It was God performed a miracle. Basically, they split up into three groups, three groups of 100 each, and they just were told by God to bring a lamp in one hand inside of a pitcher and then a trumpet in the other hand, and when they got the signal, they were all supposed to break the pitcher, which shined the light of the lamp, blow the trumpet, and shout at top of their lungs the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, and when they did that, God basically caused the host of the army to see all those lights light up because they surrounded them. Even though they only had 300 people, they surrounded them. All the lights lit up, all the trumpets, all the yelling, basically God caused them to perceive and to think that they were surrounded by a huge army that they couldn't defeat. So then they just go into confusion because it's the middle of the night. They start accidentally killing each other because there were troops there from different nations, and so they start killing each other. They start trampling one another in haste, and they just are completely in flight, and those 300 men are chasing them, and they don't realize that it's only 300 guys that are chasing them. They're just running. They're just trying to get out of there. Then, because obviously only 300 guys can only do so much, then as they're being chased, the rest of the children of Israel realize, hey, they're on the run. We're winning. And then a lot of the troops who had backed out and a lot of other people from the countryside, they all join in, and then Gideon had a big army behind him chasing after and defeating their enemies. And so that wasn't through the power of the flesh. I mean, that was 300 guys. They started out with, what, 32,000, and God said, well, this is too many troops because I want to get the glory. I don't want you to think that you did it because you have 32,000 troops, and that was already severely outnumbered. And then, of course, he whittled it down to 10,000 and then down to 300. But you see, before that is where he picked up his name. Before that, God told him that before he could do that, before he could have that great victory of going down and defeating that much larger enemy, he had to first throw down the altar of Baal that was basically in his father's grove. And so his dad, so he wasn't really raised in the perfect home because his dad had set up an altar to Baal, which is basically Satan. It's a really bad religion of worshiping Satan. Baal is sometimes called Baal-Zebub or Beelzebub, but Jesus basically refers to Satan as Beelzebub in the New Testament. And so first, he had to go to his father's own grove and tear down his father's altar to Baal. And when he tore down the altar of Baal, all the men of the city rose up and said, you know, bring him and put him to death because he tore down Baal's altar. And then Gideon's dad steps in and says, wait a minute, you know, is Baal a god or not? Does he really need us to protect him? You know, if his altar has been broken down, then let Baal come and take care of it. You know, let none of us put him to death. Let Baal take vengeance for himself. And so they pass this name upon him of Jerubel, which basically means that, you know, just to paraphrase him, the guy who Baal is mad at. You know what I mean? The guy who Baal has emigration against, okay? Wasn't that a great name? I mean, it just doesn't really roll off the tongue, though. That's why, you know, because I thought about it. You know, I'd love to name my kid that, just because it's a cool name, just the meaning. But it just didn't really... I mean, I guess you could just call him Jerry. Right? I mean, that's a word. What do you think, honey? No. But anyway, it doesn't really roll off the tongue, Jerubel. But it's a cool name. You know, I mean, I'm sure he wore that around as a badge after that. You know, the guy who Baal... The guy who Satan hates. Satan is mad at this guy. And it reminds me of when Paul, or not Paul, but the seven sons of Sceva in the book of Acts, they were trying to, you know, cast out demons in the name of Jesus, but they were not, you know, set up to do the epic game. And so, of course, the demon-possessed guy just tears them apart and beats them up and rips their clothes off and throws them out of the house. And the first thing he said to him, you remember? He said, well, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? And then he just beat them all up and tore them up and threw them out of the house. But anyway, he said, Paul I know, Jesus I know. You know, and I wonder, does the devil know you? Because he knew them because they were the ones who were his enemies, because they were the ones who were out getting people saved and preaching the word of God and winning souls to Christ. You know, that's who the devil has indignation and wrath against, those who are serving God. And the Bible says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, your enemy is what that means, your adversary the devil walketh about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The devil is out to get those that are righteous, that are serving God. That's what Gideon was, so he picked up that name. And I like that name. And so he raised up all these great deliverers. He raised up, look at verse 11. He raised up Jerubel, and who's Jerubel again? Gideon, right? That's his more famous name. And Bedan, now who in the world is Bedan? Does anybody know who Bedan is? Okay, I spent so much time trying to figure out who Bedan was. And then today I was just like, you know what, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. I'm going to figure out who this guy is. And I spent over an hour just today just trying to figure out who Bedan is. And I still cannot tell you for sure who Bedan is. Now, I can tell you who I think it is, okay, but this is a mystery who this guy is because, you know, you go back to the book of Judges and he isn't there. There's nobody mentioning Bedan. Now, if you look at the list here, let me just give you my process that I went through as I was trying to figure this out. And if you figure this out, I'm going to reward you greatly. I'm going to put an old chain around your neck and make a proclamation concerning you. But if you can interpret this dream or this writing on the wall type of a, you know, Bedan, whoever that is. I mean, I will do that, by the way. But here's the process that I went through here because I thought to myself, okay, who's this guy Bedan? Now, there are a lot of people's names in the Bible who changed over time. Kind of like in Spanish, my name would be Esteban. Okay, in English, it's Steven. In German, it would be Stefan. In Hungarian, it's Istvan. So you see how it's just a little bit different in every language, but you can still see the resemblance. Okay, it's still the same thing. Well, there are a lot of names like that in the Bible because of the fact that the Bible was written over the course of hundreds and hundreds of years, that the language changes over time. So in one book in the Bible, you'll see Nebuchadnezzar. You'll see it spelled Nebuchadrezzar in another book. You'll see Caleb. Even in the Old... Now, definitely from Old to New Testament, you see dramatic difference. Like, you see Elijah in the Old Testament is Elias in the New Testament, or Elisha in the Old Testament is Elisias in the New Testament, or Hosea is Ozy. Noah is Noe. There are a lot of different names like that that change from Old to New Testament. Joshua is actually spelled Jesus in the Greek in the New Testament. And so names change over time, but even within the Old Testament itself, names change. You'll see, like, Joash, Jehoash, same guy. And a lot of names are like that. And Caleb is called Calubai in another place. It's a little bit different, but one thing I've noticed is that if you just take out all the vowels, then the consonants will be the same. Tons of names are like that. And so the first thing I did is I took out the vowels and just was looking at a D, a D and an N, and then I found there was a judge named Abdon. So I thought, oh, you know, same letters. Maybe it's just a little bit different name a few hundred years later. But the thing that bugged me about that is that it would be out of order, because it seems like he's giving him an order, because he says Jerubel, which is Gideon, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel. That was the part that bugged me. Well, there's a guy in... Is anybody interested in this? I'll be done with this in just a minute. Okay, if I could spend an hour on this today, you could spend two minutes listening to it, all right, even if it's not the most exciting part of the sermon. So then I looked it up, and I figured, okay, let's look between Jerubel and Jephthah, you know, and see who's there. Well, there is a guy named Bedan in 1 Chronicles 7, and that guy Bedan is basically of the tribe of Manasseh of the Gileadites in the land of Makar, the son of Manasseh, and so forth. So it kind of gives us a geography and area. Well, one of the judges between Jerubel and Jephthah named Jair, J-A-I-R, is from that exact family of that exact tribe of Bedan in 1 Chronicles. And Jair, there was another guy named Jair, if you go back to the time of Moses, and he's a famous guy that's mentioned, like, six or seven times in the Bible, and the whole area was named after him, and he keeps bringing up the land of Havop Jair, named after Jair. So he was a famous ancestor. So maybe he had that name of his ancestor, Jair, but then his name was also Bedan. So anyway, your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, you will be rewarded greatly. I've already called all my soothsayers and magicians and astrologers, and none of them were able to tell me who Bedan was. So if you can tell me, then I'll reward you greatly if you have a word of knowledge. But anyway, all that last couple of minutes of the sermon was just to tell you I have no clue who Bedan was. If I hadn't guessed, I would say it was Jair the Gileadite from Judges chapter 10. All right, but he says he sent whoever he was. God sent him as a great deliverer and a great judge. So he sent Jerubel, Bedan, and Jephthah. Of course, we know who Jephthah is. That's Judges chapter 11. And Samuel, talking about himself. And delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and he dwelled safe. Now, the Bible's clear about this subject. When they served God and did what was right, they always dwelled safe. Did you notice that? They were always safe. Whenever they were doing right, God would put the fear of them and the dread of them on all the nations, or even give them peace on every side. Remember King Solomon had peace on all sides. Why? Because God gave him peace. God is the one that can protect us. Safety is of the Lord. And if our nation wants to be safe, and there's so much talk today about national security isn't there? And being safe, and being safe from our enemies around the globe. And, you know, if you just sit there and think about it, and you've got the whole world, and you just look around and just say, is there anyone in the world who wants to attack us, or could attack us? Well, give me a break. At any time throughout history, I don't think there's ever been a nation that can just sit there and say, we have no enemies. There is no danger. There is zero threat. There are always going to be enemies. There are always going to be nations that are wicked, that are militant, that are violent, that are evil. They always exist. I mean, show me a time in the Bible where there weren't aggressive nations. I mean, it's out there always. But the difference is that when they did right, they dwelled safe. And when they did evil on the side of the Lord, God would allow those nations to get the best of them. God would allow those nations to come through. And God even stated before the book of Judges and the book of Joshua, he said that he was going to leave hostile nations around them to prove them and to test them, whether they would walk in his ways or not. And every time they would disobey and do wickedly, he would just let those nations come in and defeat them and enslave them. And when they did right, he would raise up a great deliverer. Now, God uses man throughout the Bible. And often God uses one man. One man to do a great work. And we need to realize how much difference one person can make. Not even just always a huge group. Because if you see throughout the Bible, God would raise up one man that could change the course of a whole nation. Samuel was a person like that. Gideon was definitely a person like that. He was a man that God used to really... You know, I don't know who Bedan was, but he was probably one that was like that. And these guys that God would raise up were filled with the Spirit of God. And one man would change the course of a whole nation. Okay, we need to understand that God uses people. A lot of people have this idea that God just does everything up in heaven by himself. God's just up there pulling the shirt. No, God said, I sought for a man among them that would make up the hedge and stand in the gap for my people that are not just friendly, but I found none. God is looking for people that he can raise up as a righteous leader. That he can raise up as a man of God. You know, that's part of why we have the preaching class on Saturday night. It's so that young men can get up and preach God's Word and understand what it means to get behind the pulpit and preach the Bible because somewhere we need to find that man that could rise up or a multitude of men that could rise up and preach and rally God's people in this city or in some other city and lead them to winning souls and lead them to serving God and to lead them to righteousness and to fight against the wickedness that has taken over our country. We need someone to rise up. Where is Gilead? Where is Gideon? Where is Bedan? You know, I don't know. We need a Bedan today. We need a Jetha. We need Samuel. We need men. God uses people and he uses individuals, whether it be Elijah, Elijah, he uses leaders. It's always important to have a leader. Your family needs a leader. You know, families today that don't have a strong husband, a strong father leading, that's a problem. There has to be a leader. Churches need a leader. And I've heard a lot of people even criticize and say, well, you know, they say it's unscriptural to have a pastor of a church. Who's ever heard something like that? You know, it should be just everybody is just kind of in charge and maybe you just have like a bunch of people rotating through or whatever. But, you know, that's not biblical. You know, you can say, well, look, look in the Bible. You know, you have the apostles. Like, I'm not an apostle and neither are you. Okay, yes, he ordained the twelve apostles. He told them to go into the whole world and spread out. You know, a lot of them chose to stay behind in Jerusalem. That's not what he told them to do. He told them to go spread out. I told him to go spread out throughout the whole world, okay. And some of them did that and some of them didn't. But many of them just devoted Jerusalem. He said, abide in Jerusalem until you be a Jew with power from on high. That happened at the day of Pentecost. Then it was time to go out and teach all nations. He had to send persecution to scatter them and get them out of their comfort zone out of Jerusalem and get them out into the nations preaching the gospel. Look, there are so many examples it would take the whole rest of the sermon to sit here and even just list for you and enumerate the leaders in the Bible. Moses, Joshua, I mean the twelve judges. We could sit there and list all twelve judges. Othiel, Ephod, you know, we could go through all of them. We could go through and list all the kings that God used to rally the people. And everything truly rises and falls on leadership. When the king did wickedly in the sight of the Lord, you notice that the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. If the king did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, people would do much better as a nation because we need leadership. We need a man to stand up and to lead and say, hey, this is where we're going. This is what we're going to do. Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. As it was said, and I just preached on that a couple weeks ago, but what was that guy saying? Jehu, there we go. Jehu said to John Adab, the son of Rekab, come with me. Is your heart right as my heart is with thy heart then get in the chariot and come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. And both of them eradicated the worship of Baal from the children of Israel. I love that story, by the way. I love how Jehu says, man, I love worshiping Baal. Jehu said, I'm going to worship Baal more than, the last king, he worshiped Baal a little bit. I'm going to worship him a lot. And he got all the worshipers of Baal and he got them all a new garment and put them together in the temple. And he said, have we got everybody here? And he said, all right, now everybody kill them all. And he killed every single one of them. He said, there we go. Now it's gone. Every preacher of Baal is dead. That was a great story. But the bottom line is that God needs leadership. And you say, well, God doesn't need anything. Yes, look, God isn't going to do it himself. He has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. He has given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Jesus said, as long as I'm in the world, I'm the light of the world. But when he departed unto the Father, he said, as the Father sent me, so send I you. He said, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hit. He said, ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt had lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and be trodden under foot of men. And God uses people. He was here on this earth physically. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He went about doing good. But he ascended up to the Father, and he has left us with a mission. He's left us with the job of preaching the gospel. He's left us with the job of pastoring churches and seeing people saved and preaching God's word. He's not going to do it for us. We can't just sit back and say he didn't do it for us. No, he commanded us to go do it. And he's looking for men. He's looking for a volunteer to stand up as Isaiah said, hear my Lord, send me, and to be that man. And so we see that God uses a man. First, the people do wickedly. Then they begin to think themselves and to be sorry for what they've done and to cry out to God. And then God raises up a deliverer. And we need a whole lot of deliverers today in our nation that would rise up and would be a great deliverer in our nation today. But let's keep reading here. It says, they delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you dwelled safe. You know, I would feel so much safer in my house than any alarm system or any vicious dog or any menacing sign or any camera system. And by the way, I have all of those things. I've got menacing signs, steal here, die here. You know, violators will be shot. I've got all that stuff. I've got a dog out in the backyard. I've got an alarm system. But you know what really would make me feel safe at night besides just the shotgun that's loaded, you know? And it's there. It's ready, okay? It's loaded with buckshot. But what is it that would make me feel really safe? It's just knowing that I did the right thing. And I mean, just like what Samuel said, I haven't taken any bribes. I've done what's right. That's what's going to make you safe. I mean, I'd rather have none of those things and live in a tent. I feel safer knowing I've done right than to be living in a fortress knowing that I've committed a grave sin because I know God's going to bring justice to me. God's not going to protect me. It's righteousness that will keep us safe. And if our country wants to have national security and to have safety, maybe it says spending so much that whatever they're doing to keep us safe, all the hundreds of billions of dollars it's costing us, what would really keep us safe is if we would just have some righteousness and clean living, some right preaching. Maybe they should take some of those billions of dollars. Maybe they should buy some time on TV and put some of my preaching or some other Bible-believing Baptist. Wouldn't that be good? Just get a bunch of just Bible-believing Baptist preaching and just, this has been a paid message from the Department of Homeland Security. If you get this kind of preaching and quit being so wicked and quit fornicating and quit being a drunker and quit being an adult payer and quit being an adulterer and quit being sleazy, then God will keep us safe as a nation. So here, listen to this preaching. But guess what? That's never going to happen. But it would do a lot better than whatever they think they're going to do to keep us safe because you know what? When God's mad at you, nothing can keep you safe. Nothing. If God's upset at you, if God wants to judge you, you cannot escape. I mean, look at Jonah. He tried to get away from God's judgment. You can't get away from him. You can't hide from the face of the Lord. He will come and get you. And so if you do what's right, you're safe. Even if you're in the most dangerous place in the world. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no equal life, for thou art with me. If God be for us, who can be against us? But if God's not with us, woe unto us. Woe unto us when God is not protecting us. And so our nation, I don't believe, is very safe right now. Because of the fact that our nation is filled with ungodliness. Now, the more we get rid of the ungodliness, the more we turn to God, we're going to be safer. The more Jephthah's can rise up and the more Gilead's can rise up and the more Bedan's can rise up, the safer we're going to be. And when those men don't rise up and when we don't have good preaching and when we don't have right living, you know what, we're not going to be safe. It doesn't matter how many weapons we have, it's just not going to work. He said in verse 12, And when you saw that Nahash, the king of the children of Ammon, came against you, you said unto me, Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king. Now, it's interesting because today, people will act like this is really a bad thing. They'll say, like, theocracy. Who's ever heard that term before? Like, God is in charge. And they act like, that's so bad. That sounds great. That sounds really good if God would be our king. And I've even heard a lot of preachers, they act like, all the time with the judges, there's this total chaos and total anarchy and that's why they need to get a king in there. God never wanted to have the king. He told them no. I grew up in church my whole life. I never heard anybody get up and preach. In my whole life, and in my whole life of Sunday school, I never heard anybody get up and preach and say, you know what, they should have stuck with the judges. They didn't need a king. I never heard that, but it's true. I mean, God told them. He said, you've rejected me from being your king. And then the judges, those were the good old days. You know, oh, but look at this horrible thing that happened at the time of the judges. Okay, but look at the horrible stuff that's happening now. And look at the horrible stuff that happened when they had a king. There's always going to be bad things happening because people are sinners. There's nothing wrong with the system. God's system was right. Having the king was second best. Now let me say this, though. Did God want them to have a king? No. I mean, clearly. You can't read 1 Samuel 8 and 12 and walk away thinking, hey, this was God's will for them to have a king. No way. In 1 Samuel 8, God said, you know, they've rejected me. They've rejected my plan. And he's saying the same thing in this chapter. But even though they did wrong by asking the king, they did commit sin, they chose the wrong path. Definitely second best for their life here because, you know, they should have had the judges. Instead, they ended up with a king. But still, God is not just basically just writing them off here. Okay, number one. And number two, when they're sorry for asking a king, God doesn't say, okay, well, let's get rid of your king and go back to the system of the judges. Notice, he makes them stay with their king. They have to stick with that decision that they've made. Let's read this and you'll see what I'm saying. He says in verse 13, Now, therefore, behold the king whom you have chosen and whom you have desired, and 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, then shall both ye and also the king that reigneth over you continue following the Lord your God. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you as it was against your fathers. Now, here's what I want to point out. They were wrong to ask for a king, but once they have the king, God is still basically giving them a chance to do right. He's still giving them a second chance, as it were, saying, if you fear the Lord and serve him, obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment, he says, I'll bless you and your king. So he's giving them that grace of, hey, you messed up, you did the wrong thing, you made the wrong choice in life, but you know what? From here on out, let's do what's right, and I'll bless you. If you do what's right from here on out. Let's keep reading. It says in verse number 16, Now, therefore, stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not we harvest today? I would call to the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you in hate. Again, no question that they were wicked to ask for a king. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. Yeah, you would fear him after that. He said, your wickedness is great in what you've done, and to prove it, I'm going to pray that God caused it to just miraculously just start raining. All of a sudden, just thunder, clouds, rain. I mean, this is almost like the miracle that Jesus did when he calmed the storm. And they said, what manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey it? This is a major miracle. This time it was the opposite, though. Samuel brought on the storm. Just to show how mad God is, he said, I'm going to have him do this miracle just to prove that I'm telling you the truth. And God performed a miracle on a day that it was not likely to rain. Thunder and rain, and the people were scared to death when they saw that. And all the people said unto Samuel, verse 19, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for we have added unto all our sins this evil to ask us a king. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not, ye have done all this wickedness. He's saying, yeah, you're right, you did do wrong. Yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. Now look, maybe you've done something wicked in your past. Maybe you've made a big mistake or messed up a certain phase of your life or a certain aspect of your life. This is for you, then, because he's basically saying to them, look, you've done this wickedness, you've done wrong, put it behind you, and from here on out, do right. Here on out, serve God. Here on out, be faithful to your king. That's what you chose. You know, you had the judges before, you blew it, you messed that up, you lost a lot of your freedom, and he explained in chapter 8 how they were going to lose a lot of freedom by having a king. You've lost your freedom, but you know what? Just move on and serve God with all your heart. And a lot of people, they let bad stuff that they've done in their past stop them from doing right going forward. And they just kind of throw in the towel, like, well, I've already blown it, I've already messed up, so I might as well just live a wicked life now. You know, I've already fornicated, I've already committed adultery, or I've already been divorced or remarried or five different times or whatever. But God still wants you to stop and say, look, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. You see, God still has a will and a plan for your life even after you mess up. Now, his original perfect will for them would have been that they would be under those judges and that he would rule over them. They did wickedly. So now God has a new will, okay? Because he now is saying, okay, well, now this is where we're at, so going forward, now my will is for you and your king to serve God, and then I'll bless your king and I'll bless you as long as you do that. And so don't ever get the attitude of giving up and throwing in the towel. Just because you've made a mistake in the past doesn't mean that you can't serve God from here on out and do right from here on forward. And sometimes you make mistakes that you can't undo. Now, asking for a king and anointing the king and making all these pronouncements and swearing all these oaths or whatever they did, you know, that was something that they couldn't go back on. So they can't just say, oh, okay, well, we changed our mind. Let's go back to the judges. No, it's too late. They have a king now. You might make a mistake that you can't change. For example, let's say you're a young person, and let's say you go out and marry an unbeliever. You marry somebody who's not safe. You can't turn around and say, oh, I messed up. I shouldn't have married an unbeliever, so now I'm going to divorce my wife now. It's like, well, no. Now you've made a vow to her or him. Whatever the case may be, once you've made that vow, it's like, well, you're married. You made that trip, and that's something that you're going to basically live with for the rest of your life, till death do you part. So once you make certain decisions, you have to live with the consequences of those type of decisions. That's what we see here. They made a decision of rejecting the judges and rejecting God with their king, and she didn't even have to live with the consequences. But that doesn't mean that God's through with them. That doesn't mean that God still can't use them. It doesn't mean that there's no hope in the future of human right. And so now they have to live in the new system, but God still expects them to serve God. And he's being merciful to them and giving them another chance to do right, and God will give you another chance. So don't mess up in the first place. You're going to be in the best scenario. But if you do mess up, don't let that just get you totally out of church. Let's say you make a big mistake in the future and blow it. Hey, you're going to live with the consequences of that, but don't let that just stop you from serving God for the rest of your life where you just give up. God used a lot of people in the Bible with a lot of bad stuff in their past. And if you look at the woman who had five husbands and she was living in sin, she was used to get a whole bunch of people saved in Samaria in John 4. You look at a lot of people in the Bible who were publicans and, you know, republican. I heard a little kid who was preaching. He said, they're republicans and sinners. Jesus was dining with publicans and sinners. But, yeah, you look at some of the people that did things in the Bible. I mean, look at Paul. Paul persecuted the church of God. You look at Matthew. He worked for the IRS. You know, and God was still able to use him, you know, once he got him out of it, once he, you know, once he delivered him from that lifestyle of collecting taxes. And so he was an extortioner, you know, and he got him out of that. So God can still use you. Don't just let things in your past just, oh, well, I'm already blown it, you know. And by the way, I'm 24. You know, it's like, give me a break. You got your whole life back. You don't let that ruin your whole life. Okay, move on. But let's finish up the chapter here. He says, serve the Lord with all your heart. Verse 21, and turn ye not aside, for then ye should go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain. Say, if you don't follow God with all your heart, everything else is worthless. Anything else you follow is vain. It's empty. It's meaningless. What else are you gonna do with your life? You say, well, I'm through serving God. I'm through with church. I'm just gonna, you know, you're gonna what? What are you gonna do? There's nothing else to do. What are you gonna, I mean, what are you gonna do with your life? If you're not gonna serve God, what are you gonna do? Oh, I'm gonna raise my family. To do what? I'm gonna raise my family to serve God. I'm gonna bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. There's no other, what else am I gonna do with kids? Well, kids, you can be whatever you want when you grow up. Go be an astronaut, a marine biologist, and the President of the United States. That's not what I want to teach my children. I want them to grow up and serve God with their lives. That's that actual direction and meaning in their life. What are you gonna do? Go build a big business and amass a bunch of wealth and eat, drink, and be married, and then tomorrow you die? Why not do something with your life that matters? And if you're not gonna serve God with all your heart, you're basically gonna spend your life on just vain things. I'm just gonna go hiking every day. Well, that's gonna eventually get old. You're gonna get sick of hiking. Oh, I'm just gonna collect guns. You're gonna get sick of that, too. I'm gonna collect beanie babies, you know? I'm gonna have a stamp collection. You know, if those are your hobbies, well, great. Fine. But, you know, some people, they're an athlete, you know? And then they win the gold medal, and then what? You know? What now? You know, oh, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna be a movie star. I'm gonna be a movie star, and then you're on cocaine or something because you're so depressed about it. I'm gonna be a rock star. What kind of a vain life do you live when you're not serving God? When you're serving God, you're doing something of eternal value, okay? And so if you don't serve God with all your heart, he says you're just gonna go after vain things that can't profit. Is that what you want to spend your life on? So I ask this. If you're gonna quit serving God, what are you gonna do with your life? What else really has meaning? Oh, I'm gonna go into politics. You know? You know what I mean? It's not gonna work. So let's, you know... Serve God with all your heart. I mean, it's the only thing that really has eternal value. And I'm not saying that those other things are bad. You know, you want to be into athletics? Great. You want to collect things and have hobbies? Look, I have hobbies. I have a few hobbies. I have a couple hobbies that I do in my life, you know? And I think it's great to have a hobby. But you think that's just what I live for? No. This is what I live for, okay? And this is what you ought to live for. It's what we all ought to live for. And without this, I wouldn't even know what to do with myself. It's like, what now? And so let's keep going. Verse 22, it says, For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you, but I will teach you the good and the right ways. And that right there tells us it's a sin not to pray. And he's saying it'd be a sin for me not to pray for you because he was in authority over them. That means that parents should be praying for their children and their family. I should be praying for this church, and you should be praying for the church here. We should all be praying, and it's a sin not to pray. But I will teach you the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider how great things he hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king. So even though they're leaning upon their king for security and he's head and shoulders above everybody and he won a great battle against Nahash, he said, look, it doesn't matter. If you turn away from what's right, your king will be destroyed and you will be destroyed. Everything hinges on one thing. Is God pleased with you? Is God blessing you? If he's not blessing you, you're going to be defeated on the battlefield. If he's blessing you, you're going to dwell safely on all sides. Let's pray. Let's have a word of prayer. Father, please just help us to realize that you are the one who holds our faith in your hands and that it's you who blesses and curses your God. Help us to not rely on vain things that cannot profit. Help us not to think that safety comes from anything other than you, dear God, because you are the one who ultimately keeps us safe. We may have, you know, as the Bible says, the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. And so we may have things in place to keep us safe, but honestly, at the end of it all, we have to rely on you to keep us safe. Help us to do right, dear God. Help our nation to get on track and that you would please just, I pray that you would please just send forth labors into your harvest, and I pray that you would raise up some modern-day Jerry Bells and modern-day V-Dams and modern-day Jeff Does that would turn us back as a nation unto you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.