(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Levi, come here. Levi, no, no. Levi. Levi. Thanks. I know, right? You're so sweet. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone. Please take your seats. We'll be back with the stronghold Baptist Church this evening. 165, the Worship of the King. The Worship of the King. He is the king of all things. Oh, worship the king, all glorious above, And gratefully sing his wonderful love. our shield and keep framework, The ancient of days, a million this wager, will burn him with praise. O tell of his might, and sing of his grace. Whose road is the light, whose head of his face is sure is the path of the thundercloud's roar, and dark is his path on the wings of the storm. The mountain holds air, what's on every side. It breathes in the air, it shines in the light. It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain. Brailled children of dust, and people as frail, in need you we trust, or by need you fail. Thy mercy's out in you, outward through the air. Our liquor, defender, redeemer, and friend. Amen. Brother Micah, could you pray for us, please? Amen. Turn to Psalm 303. Psalm number 303, My Faith Looks Up to Me, Psalm 303. My faith looks up to me, loud lamb of Calvary, save the divine. Now hear me while I pray, take all my guilt away. Oh, let me promise may be holy night. May thy rich grace depart, strength to my fainting heart. I still inspire as thou hast died for me. Oh, may my love to thee, your warmth changes me, a living heart. While my blood plays thy trend, and creeps around me spread, be thou my guide. With darkness turn to say, why, in sorrow's tears I'll wane. Lord, let me ever strength not be a sign. When there's life, there's a dream. When there's hope, some extreme shall o'er be told. Blessed may your name evolve, here in this just great room. Oh, there be safe among the ransomed soul. Amen. All right. Welcome to Stronghold Baptist Church this evening. Glad that you could be here with us. At this time, we're going to go through our announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, slip your hand up and one of our ushers will get one out to you. If you open up to the first page, you will see our service times listed there Sunday morning at 10.30, Sunday evening again at 5 o'clock, and then Wednesday night at 7 is our Bible study. We are starting a brand new book of the Bible this week, so we're going to be in the book of Galatians for the next six weeks. Come on out for that if you can. Packed with doctrine, all kinds of good stuff out on the book of Galatians. Hopefully, you can make it out for that this Wednesday. Low-winning opportunities are listed there, as well as the salvation and baptisms for the month of April, as well as for the year. Let's count up if there's any salvation to report for today from the efforts put out today. Just slip your hand up real quick and we'll get those counted up. One there and one over here. Amen. All right. Very good. Two for the day. Praise the Lord for that. That's good. And then continuing on, we've got the offering totals down there at the bottom of the page received through the month of April. Pray requests. I went over most of the updates this morning for all the various changes that we made here. Does anyone else have any further updates to add this evening? All right. Of course, continue, please, to take these home with you and pray for the people that are in need here, whether they're in our church or friends and family of people in our church, and pray for those that are in need on that list. Prayer works. All right. On the next page, the April challenge is the focus on baptism. So please, especially as you preach the gospel to people, if you lead anyone to Christ, bring this up. Bring up baptism. Explain a little bit about what it is and why it's important, and encourage those. Maybe you know other friends, family that have been saved and they haven't been baptized yet. Explain that to them. It's an important part of Christian life to really grow and learn and take that first step of obedience into following the Lord. So I encourage you all to do that, and we're just kind of focused on that this month. And if you're able to help encourage somebody to get baptized, then you'll get a prize. And if they get baptized here at this church, then we've got a little something for them as well during this month, this push for baptism. So we had a few on Wednesday. It was real exciting. Smith family brought in some friends of theirs, I think, acquaintances. I'm not sure exactly how they knew them, but they brought them into church, and Abigail Smith got baptized, so that was fun, that was exciting. And then also there was a couple of their friends that they brought with them got baptized as well. So it's really exciting to see people getting saved and baptized. So let's keep up the work on pushing for that. New church plant in Greenville, I mentioned this morning. I think we're making a little bit of headway, so we've got a scheduled time between the real estate agent and the landlord tomorrow that where they're going to communicate. I upped our offer. I've been kind of working blind on this, and I haven't been getting very much information back, so it seems now we at least have a starting point. Hopefully that goes really well. Hopefully we can get this space without having to spend too much money. But we are in a very good position to move forward, and I'm just expecting if we could just get this deal done, we could just go boom, boom, boom, and just start moving forward full speed ahead and getting things up and running and have a whole other church up in Greenville, South Carolina. It's going to be exciting. There's going to be a lot of people that have already expressed interest in that. We're going to have some people from church here. It's going to be a lot more convenient for them to go to that church, that plant, and then also just suggest the excitement for all the work that's going to be done there. So please keep paying your prayers and really just chomping at the bit here to get that thing up and going. Continuing on, we've got the Bible memory passage. So we are just starting. It's week one of 10. If you want to join us in our Bible memory, we do two verses a week. That's the pace. So you can do more than that if you choose, obviously. You get ahead and memorize at your own pace, but if you want to go at our pace here, we do two verses a week for 10 weeks now. We've got 20 verses. If you can memorize all 20 of those verses and be able to quote it all out loud or perfect without making any errors, you'll get a prize for that. And since we already had done verses one through 20, there's an extra prize that goes along with these when we chop up these chapters of getting all of it done then. So if you did verses one through 20, and then you do these verses 21 through 40, and then you can do verses one through 40 by memory, you'll get a bonus prize for being able to do that at the end of all this. And we'll give you an extra week to put it all together after the end of this one. And if you didn't get verses one through 20 done, you still got 11 weeks to get verses one through 40 done. Go ahead and work on that, just a little bit more effort, but anyone can memorize the Bible. Anyone can. You've just got to stay consistent. You've got to set aside a little bit of time to do it. There's plenty of ways to do it, lots of different methods, and if you're interested in any of that and you really do want to get started in this and you really don't know where to start, just talk to me after service and I can give you some tools and help you out a little bit on how to do some memory. But guaranteed it's going to be a blessing. It's actually, you gain a lot more than just whatever little prize we give you for doing these challenges and these Bible memory passages. You will, you're guaranteed to learn something. I'm willing to say that. If you're born again, you memorize scripture. You're guaranteed to learn something you probably wouldn't have learned just to read in the Bible. So take that to heart. Upcoming birthdays and anniversaries through the end of April and to be in May are listed there. And then of course the upcoming events, men's preaching class, sorry for not having this in print. 9 30 a.m. is the start times if you're interested in this, 9 30 a.m. for all the men that want to do the preaching, the song leading. I believe we still have some of the assignments left over there. If we don't, if they ran out again, let me know. If you need one, excuse me, for the preaching. If you intend on preaching, there's a little short assignment there. And go ahead and pick up one of those if you plan on attending. May 13th through 18th at church camp. This is, I mean, we are so just on the cusp. I think right now, if I'm correct, Leslie, are we like at full capacity? Or there's one that we're uncertain of? But we're uncertain, right? Is, is that the one that I, that I gave the invite out to our, oh, okay. So there's, so there's still one now that, that, right. There's one availability, one cottage availability. So talk to your friends, see if anyone wants to get in on that. Um, they're great cottages, it's gonna be a lot of fun, week long camp, lots of good preaching, lots of good fellowship, all kinds of fun. So those of you who've been there, you know, and if you haven't been, come on out. And even if you don't like to camp and you don't want to do the camping thing, come on out and join us for some, some preaching and fellowship. If you got any time at all during that week, I'd love to have you just come out and visit, come out for an evening and, uh, just see how things are going and hang out a little bit. If you got the time, uh, definitely be worth your while. It's not that, not too far from here. A couple hours, I think, maybe from the church here, uh, out east towards South Carolina. So, um, yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's gonna be a blast. So that's about it for our announcements. Trying to think if there's any, uh, any housekeeping stuff. I don't think so. Everything's going really well. So yeah, I'll turn the service back over to brother Devin, who will lead us in our next song. Turn to song number 19. Song number 19. There is a fountain. There is a fountain filled with blood from, from Emmanuel's name. As sinners, what's beneath that blood, lose all their guilty state. Lose all their guilty state. Lose all their guilty state. As sinners, what's beneath that blood, lose all their guilty state. The dying thief rejoices me, that fountain in his name. And there may I go, vile as he, wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. Wash all my sins away. And there may I go, vile as he, wash all my sins away. Near dying land thy precious blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed Church of God be saved to sin the Lord. Be saved to sin the Lord. Be saved to sin the Lord. Till all the ransomed Church of God be saved to sin the Lord. There sits my faith, I saw the strength, my glowing roots supply. Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. And shall be till I die. Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die. And in a no worse, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to stay. With this worthless, big, staring tongue, thy silence in the grave. Thy silence in the grave, thy silence in the grave. With this worthless, big, staring tongue, thy silence in the grave. Amen. At this time, I'll ask the men to come forward and bless our Sunday evening offering. The Church, as the offering plates are being passed around, you can take your Bibles and turn to 1 Samuel 3. As we always do here at Stromlo Baptist Church, we're going to read the entire chapter and give the tips of the reading, and I'm going to ask my brother, Nick Bell, to do that for us. First Samuel chapter 3, and the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli, and the word of the Lord was precious in those days, and there was no open vision. And it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down in his place, and his eyes began to wax dim that he could not see, and ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep, that the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here am I. And he ran unto Eli and said, Here am I, for thou callest me. And he said, I called not, lie down again. And he went and lay down, and the Lord called yet again, Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I, for thou didst call me. And he answered, I called not, my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him, and the Lord called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, Here am I, for thou didst call me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. Therefore, Eli said unto Samuel, Go lie down, and it shall be, if he call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth. So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood and called at other times, Samuel. Samuel, then Samuel answered, Speak, for thy servant heareth. And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house. When I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knoweth, because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. And therefore, I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nor offering forever. And Samuel lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. Then Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, Here am I. And he said, What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee? I pray thee, hide it not from me. God do so to thee, and more also, if thou hide anything from me, of all the things that he said unto thee. And Samuel told him every wit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him. And he did let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Dear God, thank you for this day, and thank you for this passage here, and let us be able to read from your word. I pray you would be with us tonight, help us to apply this sermon to our lives, and be with Pastor Berzins, help him to preach with boldness. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. All right, so this evening, I've got kind of a fun sermon. At least it's gonna be fun for me. I don't know, hopefully you enjoy it too, but we're gonna be looking into the life of Samuel a little bit. And I titled my sermon Samuel's Strengths. Now, if I had been trained by Pastor Jimenez, I might have done a better job alliterating all the points and doing things like that, but this is probably a perfect sermon for such an alliteration, but alas, I don't have that skill. So you're stuck without any alliterated points. But, and I've been kind of looking at this recently too. I don't want to necessarily call it a series, but I think we're gonna highlight various characters in Scripture and kind of dig in a little bit deeper and see what we can learn from them. And this evening, of course, we started in 1 Samuel 3, and we're gonna be reading, obviously, a lot in 1 Samuel. But I just want to cover just some of the highlights and some of the main strengths that I see in Samuel as a Bible character. Obviously, he's a real person, but 1 Samuel, Samuel, he's the only Samuel. Samuel is a really interesting guy. He's the last of the judges, so it literally transitioned from the time of the judges after the children of Israel were freed from captivity, taken out of the land of Egypt, set up their government, got the word of the Lord. Of course, Moses delivered the law of the Lord to them, and they established the law of the Lord. They had judges that would judge over, and God was the king, and God gave them the law, and they were ordained to just, you know, run themselves and do everything according to the word of the Lord. Like that was the way that God intended it, God being king. But of course, by the time we get up to Samuel now, things had maybe gotten a little bit sideways, and a lot of the children of Israel had turned a little bit from the Lord, and you had Eli and his sons were real wicked, or just children of the devil, the Bible says, or children of Belial. They didn't know God. They were stealing from people's offerings unto the Lord, and made people hate serving God, and stuff like that. So things that got in a real bad situation when Samuel's growing up, and then when Samuel kind of takes over and becomes this new judge for Israel. Samuel's a great guy, but at this point, Israel's just like, we're done with the judges, and we want to have a king. Samuel's children didn't turn out that great. They weren't as bad as Eli's, but they still weren't people that the people had any interest, and them becoming judges, and they're just like, you know, we're kind of done with this. We just want to have a king like the rest of the world has. They want to be like the world, right? They don't want to be God's people, and be peculiar, and be different. We want a king to fight our battles for us, and do everything, and we're going to see a little bit more about that too, as we dig into Samuel's life. So Samuel's that last judge, and after him, it begins the reign of kings in Israel, and then Israel and Judah, of course, when the kingdom splits. So this is where we're at in history, and lots of cool characteristics about Samuel. Even from a child, even from when he was younger, we see, of course, we just read all of chapter three. We're not going to reread all of it, but I want you to look down there in verse number three. The Bible says, And ere the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, and that's highly symbolic. I'm not going to go real deep into that, but it's just basically spiritually speaking, even, you know, the children of Israel, just like the light is gone, okay? And this is showing that, because that light was supposed to stay burning day and night, but the priesthood wasn't doing their job. Samuel's still young. It's not like this was his fault or anything. Eli kind of dropped the ball with his children and everything, and then that light just goes out. Again, a lot of symbolism there. Not going to go too deep into that, but I want to keep reading here, and it says, The lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was, and Samuel laid down to sleep. So Samuel, he's going to bed. He's tired. It's been a long day, whatever. He lays down to go to sleep, and says that the Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here am I. Look at this in verse five. And he ran unto Eli and said, Here am I, for thou callest me. And he said, I called not. Lie down again. And he went and lay down. And of course, this happens a few times, and then he realizes, Eli finally realizes, wait, like, you keep hearing someone calling, and I'm not calling you. So he discerns, like, this is the Lord calling you. So next time he calls, just say, Speak Lord, thy servant heareth, right? And the rest of the chapter goes on here. But what I really want to focus on here is one of these characteristics of Samuel is when the Lord called, Samuel answered. First of all, Samuel's there. He's ready. And not just is he ready. He's ready when he's tired. He's going to bed. He could have just rolled over and went to sleep and pretended like he didn't hear anyone calling him. Now, of course, at first, he didn't realize his Lord. He thought it was Eli, but still consider that too. Even then, he thought it was Eli. He didn't pretend to be asleep and lay silent and lay still. Like many children might do when their parent or someone else is calling and you're tired. You just want to go to bed. He didn't do that. He got up and it says, literally in verse five, he ran unto Eli. He ran. He's tired. But guess what? Oh, I'm being called. I'm getting up and I'm running to Eli. I'm going to get up and run back. Here am I. What do you need? I'm here to serve. Samuel has the heart of a servant. And we see here when the call comes forth, he's willing and ready to go and take that call. That's one of the first strengths that we see in Samuel, even from a younger child. He's got this attitude. And what we're going to see is that he maintains this zeal through his whole life. And Samuel lives to be an older man. And that's one of the good things because we have many heroes of the faith and we see different characters in scripture. They don't all stay serving the Lord as well as they could be, maybe through their entire life. But Samuel does. So he's a really good example of that of someone who maintains that faith and maintains that service. And Samuel, someone as we're going to see, who has an interest not just in serving, but in the truth and has a love for the truth. We see this also if we would jump down to verse number 15 in that chapter, in chapter three, the Bible says, And Samuel lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. Why? Because the vision that God gave Samuel when he called him and he's like, Hey, I'm here, you know, and he receives the word of the Lord was very negative against the house of Eli. Now, this wasn't new to Eli. Eli already got the warning from the Lord previously. Eli had heard from God that like, Look, man, you know, I'm not happy, and I'm grossly paraphrasing, but I'm not happy that you've allowed your children to become the way that they are and you're dropping the ball here and now you're going to be judged. And then Samuel receives basically the same type of message, right? And God delivers that to Samuel and it's not a positive message. And here Samuel is ready to serve. Oh, Eli, you need me? Here I am. What do you need, right? Eli was the one who was raising Samuel because he was dropped off there from his parents as, you know, lent to the Lord, the Bible says. They were given him over to since God answered the prayer of I think it was Elkanah, the wife, that wanted to have a child. She was barren, wanted to have a child, wanted a child, and then just made this promise like, Lord, if you give me a child, I'll basically, you know, give him back to you. And that's what happened. That's why Samuel ended up living with Eli and became a priest and everything else because of that vow, because of that promise. And he was raised by Eli. Eli was kind of like a dad to him. He was a father figure and now he's receiving some really bad news about Eli and what's going to come from God. But it came from the Lord and this is the message that he heard. So he may not be happy about this news. It's not good news to receive. It's not something that's going to make you like, hey, wow, I heard from the Lord and great blessings and all this other stuff that you might want to hear when you hear a message from God. That's not what he got. This is pretty tough. So when when your friend, he didn't know the Lord before the Bible's clear about this in the chapter. He didn't really know him. He hears God and now he's hearing his message. And the first message he's hearing is not that positive. It's a pretty negative message. But how does he treat it? How does he deal with it? Does he want to just push it aside? Does he not really tell Eli and withhold truth from him, even though he knows that it's a bad message? Does he withhold that from him? No, he doesn't. Bible says in verse 15, Samuel lay until the morning and opened the doors of the house of the Lord and Samuel feared to show Eli the vision. Then Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel, my son. And he answered, here am I. Again, that faithful, here am I. Samuel, here am I. I'm right here. I'm ready to do their bidding. What do you need? Verse 17. And he said, What is the thing that the Lord hath said unto thee? So Eli wants to know because he knew the night before he kept coming in his room and saying, you called me, call me. So now he's like, OK, well, what did God say? Right. Tell me what God said unto you. And he says this. I pray thee, hide it not from me. God do so to thee and more also if thou hide anything from me of all the things that he said unto thee. So now he's like laying like, look, don't hide anything. Like you hide it for me, then God do that to you. So I think that that might be enough motivation for Sam to go, OK, I don't want this happening to me. Verse 18. And Samuel told him every wit and hid nothing from him. And he said, It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. So Eli is accepting of his fate. But what I love about this with Samuel is that he didn't hold back the negative message. OK, he was interested in the truth. He's a messenger. He's a servant of the Lord. God gave the word. Samuel just delivered it. Samuel repeated it. Samuel just said, OK, well, this isn't from me. This is from God. And that is the job of every preacher, of every man of God, is to deliver the word of God. And it's sad. It's a sad state of affairs today because we have way too many people who are not willing to preach and teach on the negative messages in the Bible. But those are some of the most important messages that can be preached, that could be taught, that people need to hear of the negative messages in the scripture. There's lots of positive messages, too. And amen and praise the Lord for those. We love those. We preach those. We teach those. But you have to have the whole picture. You can't be lopsided in your faith. You can't be lopsided in your understanding. You can't only just always focus on the good. We need the bad. We need to know, hey, if people are doing things wrong and people are straying from the word of the Lord, they need to know the consequences. They need to know that they're doing wrong. They need to know that they're sinning. Because how else are you going to fix things? How else are you going to get better? You can't just lie to people and think that that's going to help them. It was going to do Eli no good if Samuel just made up some other story and said, oh, no, actually, God says you're doing really good. That doesn't help Eli one bit. He needs to hear the truth. If there's any hope for him fixing anything at all, he's got to hear it and say, OK, well, look, this is what God said. This is why we go out and when we preach the gospel to people, we start off letting them know, hey, there's a consequence for your sin. By the way, you are a sinner. And the result of that sin is death. It's hell. There's a hell punishment to pay for our sins. And that's not pleasant. And it's not nice to talk about hell in a place of burning and torture and torment. But people need to know that it's real. God is the judge. God gave us laws. God gave us commandments. And in breaking those laws, we become transgressors of the law. And now there's a situation, whether you want to accept it or not, whether you believe in it or not. Look, God is real. His law is real and we are sinners and we need a savior. So it's not all bad, right? But it starts off bad and you need to know that bad before you can get to the good. Hey, God loves us. Amen. And that's good news. That is the good news of the gospels that God forgot. So love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish would have everlasting life. But without the sun, without that faith, everyone's doomed to hell. That's what we deserve and that's the truth. And you can't gloss over that or pretend like that doesn't exist. I mean, it's literally like we're talking to someone today, bro, Jeremy and I about soul winning and one of the answers he gave, Jeremy's asking him how to, you know, like, like if he knew he was going to heaven and he gave kind of a strange answer, like, well, if I want to do that, but, you know, it's not that I necessarily want to. It was a real spiritual answer, wasn't anything based on the Bible. And it reminded me of times where I've talked with other people that have said that, like, well, I mean, hell might be real for you. But, you know, it's not real for me or whatever. They kind of think that, like, just because they believe something that that makes it true. It's like, no, your belief in just some random thing doesn't make that the truth. The truth exists. Now, hopefully, you believe in the truth and you can see it for what it is and see the truth. There's a truth that God exists in this world, that there's a creator of everything. That's true. And if someone chooses not to believe that, that doesn't make it any less true. He still exists whether people believe him or not. Heaven exists and hell exists. And if people don't want to believe in hell, that doesn't change the fact that it is a real place and that people are literally burning there right now and more people are going to go to that place. It's real. It's a fact, okay? And our job as witnesses, as believers, is to help inform other people of the message of whatever God says, not the visions of our own heart, not what we would want things to be, but what God has already stated. That's the truth. Our job is to be that messenger and Samuel absolutely had that job as a man of God, as a prophet of God, to only be able to reveal and let everyone know, not just only what God said, but all that God said. All of it. In the New Testament, if you would, Ezekiel chapter 2. Keep your place in 1 Samuel. We're definitely coming back there a lot. I just want to cross reference this with Ezekiel because this is the trait that we need to have and we need to exalt the love of the truth. Now more than ever, we have an entire culture, an entire society. Our American culture is horrible and now it just continues to turn to this culture of like, let's lie to people and let's live in a fantasy land and pretend like these things are real and we need to respect this and respect that wickedness and this perversion and just bury our heads in the sand and let's just say like, oh no, everything's okay and oh, you're a man, but you want to be a she, her and you want to use these pronouns and say like, well, I was born, I feel like I'm a woman, but you're born a man and we're just going to make up this fantasy land and say, okay, everyone play this game now and we're going to just pretend that this man is actually a woman because he puts on a dress and says, use these pronouns. That does no good for anybody. Just coming up with some strange reality and saying, oh, okay, yeah, now everything that I see and everything that's real, we're just going to change all of that just to suit your made up fantasy land as opposed to saying, no, that's not real. There's something wrong with this person. You know, they need help or they need something else, but it's not to just play along with some lie because you know who it's really confusing to? The children. And that's what they continue trying to do is push this into schools and get the children to literally think different and have their whole reality changed and think that somehow this is normal or acceptable that people can just be whatever they feel or whatever they want as opposed to just dealing with the truth and dealing with the facts. If you're like, if you're a man, you're a man. If you're a woman, you're a woman. That's it. You're not a cat trapped in a human body, which that exists today. There was literally a protest at a school, an elementary school from students that are sick of this and there's like a litter box in the restroom. You think I'm talking about a Twilight Zone episode, but it's reality. It's insanity is what it is. How do we get to this place? How does this even happen? It happens when supposed men of God stop preaching the whole counsel of God. When people get more concerned about feelings and making sure everybody feels comfortable and everybody feels safe and everybody's okay and don't you worry your little selves. It's all going to be all right. Instead of this is what God says. There's good, there's bad. Take heed, fear the Lord, obey his commandments. This is the way we're supposed to lead our lives. There's mercy, there's forgiveness, there's love. Amen. But God is not mocked. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Okay, that needs to be taught, too, because that's the truth. That's reality. You can't just make up stuff and just say, well, I don't really like that, so I'm not going to do anything about that. You end up where we're at today. In Acts chapter 20, you're in Ezekiel chapter 2. I'll just read these few verses for you. Verse number 25, the Bible reads, And now behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. Is the apostle Paul speaking? Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. You say, you know what? Hey, the blood of anybody here that's not on my hands. Why? Because he preached all the counsel of God. He held nothing back. Just as Samuel, hey, Samuel told him every whit. He kept nothing from him. He told him, here's all the truth. Here's the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God, right? Like that's, hey, that's how a preacher ought to be. You tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Tell it all. If it's God's word, and think about how ridiculous it is for a man to feel like they should censor God's word. God gives a message. Hey, I want you to preach this. Hey, here's the message, Samuel. Here's the message, Paul. Here's the message, Ezekiel. This is what I want you to say. You need to tell these people this message. But then you're going, oh, that sounds kind of harsh to me, God. I think I'm going to change it. I think I'll just tell them this part, and not that part. You're going to judge God? And look, just because people say, oh, you're judging, and don't judge me, and everything else, if you're reading God's word, if you're preaching God's word, if it's God's message, whatever, man. You call me whatever name you want. You may not want to hear it, but this is the truth, and you need to hear it. Ezekiel chapter 2, look at verse number 3, the Bible says, and he said unto me, son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation, that hath rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day. Now he's saying, look, I know that the children of Israel are rebellious. I know that they're not going to want to hear this. So does he say, so, just so that everybody can be comfortable, and this is kind of taboo. I think you should just leave them alone, and just let them believe whatever they want to believe, because otherwise, you're going to upset people. Is that what God said to Ezekiel? I know they're rebellious. They don't want to listen to me. They're in transgression. So I'm just telling you this, so you know the truth, but don't go tell anyone else this. Oh wait, no, that's not what he said. Verse 4, for they are impudent children, and stiff-hearted. I do send thee unto them, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, because look, that's not your decision, Ezekiel. It's not up to you to decide whether you're going to say something based on whether or not you think they're going to hear you, whether or not you think they're going to receive your word. He says, whether they hear, or whether they don't hear, whether they forbear, for they are a rebellious house, yet shall know that there has been a prophet among them. See, God needs his word to go forth, because he's a just God, and he gives people the chance. And just because you think they might not want to hear it, and maybe they won't, that still doesn't justify you from not preaching what God said, what God's word is, what the truth is. Verse 6, and thou, son of man, be not afraid of them. Look, this applies today as much as it ever has. It's the same. God doesn't change. He wants his word still being preached. He still wants people to know their transgressions and their sins. There still is judgment for sin. There still is judgment for a people who are going to claim the Lord to be their God, but then they're disobedient and rebellious and stiff-necked. Of course there is. There's chastening, there's chastisement, and there's judgment from God. And to say otherwise is a lie. Because God doesn't change, and God still gets angry at people that are in sin. So he says he's now encouraging Ezekiel, because it's not the easiest job to bring a negative message to people who don't want to hear it. It's not fun, right? Some people might think it's like a blast. I don't know. But it's not that it has nothing to do with being fun. It has to do with what's necessary. What's needful. And if God chooses you to say, hey, you're a messenger and I want you to preach this message, then you don't question the message from God. You do it. Verse six, And now, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions, be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, whether they will forbear, for they are most rebellious. But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee, be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house, open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee. You say, now look, they are rebellious, and I know that. But now don't you become rebellious, because I'm giving you a message to preach. I'm giving you a message for me to tell them, don't you be like them now and refuse to obey me and preach the message I'm giving you. So he's like, I've got something for you to eat. Basically, he's saying, open my mouth and eat that I give thee. Why? Because it's the message that he's giving him to send forth. Verse nine says, And when I looked, behold, and hand was sent unto me, and lo, a roll of a book was there in, and he spread it before me, and it was written within and without, and there was written therein, lamentations and mourning and woe. Clearly not a positive message. Lamentations, mourning, and woe are all kind of the same thing. It's very bleak. It's doom and gloom. Wait, are you one of those hellfire damnation churches? I don't really like that. Well, do you like the Bible? And look, yeah, we're not just hellfire damnation. We're also grace of God and gospel peace. It's all of it. But you better believe that there's the hellfire damnation too, because if that's what God said, then we're not going to censor it. If that's what the Bible says, we got to preach it. And my job as a preacher is to preach the whole counsel of God. Then I could say, hey, there's no blood on my hands. I did my best to warn everybody. Here's who God is. Here's what God said. This is what the Bible says. This is how it applies in our life. There you go. Now it's up to you to do with it what you will. I did what God had me to do. And woe to the preachers that are censoring and covering up and going, yeah, we're not going to read. Oh, yeah, we're definitely not going to cover that. Oh, yeah, Leviticus, forget that. We might as well just tear that out of the book because we're never going to touch that. Happens all too often. Let's go back to 1 Samuel, Chapter 12. So we're looking at the strength. So one of the major strengths of Samuel is that he delivered the word of the Lord as it was and was not afraid either. And he had multiple, and we're not going to go through all the instances, multiple instances where he could have faced death, imprisonment, any type of negative consequence for preaching the truth. Starting off with Eli. I mean, he doesn't know how Eli is going to respond. Eli's raising him like his dad. And he has to tell him a negative message. Saul later becomes the king and he has to rebuke Saul in the name of the Lord and tell Saul that he's wrong and stand up to him and confront him and tell him, no, hey, Saul, I don't care how much power you have. I don't care that you're the king. You need to know the truth and you are wrong. And he was willing to do that. He had guts. He had boldness. And you know, we ought to have boldness too. And boldness really isn't that hard when you come to the understanding and the realization that they're not, if it's not your words, but God's, you don't have to worry about how you say it because he said it. You just repeat it. Because if someone gets mad at what the Bible says, they're not even really mad at you. They're mad at the author of the book. They're not your words. They're his. But our job is to let the world know what God said. Here it is. Here's the book. Here's the message. You don't shoot the messenger. I mean, you can, whatever, but that's not going to solve anything for you because the Bible still says what it says. It's not changing. People are trying to change it. They're constantly trying to change it. But guess what? God preserves it. Another strength of Samuel and chapter three for Samuel chapter 12 is his uprightness and his honesty. So not only is he good at preaching the counsel of God, but he also walks the walk. In the sense that he has a reputation and he is known for not being a swindler, for not being like these other priests were. He didn't steal from anybody. He was true. He was honest. He had integrity and everybody knew it. Look at verse number one in chapter 12. The Bible says in Samuel said unto all Israel, behold, I have hearkened unto your voice and all that you said unto me and have made a king over you. And now behold, the king walketh before you and I am old and gray headed. And behold, my sons are with you and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. So he's like, this has been a long time now. His entire life essentially. And he doesn't die right away, but look, he's already in his senior years by the time he's saying this. Verse three, behold, here I am. Witness against me before the Lord and before his anointed. Whose ox have I taken? Or whose ass have I taken? Or whom have I defrauded? Whom have I oppressed? Or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes with? Remember, he was a judge. He's saying, where did I ever do wrong? Where did I serve you wrong? Because he was a servant as a judge. He's judging, he's judging righteously. He's saying, who did I steal from? And how many politicians or rulers of a land today can say that with integrity and not expect an answer to come back and be like, yeah, actually, you stole from this person, this person, this, you know. Who did I cheat? Who did I defraud? Right? He's a bare witness now. I mean, I've been with you all my whole life from my childhood until I'm gray headed. What have I done? Who did I defraud? Who did I accept the bribe from? Hey, let me know. He says, and I will restore it you. Verse four, and they said, thou has not defrauded us nor oppressed us, neither has thou taken out of any man's hand. Their own testimony. No, no, you're right. You were good. You were upright. What a great strength of Samuel. You know, that's one of the things that gives him respect. That's what gives his testimony power is because he was upright. He was honest. He had integrity. That's important. You can't just be some stinking hypocrite because that would be a good reason for them to say, well, we don't want you to be a judge because you're just a stinking hypocrite. And that would make sense. But he was a good judge. He was faithful. He truly believed in the word of the Lord and judged as best as he could and honestly as he could when any issues arose that he had to judge. And everybody agreed to that. But they still wanted their king. And he said unto them, verse five, the Lord is witness against you and his anointed is witness this day that you have not found out in my hand. And they answered, he is witness. Yeah, OK. Now, another strength of Samuel that we see here, even though Samuel is rejected, the people are done with him. They want their king. They've made up their minds. He warns them. We didn't cover all that. He warns them and says, OK, look, if you want a king, here's who he's going to be. Here's what he's going to do. You're going to get taxed. He's going to take your young men and your young women and they're going to go and work for him. And he's going to, you know, all the stuff that goes along now with having a king. He's just warning them, OK, here's the way it's going to be. Tells them all the truth. And they still are just like, yep, no, that's what we want. But here's where Samuel's strength comes in. And this is a great attribute that's shared by Moses as well, is the humility to continue to serve, even in the face of rejection of the people. Because he's true to God, regardless of what the people think of him or want him to do or anything like that. He still stays true to the service, to the ministry, to the service to God. He's still a man of God and is still going to say what's right, even if he's completely rejected by everyone else. And that's what he continues to do. So even though he's no longer in power in the sense that he's judging Israel when Saul becomes king, he still has a position of influence, one, because of his integrity, and two, because he didn't quit when these events happened. He didn't just hang up the towel and just be like, you know what, I'm too old for this stuff anyways. And just forget you guys, you got your king, I'm out. He could have had that bad attitude and just was like, I'm done man, I'm dying soon anyways. But he didn't. This is why we don't give up no matter how wicked or dark the world is that we live in. And no matter how violent it may become towards Christianity, no matter what type of obstacles or the people opposition we have in the way, we're not going to quit. We're going to keep doing what's right. And whether the people here, hear or forbear, whether they're going to listen or not, it doesn't matter, I'm still going to keep on serving. Let's jump down to verse number 14 because here we're going to see Samuel just continue anyways, this great strength of Samuel. 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. So there's still a little bit of hope and he's giving them the full message, right? They've accepted the king. He warned them about the king, but he says, okay, but look still now, you got a king, but follow the Lord, right? Don't forsake God. You can still be okay. Like if you and the king just serve God, it'll still be all right. You made a mistake. But you got to follow the Lord. You got to follow his commandments. You can't stray away from him. He says in verse 5, but then here's the warning. Here's the negative. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then shall the hand of the Lord be against you as it was against your fathers. Now therefore stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. And he's confirming once again to the children of Israel, that this message is from God in this situation because here's what he leaves them with this sign. He shows them the sign now. Is it not wheat harvest today? Verse 17, I will call unto the Lord and he shall send thunder and rain that you may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord in asking you 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. And all the people said unto Samuel, 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. It takes this miracle of him asking God to send this thunder before they're finally like, oh, we screwed up. And this speaks to unfortunately our human nature also. He's warning them, the words just aren't getting through. But now the thunder and the inability to do anything against like a force of nature is what you might call it, but it's really the force of God before they realize, oh wow, we screwed up. Like there wasn't supposed to be any storm and all of a sudden he prays to God and now there's this great thunder and rumbling and okay, now we're scared. When things start getting real, then all of a sudden people get scared. When you should just take heed to the words before it has to come to reality, to fruition. But let's keep reading. So now they're turning back to him and going pray to God for us. They just rejected him. They literally just rejected Samuel and now they're turning back to him going, oh, please pray for us. And Samuel to his strength and to his credit as Moses did the same thing, even though the people rejected Moses, Moses still interceded for the children of Israel. He was still there to pray for them and to do his service selflessly. And Samuel does the same thing. Verse 20, and Samuel said unto the people, fear not, ye have done all this wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart and turn ye not aside for then should ye go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver for their vain. 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 in the right way. So he's saying, well, God forbid that I would sin against God. Why? Because God has put him still in this position to teach them and to pray for them and to be in that position over them as a spiritual guide and leader and still be there for the people. And he's like, I'd be sinning against God if I didn't do those things. And since Samuel's a man of integrity, he's like, I'm gonna continue doing those things so you don't have to worry about me leaving or stopping praying for you or whatever because I'm gonna still serve the Lord. Verse 24, 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 you shall still do wickedly, you shall be consumed both ye and your king. And notice, I mean, he just continues to just lay it out there. He's not holding back. He's not censoring. Do good, do right, and you'll be okay. Follow the Lord. Follow him with all your heart though. And if you don't, well, guess what? You're gonna be consumed. God's gonna destroy you. Choice is yours, do as you will. Flip over to chapter 15. It's the last place we're gonna look this evening. Last chapter. The strengths of Samuel. Samuel's got a great, great integrity, great character, man. I love this guy. He's got boldness. He doesn't let anyone push him around. It doesn't matter who he's talking to. He has a boldness of knowing, hey, this is the word of God, so I'm gonna say it. We need more Samuels. We need more Samuels to stand up for righteousness sake, for God's sake, to teach the word of God, to instill the fear of God in people's hearts because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. America needs the fear of God put back in her again. Back in the day, when there was a fear of God, when Christianity was a lot more common and normal and taught in every household and taught in the schools and something that we raised our children with, this country was blessed and did way better than it is now. Now they're bringing Satan into the classrooms. Now they're letting girls and boys become boys and girls and changing it and warping and twisting people's minds and allowing predators to come in into positions of power and influence and destroy the generations to come. Samuel wouldn't have stood for that, ever. Why, part of the reason is because Samuel didn't have the tolerance for the things that should not be tolerated. Don't be deceived by the world that wants to teach tolerance to no end. Long suffering is good. It's a godly attribute. We ought to give grace and give some space, right, and not just be super quick hair trigger, but I'll tell you what, God has set boundaries and God has set limits and you don't cross those lines and you don't tolerate the worst perversions. It's just intolerable. If God rains fire and brimstone down and destroys entire cities, we might want to pay attention and see, well, wait a minute though, I thought we should be long suffering. He already was long suffering, they crossed the line. And we'll see this attribute of Samuel in chapter 15, because Saul goes soft, Samuel does not. This is the story in chapter 15, and we're going to see the commandment. So Samuel gives Saul a commandment, commandment from God. Hey, you need to destroy the Amalekites. Verse one, first Samuel chapter 15. Samuel also said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel. Now therefore hearken now unto the voice of the words of the Lord. Hey, God anointed you, now listen to God. Here's what God has for you. Verse two, thus saith the Lord of hosts. And man, how many times does the Bible say that? Do prophets, preachers, men of God, especially Old Testament, hey, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord of hosts, thus saith the Lord, because that's what matters, because hey, this is what God said. I am the messenger, Samuel's the messenger, thus saith the Lord of hosts. I remember, and this is the words of God, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid weight for him in the way when he came up from Egypt. Remember, be not deceived, God is not mocked, for whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. Well, here's that reaping coming true, and God's saying, I remember what he did back to the children of Israel back then, I remember that, and guess what? Now I'm going to judge. And God chooses when to do that, and he's ordaining right now, and saying, okay, I remember Amalek, now here's what I want you to do. Judgment's coming on Amalek. Verse three, now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. This is not unclear of what God is expecting here. Now, sermon for a different day, some people struggle with why would God even command that, but look, do you believe that God is righteous? Because I do. If God had a reason to wipe out an entire nation, I think he's more righteous than we are, even if we don't know all of the reasons, first of all, that's just a quick point. But of course there's reasons for this, because they were super wicked, and God's bringing down his judgment, as he did to Sodom and Gomorrah, and as he did to many other nations that have just gone over the deep end into extreme perverted wickedness. And that's God's place to judge, and he's saying, okay, here's what I want you to do. So God's people, God's calling, he's commanding and saying, this is what I want you to do, utterly destroy them. Simple instructions, okay, Saul, now your job is to carry that out. You're the king, here's a commandment from above, on high, your superior said, you need to do this. Are you going to listen, or are you going to be disobedient? Let's keep reading, verse number seven, jump down to verse number seven. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah, until thou comest assured that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. I'm sorry, did God, did I stutter? Did God stutter? Did he say, well, wait, I mean, only if it's only the real bad stuff, let's get rid of that, but keep the good stuff. No, utterly destroy, simple commandment. So they didn't listen, they didn't obey. And we can guess at the motivations, right? Because as he's going to say here, say, oh no, we wanted to make sacrifices to the Lord. But you know what, these sacrifices that they're going to make to the Lord, you know why they want to do that? Because they get to partake in the sacrifice. They get to eat. So that's why they kept the best stuff alive. Like, oh yeah, this refuse stuff, we get rid of that. But man, we're going to have some good steaks tonight as we offer our sacrifice to the Lord. That's why, I mean, it's not that hard to see that. The Bible doesn't have to spell it out for us. As to why they would do such a thing. But even if I'm completely wrong on that, the fact is that they still didn't obey the word of the Lord. So if I had their intentions wrong, that ultimately doesn't even matter, doesn't change the story that they still were disobedient to God. No matter what their reason was, it's not acceptable to disobey God's commandments. It's just not. It's not. That's not what God commanded them to do. But I don't think it's that hard to see that. But then it's like the king, like I can understand more with the animals, but why would you spare the king? You're a respecter of persons, you know, like why would you keep that guy alive? Trying to get some riches from him or something? Verse 10, Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king. For he has turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel, and he cried unto the Lord all night. So it's upsetting. God's saying, look, Saul's failing. I kind of wish I didn't even make him king now, is what God's expressing to Samuel. And obviously Samuel's upset now because he didn't want him to have a king. He tried to rebuke him and tell him they were wrong, and he did rebuke him. And but then he ordained Saul as king because he was chosen of the Lord. And now it's just like, man, now he's failing. Like, what is going to happen? Samuel sees the impact of this is a big deal. And it grieves him. He's sad about it. And because he does, even though the people didn't maybe care for him as much, he still cared for them. And that's the heart of Christ, right? Christ came unto his own, and his own received him not. But Christ still went and died and paid for sinners that hated him, that persecuted him, that, you know, he paid for everyone, for all sins. He had the self-sacrifice to do that. But he also preached righteousness and preached the truth. And that's why one of the reasons why they killed him. Because Jesus preached the truth. Because he spake of the world and the wickedness thereof. Let's keep reading here. Verse number 12. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set him up a place and has gone about and passed on and gone down to Gilgal. And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said unto him, blessed be thou the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. Now, this is also a little interesting, too, because Samuel grieved and cried unto the Lord all night when he hears about what happened. But he gets pretty angry when he sees what happened. And oftentimes, that difference between hearing about something and seeing something makes a tremendous impact on us. And this is another reason why culture has shifted so much, is because there's a lot of talking heads out there that want to talk about the wickedness and perversion and try to talk it down and make it seem like it's not that bad. But when you're confronted with the reality of how bad that stuff really is, it makes your stomach sick. It's gonna turn you, and you're gonna be like, that's horrible. I never want that to happen. Like, just talking about things sometimes can make it seem like you know it's bad, but it doesn't sound that bad. But then when you're just confronted with it face to face, like, that's horrible. That is disgusting. That is vile. That is refuse. I can't believe it. Yo, we have this weird thought, people talk about these stupid drag queens and stuff, and it's like, you actually come face to face with one? It's like, that's disgusting. What's wrong with you? And people talk about it in a theoretical sense, when you're actually confronted with it, it's like, what's the matter with anyone trying to say that this is okay? And okay to go into libraries and okay to talk to our children? You're nuts! You're insane! You're wicked! Samuel hears about what Saul's doing, and he's sad, and it grieves him, but then he shows up, and what's Saul saying? Hey, we did what you commanded. We did what God wanted. Uh, no. Verse 13, Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said, Unblessed be thou of the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. He's all happy, like, yeah, we did good. And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleeding of the sheep in mine ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? Oh, you did everything you're supposed to do, huh? Then how come I'm hearing these animals? And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God, and the rest we have utterly destroyed. See, because we utterly, I mean, he said utterly destroyed, so the rest we utterly destroyed. But no, it's supposed to be all of them. You think God needs your sacrifice? God didn't tell you to sacrifice unto him. He doesn't need your sacrifice. Verse 16, Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay and I will tell thee what the Lord has said to me this night. And he said unto him, And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel? And see, this was a problem. When he was anointed, when God chose him, he was humble. He was little in his own sight, and he was willing to do what God would say, because he didn't think that highly of himself, thinking that he knew everything, and he knew better, and all this other stuff. He was humble. And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. Verse 19, Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. This is not the right response. And I'll say this again, like parents just have this extra understanding, like experience with this, because sometimes, if you don't have kids, you don't always experience someone who just wants to keep defending themselves as being right. But when you have kids, you come across that a lot more frequently, of like, they're going to tell you, no, dad, no, this is, I did do what you told, you know, no, you didn't. Like stop, stop while you're ahead. And you know what? Children do that because they're children. Don't be the adult that does that. Verse 20 again, And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. And again, he likes to bring up how he utterly destroyed what he did destroy, but it's like, but what about Agag the king of Amalek? Is not he included in all of the Amalekites? That God told you to utterly destroy? Verse 21, But the people, and now he's shifting the blame, well, but the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things, which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God and Gilgal. So he's given the excuses already, and shifting blame and going, well, you know, okay, here's what I did, and yeah, okay, I left the king alive, but you know, the people are the ones who took that took the best of the animals, but they took it so that they could, they could sacrifice unto the Lord thy God and Gilgal. Just total trying to justify his own sin. Verse 22, And Samuel said, Hath the Lord his great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. Like, you know what God really wants? Is your obedience. He's not interested in your sacrifice. What can you do for God? He just wants you to listen to him and obey him. It's that simple. That's going to make God really happy if he sees his people obeying him when they have enough respect to hear the word of the Lord and just do it. He doesn't have these great expectations and just desiring that you would give all this great sacrifice. Look, he sacrificed for you. He gave his only begotten son for you. What sacrifice can you possibly offer? Just listen to him. Just obey him. That's what he wants you to do. Just listen to him. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned. So he finally gets it and just says, I have sinned. But notice again, For I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord. And Samuel said unto Saul, I will not return with thee, for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle and it rent. And Samuel said unto him, The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day and hath given it to a neighbor of thine that is better than thou. He said, these are harsh words. But Saul, Samuel had the boldness because he's serving God and he's willing to bring the message of the Lord no matter how harsh it is, no matter how hard it may sound or seem. Samuel actually liked Saul too. Like they were, you know, they had gotten along for a while and worked together, but he's grieved to hear about this. But this now, now we're talking about urine disobedience to God and hey, it's a line you don't cross and say, you know what? I'm not going to sugarcoat this or tell you why everything's going to be okay when you're just in the middle of like, just completely going against the word of the Lord. This is what people do in the Bible. And good to God, we could get back to a little bit more biblical ways of living and preaching. Verse 29 says, and also the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent for he is not a man that he should repent. Then he said, I have sinned yet honor me. And look at this, he's still thinking about himself. Yet honor me now, I pray thee before the elders of my people and before Israel and turn again with me that I may worship the Lord thy God. But this isn't about Saul, it's about Samuel, so I'm going to keep going. So Samuel turned again after Saul and Saul worshiped the Lord. Then said Samuel, and this is actually, this is my favorite part. And hey, this is in the Bible, by the way, and this is one of the strengths of Samuel. Samuel is not afraid to get his hands dirty and do the work that needed to be done, no matter how unpleasant it was. Verse 32, so Samuel is going to make sure everything's finished the way that God said it needed to be finished. Saul is not willing to do it, Samuel will. Then said Samuel, bring ye hither to me Agag, the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came on him delicately. And Agag said, surely the bitterness of death is past. He's like, look, the war is over, right? I mean, like I heard what you just said, but I mean, everything's done now. Water under the bridge. And Samuel said, is thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And look, let's not forget, when God is pronouncing utter destruction against people, it is for extreme wickedness. It is not a light thing for God to send total utter destruction on a nation. I mean, we can see even from today, nations that are wicked, that still exist, that God has not destroyed. So let that be a reminder of like, wow, God really lets things go for a while. He's really long suffering and God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It's true. We could see that and we witnessed that. So when God actually says, utter destruction, it had to have been really bad. And Samuel's not lost on that fact. And he's not going to sympathize with a gag just because he's begging for his life now or something. He's like, no. Okay. Judgment came from God and this is the way it is. Your sword made tons of women childless. You destroyed people's lives. Now the sword is coming back on your own head. And Samuel hewed a gag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. Now we already saw that the people had a fear of Samuel. Remember when it thundered? It said the people feared the Lord and Samuel. Samuel had power with God because he was living righteously, because he was doing right and God was listening to him. He was a faithful servant. He was a good messenger. So yeah, you know, the people ought to have feared him. They didn't fear him enough because now this happens. And I mean, imagine after this. And look, Samuel's an old man. And he didn't quit. Give me the sword. He hewed him in pieces. I mean, it's kind of graphic, a little gross to maybe think about that. Like don't envision it too much. But it's a dirty job is a tough job. And look, it's I've never taken a life before, but it's not easy. It's not an easy thing to do. I mean, it's just it's not like let's face it. So this is an extremely difficult thing to do, but Samuel did it. And he wasn't doing it for his own benefit. He did it because he's following the Lord to a T. He's saying this is what needs to happen. It's God's judgment. Now, just in closing, because of this passage and the hewing in pieces and stuff, I don't have the authority to hew anyone in pieces and neither do you. OK, we're going to preach really hard against perversion, against filth, against wickedness. We're going to preach what the Bible says about these things and not hold back. We're not going to sugarcoat it. We're not going to put a cherry on top. OK, it is what it is. God still feels the same way about perversion as he always has. But we're also not going to take matters into our own hands and fight a physical fight, because it's not the fight we have to fight. It's a spiritual battle. Just my disclaimer. People love to take things out of context, especially on the internet. And we don't believe in going out and going rogue and just doing whatever. God is ordained there to be powers in government that handle laws and the punishment of evildoers. That's the way things are supposed to be. A godly society would have godly laws. And we don't really have that that much, unfortunately, which is why we need to keep preaching the truth and getting people back into the fear of the Lord and going, man, what are we doing? Let's be thankful that God has been long suffering, but let's get our act together and repent. Let's get people woken up and be like, man, there's going to be some serious destruction coming. And we're probably past the point already, who knows, right? We still are going to do what's right with every last breath that we have. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear Lord, thank you so much for this great example with Samuel, the prophet Samuel, dear Lord. And thank you for preserving these stories for us today. I pray that you would please raise up more people who had a spirit like Samuel had, one that was very willing and hasty to serve and was there at the beck and call. When you called, dear Lord, he was there. When you delivered the message, he didn't censor, he didn't cut it out, but he actually delivered it, dear Lord. And he had the strength and the boldness and the courage to say and to do what's right, regardless of the consequences, dear God. We need more people like that. We need more strong men to stand up and say, thus saith the Lord and just reach whether people are going to hear or they're going to forbear, dear Lord. Just help us to get your word proclaimed throughout the world, that people can at least receive the warning, if not humble themselves and turn to the Lord Jesus. God, thank you for bringing everyone together here tonight. Please keep us all safe as we go our separate ways. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, we're seeing one last song before we're dismissed for the evening. Brother Devin, will you please lead us? All right, everyone, if you could take your song books and turn to 308. I surrender all, 308. Psalm 308. All to be my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. Only at His feet I bow. Whirly pleasures all forsaken. Take me, Jesus, take me now. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to be my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. All to me, Savior, holy night. Let me feel the Holy Spirit. Truly know that Thou art mine. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to me my blessed Savior. I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. Lord, I give myself to Thee. Fill me with Thy love and power. Let my blessings fall on me. I surrender all. I surrender all. All to me my blessed Savior. I surrender all.