A Lamb, a Stone, and an Altar

Samuel was a faithful prophet solid leader in Israel. So why did he identify himself as a sinner, a pilgrim and a worshiper find out today on Truth for Life in a message titled, a lamb, a stone and an altar. Here's Alistair Begg teaching from first Samuel chapter 7 where in verses eight through 17. Let's pick up our study then midway through the chapter and let's try and gather our thoughts under just three brief headings.

Let's think first of all, of alarm and then of a stone and then of an altar. So first of all, in verse nine. So Samuel to a nursing lab and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord of the context of that of course is that the Philistines, realizing that the people of God had gathered at Mizpah, I determined that they would come and attack them and as we noted in our previous study. The Israelites were actually fearful they weren't presumptuous as they had been on the prior occasion.

In chapter 4, but they now had been humbled.

They were not aware of their dependence upon God, and since Samuel had promised to pray for them. They had not come to him and essentially said to them, we want you to we want to hold you to that promise.

So do not cease. They said to cry out to the Lord our God for us because it is only in him that we will have salvation in actual fact in later on in first Samuel in what is essentially a Samuel's farewell address one of the things that Samuel says to the people is simply that far be it from me that I should send against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you and his role in the judging of the people in the setting them in the right direction and in calling them to repentance and so on is bathed.

If you like in prayer and it is as he prays for them. That is made aware of them and of their need and the answer that comes is striking isn't the soul of the conjunction near the beginning of verse nine the request of the people is please cry out to God for us. Pray for Roz and then it is to Samuel and to this issue of sacrifice that we then come so Samuel to the nursing lamb and offered it and Samuel cried to the Lord as surely there is something there that were supposed to notice and it is straightforward, namely that Samuel knew that the only access to God in prayer is along the pathway of atonement. The only access to God is through the shedding of blood and therefore in fulfilling the call to pray for the people he comes to God in the way that he must and in the way in which we must when we read the Old Testament and we think about it.

In light of the unfolding of the new we realize how this is in the most Old Testament of the New Testament books Hebrews. This is reinforced again and again is as since we have confidence to enter the most holy Place by the blood of the eternal covenant letters then pray. So in other words, Samuel is picturing that in the approach that he now takes and by this means he causes the people to see because Samuel was saying to the people in their sacrifice. What I am doing today slam right now is what should be happening to you.

The punishment that you desire is now falling upon this innocent lamb. The lamb is a substitute, and so when you come to this as we do in a section like this.

We have the benefit of reading it in light of the unfolding cumulative story of the entire Bible. So we are able to read this incident in light of the fulfillment of the picture itself, but one of the things that we need to keep in mind is this, and I want to take a moment and say to you in the hope that you will be held by earlier in Hebrews 10 and verse for the writer to the Hebrews reminds the readers that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin I and yet it is the offering up of the blood of bulls and goats that is both prescribed by the Levitical law and performed and the sacrifices in which the people of God engaged which raises the question surely the people than in the Old Testament are not to be regarded as having been involved in a religion that is unreadable or engaging in ceremonies that are without any substance or providing sacrifices without any benefit.

No, now for a moment imagine just for this is one of the bends. This is one of the helps of the Psalm because in the signs we have the opportunity to see the Old Testament saints singing and praising God and rejoicing in the provision of God.

So, for example, imagine joining some Old Testament saints and were going to sing together, hundred and three and versus 2 to 5. So we stand together to say someone gives out of the Psalm regarding the standards Old Testament saints and were going to sing together.

Bless the Lord all my soul and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases who redeems your life from the pit who cries you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles now it is accurate to say that these Old Testament saints, for example singing that song enjoyed a forgiveness in the exercise of those sacrifices. They enjoy the forgiveness in light of what Christ would achieve in theological terms prophylactically. For those of you who are medics you know the word in anticipation all the science that is involved in that.

That was true. That was absolutely true. But here's the thing. They were not busying themselves with on realities. They were not walking around in the shadows. If we had met them coming out of the temple, they would've said my sin all the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part by the whole. In other words, if we could step inside the Old Testament and be with. We would rejoice with them in the reality of the forgiveness that was promised to them in the doing of what God required of them in the sacrifices the fact that the cumulative impact of it is revealed, ultimately, in Jesus is also grounded at the other end of the flag in that the land of God that takes away the sin of the world was chosen before the foundation of the world and slain before the foundation of the world source enough to keep you up all night thinking about and use address what we thought about finally and long enough, thank you very much all right but look at what is happening there.

In this lab, Samuel had spoken the word to them and they trusted Samuel had prayed for them and they trusted him. Samuel had offered a sacrifice and they trusted in the sacrifice allow the cumulative impact to lead you forward. Jesus comes and speaks the very word of God to us and we trusted Jesus intercedes on our behalf before the father and we trusted Jesus offers up the sacrifice of himself and we trust in it. And so Samuel took a line. Secondly, as you go along. You will notice the place of the stone, a remarkable deliverance came about as we saw just in passing earlier this appearance of the thunder God is in control of the affairs of our world, the tides and the movements of the planets in the spheres. So for him to thunder with this mighty sound and throw them into confusion and to lead them into defeat and the men of Israel going out and chasing them down the hill is aware, as far as Beth Clark, nobody actually knows where this place is well nobody I know knows and the and then I read deliverance like this couldn't be allowed just to pass away sink into oblivion. And so in keeping again with that pattern in the Old Testament. Samuel decides to take a stone and to set it up as a memorial. The land has now been sacrificed.

The Philistines have now been vanquished and so the stone is put in place a memorial not to recall the names of the dead, but stone to highlight the living Lord God. The word Ebenezer means just simply storm of hell, or he is their help. So some users were going to do is really put a memorial right here so that every time everybody comes past. This way comes back into this place that we know is Ebenezer.

They will not be in any doubt, it is vitally important that this happens so that with the psalmist in the MR the Psalms of Ascent. I lift my eyes to the hills where does my help come from my help comes from the Lord in years to follow the will be picnics and the people will be there at the stone and they will be opening up their stuff and some of the children to be running around and saying on what is this stone about grandpa and there's a lot we have the wonderful story to tell you about that and then the story will unfold one generation will praise his name to another and will say this is how the Lord helped us when I was young. This was it. In my middle age, this was it.

He Me to all these years, through all the changing scenes of life. That's why we put the stone near you see in the press. Was it only today the piece by this young lady, a 41-year-old lady and she is a is an entrepreneur and something else.

I was struck by it because of the things I was thinking about about memorials. Her company is called recompose the system's recomposition is a trendy alternative to burial or to what you call it if you don't. Cremation that's it.

You think I would know that is it is not nice to talk about but it but I want I wanted to show you how different things are in the Bible to this nonsense. The theory on it is that your remains will be turned into compost into a can of sanctified form of mulch you will pay dearly for this but you will be able to feel good about yourself because it will make an impact on the generations to come. Not least of all in relationship to your carbon footprint quotes from the material we have calculated carbon savings of over a metric ton per person and the reason this is so significant recomposition allows us to notice carefully allows us to give back to the earth that supports as all our life's mother birthed us mother supports as and therefore we will be returning ourselves to the mother who has watched over us and provided for loved ones. This sounds esoteric. It is increasingly mainstream, not necessarily the company but the concept you see how vastly different it is how vastly different from the prospect of the believer. God you created the heavens and the earth.

There is a land that is fairer than day. You are the risen Lord Jesus Christ. You triumphed over death.

There will be a new heaven and a new era in which 12's righteousness peopling I'm crazy zeroing your all into gravestones and funerals in your always on about you want a cemetery in all these kind of things. Yes, I absolutely do. It's about time somebody other than myself step forward and acknowledge that one of the ways in which we speak to an alien culture like this is in the matter of death itself is in being able to say to our children and grandchildren. There is a marker here and the market is here purposefully so that people might know when the pass. There's a reason why Noah built the memorial. There's a reason why Moses built a memorial. There's a reason why Samuel put this in place is not in measuring evolutionist and do things that any old news. Additional news and to be discarded. But if you're a publicist and you realize that these things are there to teachers and to help us know he was a wonderful thing and I hope that this will be of encouragement to all of us as I tried to say in our earlier study Ebenezer previously had been for these people. The place of defeat. The place of sin, the place of sorrel and is now come become for them the place of repentance and the place of victory, so that in a just fantastic way. It is a reminder that God is able to take all of those past disappointments and failures and sins and stop the things that when you go back to that point, you find yourself there again.

He's able to take that insane a look willing to put up a new marker here right on this very same spot so that you will be able to say that God has done this for us as seems to be just to be intensely practical and very very honest I land a stone and alter just a word. The impact of the victory is such that in verses 13 and 14. The Philistines are subdued. The border towns are now back in the territory of Israel and pieces been established not only with the Philistines.

But with the Amorites, who are part of the larger Canaanite population and then a little summary statement there that takes us to the altar of the very end of verse 17. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life is interesting when you read the Bible. The few times in which Samuel appears other places. For example, in Psalm 99, the psalmist writes Moses and Aaron were among his presets.

The priests of God and then he says Samuel was also among those who called on his name so he got special mention along with Moses and Aaron because each of them had been gifted but be gifted by God to lead his people and so all the days of his life he was preaching to them and praying for them in the car 16 went on a circuit from place to place providing the them with guidance and encouragement and direction and saying to the make sure you direct your hearts to the Lord, and he did this all the days of his life.

This wasn't a short-term project. This was the long haul. If you compare the excitement of the earlier part in the chapter at Mizpah and the thunder and all that went along with that we see few people's lives are sustained few lives are marked by Mizpah events. Most of our lives are marked by ordinary events and Samuel is a wonderful reminder to Moses and he so he would go around and that he would go home and he went home because his home was there. They did the same thing when he was in his own home, and he built an altar there.

In other words, like Noah before him and Moses before him, he publicly and privately identified himself by the building of an altar with her was in his front yard of his backyard in his house or upon the top of the hill. We don't know, but people would've said you know that Samuel if if you if you one annoying thing about Samuel, you go up there you he's there, he's EE is an altar there. You know, and is not an altar to himself but to the living God. So what he did was he identified himself first as a sinner in need of the provision of God. Secondly is a program in the service of God. And thirdly, as a worshiper in the praise of God. Sinner program worshiper pretty well does it is but you know just when you wanted to then read and they all lived happily ever after you go to the beginning of chapter 8 and what you discover.

We sure were not doing chapter he yes you are right now, old age, when Samuel became old, old age, became the occasion of errors in his judgment, we might say. Towards the end of his life. He began to allow his heart to rule his head.

It seemed to him a good idea to bring his voice into the family business, as it were, in terms of the judging of Israel, but it proved to be a bad decision because they were able to engage in the routine, but they didn't enjoy the relationship with God that their father did. He toured the circuit so that the boys but they failed in the matter of truth. The field in the matter of righteousness. Scripture and history record. The best of leaders may be called to bear heavy burdens in this regard. That's why we all need the last we only to set up that still and we all need to make sure that in the secret place, not in the public arena that your children and your grandchildren will be able to say she was a sinner of Pilgrim and worship that will be fine.

Like us listing to Truth for Life with Alister Greg final message in volume 1 of our study titled give us a king in the book of first Samuel, if you've enjoyed learning from these opening chapters in first Samuel. You can hear the rest of Alister's teaching through this entire book. Listen for free online using the mobile app by searching for the titled give us a king or you can own Alister's teaching through this Old Testament narrative on the USB drive that's available for purchase on our online store@truthforlife.org/store.

God calls us to be devoted to one another in love. But what should that look like for us today. How can we be the kind of church members who make a real difference in one another's lives today we want to recommend to your book that will not only inspire you to get involved in your local church. It will help you get excited about the book is titled loving your church and it's written by Tony Marita request a copy when you give a donation to support the teaching you hear on this program solicit Truth for Life.org/donate call us at 888-588-7884 by Bob Lapine. Thanks for listing. We hope you enjoy your weekend as you worship with your local church and then join us Monday as we begin a study of the book of Titus will hear how Paul advises a young pastor and his congregation to live lives that reflect their beliefs in the midst of a culture rife with moral and doctrinal confusion time not unlike our time today.

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