 Jump into this Bible study as soon as we put well If you notice is obviously you've noticed the world is moving further and further away From God any vestiges of God particularly any vestiges of the guy that we serve and moving towards a Government that is geared towards doing whatever you want. We want to be relevant. We want to be Whatever makes us feel good We want a government that gives us that and so we look at the Bible in this particular Bible study We're going to see that's just what the people that we'll see the genesis of that There has been as a matter of fact we talked about before that when we read the scriptures What we want to do is we want to read the Bible in a way that Makes sense, but in a way that God wants us to see it Everything that happens in the Bible is for us But that doesn't mean that everything is happy that happens in the Bible is for us to do Meaning we'll go to the passages and we'll look and see certain things that are descriptive That tells us what they are to do what they did, but you don't want to do the exact same thing How do we know so well if you find someone who is guilty of or who hasn't engaged in Homosexual acts and you want to stone them I Wouldn't try that even though that might be a commandant in the Bible. You don't want to do that if someone is fairly nice-sized person who is Saying negative things about God and you decide that you want to get a slingshot and kill them I wouldn't advise that there are some things the Bible tells us to do There's some things that the Bible tells us what others were told to do some things the Bible tells us what just simply happened and so we want to see What is prescribed for us, but also what's described described to us Then also what we want to do is we want to see is how God is kind of making things kind of work together Ultimately in the end God is in control He is in control without without question So when we look at the scriptures, we're gonna see the plans that he has laid out the things that he stated It's gonna happen. They are starting to happen right now So now that being the case, I want to go back and pull up our little where's it at our old testament time on and As you can see we are in first and second Samuel. We are literally about 1100 Years prior to Christ's birth This takes place between 1100 971 this is between first and second Samuel now We're gonna find out that Samuel is not the one that finishes the book We'll deal with that just a little bit later, but we need to make sure that we know where we are What's happening and so forth and so going back to it We have covered thus far Genesis exes numbers Joshua Judges Joe Leviticus to run and Ruth we've covered quite a few books And so because of that that means that anything that we've discussed thus far is fair game We are not to discuss we're not to bring in anything that we haven't discussed We are simply because we talked about before there's this idea of progressive revelation Things are being revealed to us as we go and we're seeing how things are being how things are kind of unfolded One example that we're going to see because remember when it was first told to us in Genesis 3 We had no idea what God is talking about now Obviously, we know what he's talking about because we have read the whole Bible, but at that point time There's no way to know what is being spoken of so in Genesis 3 15. What do we see? He says oh wrong passage. There it is. He says I will put in the tea between you That is the serpent and the woman and he clarifies what does he mean and between your seed and her seed And he shall this word for bruise is really the word crush He shall crush you on the head and you shall crush and or you shall crush or bruise him on the hill Well, we don't know what that means. There's no way to fully understand what that means because Who's the seed you're talking about because at present at this point in time right now? It's just Adam and Eve and that's it. There's no there's no seed. There's no one else There's no descendant and this word this use here for seed is a is for a descendant And so there are no descends at this point But he said it's gonna be a descendant that's gonna come well how so but we don't know But we're going to start seeing this unfold And so where are we today today? We are in first Samuel We left off Starting in chapter 7 This is after Samuel has been given to The prophet Eli he's grown by his mother his mother was baron Of course now she's had kids after this subsequently and now Samuel is the prophet of god in israel At this point in time prior to this We did there's there was not a lot of visions. There was not a lot of word coming from god to the people Why because the people were What's a nice way of putting in horrible people that's a nice way of putting it these people were horrible people These people were people who had were stiff neck. They turned their back on god Now none of this is a surprise All of these things are working out and right now We are going to see I don't want to say the good part But we're going to start seeing a lot of the things that were told to us Earlier they're going to start unfolding before our eyes and we're seeing this taking place now thus far We've got a couple of a couple of covenants. We need to deal with We're not going to worry too much about as a matter of fact We won't worry about this covenant again to the very end that is the noe covenant So that's the first named covenant in the bible But then we've got a couple other covenants that are named that we have to remember one The abrahamic covenant the covenant that he makes with abraham And also the mosaic covenant this covenant that he gives to moses the law We've got to deal with two of those covenants in this And this is getting ready to lead to another covenant a third covenant Now what is a covenant again a covenant is a Matter of fact, let me do I still I think I still have this on Where's that? I've got it here in my little bible study briefcase. And so let's deal with what a covenant is How about that? types of covenants there are We have a little a unilateral bilateral conditional and Unconditional covenant and what is a covenant a covenant the word buried just literally refers to a cutting a flesh passing through It is a binding now the the covenants can be one where you and I get together and make a covenant You and I and a bunch of other people get together make a covenant Both where there's more than two parties two or more parties It's going to be a bilateral where you and I come together and make an agreement Now in this agreement Who is who is responsible for keeping the terms of the covenant? What depends on who makes the covenant? One of the covenants we see that it's just god making the covenant Even though he's utilizing one person and then another covenant the old covenant We see it's god as well as the people of israel making this covenant And so who's responsible for keeping the terms of this covenant both of the parties that's in this bilateral covenant But in the abrahamic covenant this unilateral it's just god making the covenant You know by the way the abrahamic covenant is unconditional whereas the old covenant is conditional meaning it's conditioned Upon one party fulfilling his or her or their obligation or with me But in the abrahamic covenant it's not conditioned upon anyone fulfilling their obligations God obligates himself to do so and so we're going to go back to the abrahamic covenant as well And some parts of the old covenant because the problem is In the old come the mosaic the law the jews are not doing their job They are not keeping their end of the bargain. So when I said earlier that everything in the bible is for us to learn This is an example. We're not it's not for us to do But to learn god is showing that he's faithful And mankind is not and we're going to see a statement show up Uh, we've been seeing a statement A phrase a theme show up over and over and over again even up to now even in spite of israel's disobedience Israel is unfaithful But does that mean god is not faithful? That's important. Matter of fact, let's stop there for a second God is faithful Israel is not Well, what do we get from that? Well That also relates to us niland says can you repeat the definition of a covenant covenant is? Uh matter of fact, uh, do I even I wouldn't even pull it up? Do I have that? I've got a set of slides that deal with covenants and I'm not sure if I even pulled it together on on this Let's see I don't think I did on this one. Hold on one second. Let's see Nope nope nope no nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope and nope and nope Nope I didn't I didn't so what I'll do is let me just go over what a covenant is Covenant is the actual definition of a covenant, the word that's used is a cutting through a flesh, a passing through a cutting of flesh, a shedding of blood. And one of the easiest examples that you can think of, at least in Guy's Design, is kind of the marriage covenant, that there is this, it's consummated with the sexual act of a virgin man and a virgin woman. And there's a, and I don't mean to be graphic or anything like that, but it is a cutting of flesh, a shedding of blood, and a passing through. You all are old enough, you know what I'm talking about. And so the same thing happens when the covenant is ratified. One clear example of this happens in, let's go to Genesis 15, where is it at? Let's put on, let's, well I don't have it there, let's type it, put on the screen. Genesis 15, we're going to see this happen. Excuse me. And since, wow, since this is a unilateral unconditional covenant, let's look and see what happens in Genesis 15. Let's put on the screen and let's see what happens. Moses, Abraham has asked, hey, how do I know this is going to be true? Now he's, he's told what's going to happen as a result of this covenant in Genesis 12. We'll come back to that in just a little bit, but in Genesis 15, we're going to see the covenant actually being ratified. In verse 7, he says, I am the Lord who brought you out of the cow deans to give you this land to possess it. Now remember that point, that part is important to give you this land to possess. Is it necessary for Abraham to have this land? No, it is for his descendants. Now, that being stated, notice what he says. He says, he said, oh, Lord God, how may I know that I may possess it? Well, stop asking questions, Abraham. Now you're going to get folks in trouble. Now you're going to cause folks because you have to have a question. You have to ask a question and you want to have a sign. Fine. I'll give you a sign. You won't see it. You'll die at a ripe old age and be buried with your fathers, but your descendants, they shall go and be enslaved, which we see this unfold. Now, look what he says. He says, bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram and a turtle duff and a young pigeon. And he brought all of these to him and cut them into cutting a flesh, this shedding of blood, and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds. The birds of the prey came down upon the carcass and Abraham drove them away. Now, here it is. Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. God said to Abraham or Abraham, know for certain that your sins will be strangers in the land. Now let's drop down. He says verse 18, I'm sorry, verse 17. And it came to pass when the sun had said that it was very dark and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch would pass through or between these pieces. So this passing through, we see this happening. On that day, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. So here's the example that we see. So passing through and that would just kind of signify that I'm keeping the covenant. Now, whoever walks through this, those are the ones that are going to keep the covenant. Well, who walks through this? Abraham and God? No. Abraham is over on the side of sleep. God is walking through this. And so God is signifying that I am the one that's going to keep this covenant. What's the condition of the covenant? What does Abraham have to do? What does anyone else have to do? Nothing. No one is told to do anything. And remember that that is vitally important. God makes this promise with him. Now, God is trying to, obviously, eventually accomplish something that will show one, his glory, his goodness, and bring about somebody who we have not called him by his name yet. We haven't mentioned his name yet. And there's a reason why. Okay. Because thus far we're trying to show God his character, his traits, who he is, his attributes. We talked about before that there are communicable and incommunicable attributes of God. The communicable attributes are those attributes, those traits that he communicates with us. Many, and when I say communicate, he shares with us. Love. That's an attribute that God shares with us. And we can show love. Now, none of the attributes that he communicates or shares with us, do we do or do we have the ability to do it to the same degree or level that God does. We can love. I can love my children, but I can't love anybody like God loves. I can be angry. God has shared that with us. I can, my anger and God's anger, two different things. You don't have a problem. You're not bothered by me being angry with you. Him, different story or with you. But then there are also some attributes that God does not communicate with us or he does not share with us, such as his ability to be all powerful, all knowing, all present. There are some things that we just or here's one, here's one big one. Here's the one attribute that now we think that we have this attribute share with us, but we don't. We don't have this at all. That is the fact that we are not sovereign. God is we're not above all else. God is sovereign. If you don't know anything else, if you never get anything else out of these studies, that's the one thing you should always leave with above all else. God is sovereign. He's sovereign. You ain't or we ain't. So he communicates certain attributes. What he is going to show in all these done thus far is one to show his attributes that he is, that he's a sovereign God. But he's also one of the two attributes that are the two most influential attributes of his. He's a just God and he's a loving God. His justness, his righteousness means that he is true. He is faithful to himself, to his word. What he says he means and what he means he says, not like us. And because of that, because we sin, death is a prescription, but he loves us. And so the way that we cannot have to face his justice is his love is present for us. And all we have to do is place our faith in what he's doing, trust in what he's given us. And we see that early on in Genesis, even after the fall, we see them bringing an offering to the Lord wise so that they can be reconciled because God wants to be reconciled with his creation. Was that a in Rue 4, 6 and 7? Was that a type of covenant also with Boaz? And the rules yet it is, it is he is Boaz is her kinsman redeemer. And we have a redeemer. Now the difference is though, and this is why the Bible uses phrase where we have been adopted in as sons, we're not kin in the sense that we have this physical relation, but it takes someone, someone who's related to you or part of your family to redeem you. And that's what Jesus does. And I know I wasn't supposed to mention his name because we haven't earned it. We hadn't gotten there yet, but that's what's going to happen. So you do see these different types and so forth that go on. As a matter of fact, one of the more important things you're going to see, we've already covered, is how God has atoned for us. He's made a way to atone for us. And the same way that he atones under the old covenant, in this old dispensation, we're going to see him atone for not just Israel, but also Gentiles by doing what the by what the dictates of this of this atonement calls for. We're going to say that later. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but you see a lot of this happening. Amen. So that being the case, let's go ahead and jump to 1st Samuel and let's start in verse seven. That was a pretty long introduction, wasn't it? And the men of Kyriath Jerim came and took the Ark of the Lord and brought him to the house. Remember, they had brought the Ark. They had went to a battle that God didn't tell them to do. God did a battle. So you know what? Let's take the Ark and they were routed and the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant. And what happened? Well, they were punished for that. And so they returned it. And so now the Ark has been, the Ark of the Covenant is brought to the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eleazar, his son to keep the Ark of the Lord. I'm sorry. Didn't we cover this before? I think we did. I think we did. We covered how the Ark was kept there and then was returned. I want to go. Here it is. Here it is. I'm sorry. That's why I want to leave. 10% verse five. Then Samuel said, gather all Israel to Mispah and I will pray to the Lord for you. They gathered to Mispah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said, we have sinned against the Lord. And Samuel judged the sons of Israel, Mispah. By the way, best thing you could ever do when you mess up, acknowledge the fact I have messed up. I need to, we talked about this, this, this word before about repenting because you have a repentant heart. Then the second part, the turning away from your sins should come easy. Should come. It should be just natural. Man, I can't believe I'm that dumb. I can't believe it. Lord forgive me. I want to stop doing that. Amen. Problem is, these people have a problem. And by the way, have we noticed what their problem is? The ability to do sin is amazing in them and with us as well, but also their ability to know when they've done wrong. They recognize when they've done wrong. But guess what? We do too. Pets do too. The cat and dogs here, they understand when they do wrong. So they have that ability and so they'll recognize it, especially when they get punished. And so that's what they do. They weep, they cry out and they understand. Now, verse seven, here we go. Now, when the Philistines heard that the sons of Israel had gathered to mispop, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. These happen to be some of the dumbest people on the planet. Every time you come out against the Jews, ultimately God is going to show his hand and defeat you. So what do they want to do? Let's try our luck again. Let's try it again one more time. The 74th time is the third time is a charm. Well, in this case, the 74th, the 56th time is a charm. One of these days we're going to win. And so they came up against Israel. And when the sons of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. Then the sons of Israel said to Samuel, do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God. Oh, now he's our God, the Lord our God, for us that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines. So Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it for the whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel and the Lord answered him. Now, Samuel was offering up the burnt offering. And the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day against the Philistines and confused them so that they were round before Israel. The men of Israel went out to mispire and pursued the Philistines and struck them down as far as below Bethcar. So Israel wins a battle because God shows up, confuses the Philistines and allows the Jews to go out and rout them. Amen. You would think that you would learn the lesson one as the Jews to always remember the Lord and as the enemies of the Jews don't go against but why not just learn the valuable lesson and since he is God make him your God. That part would be easy. That's how you can fix all of this getting routed stuff. Make him your God, but they don't want to because, and here's the truth, here's the truth guys, people do not want to accept the Lord as God not because they don't have a lot of, they don't believe that he is. No, the biggest reason why people will not or don't want to accept him as the Lord is because to accept him as the Lord means he is the Lord and I don't want him to be my Lord. I don't want to do what he wants me to do. I want to do what I want to do. That's the reason. I don't want you telling me anything. I, yeah, I know that if I, if I do these drugs, if I do that then some bad things are likely going to happen, but so what I want to just let me do me. Okay. And then you also have to say let God do God because he will. Let's go back to it. So the Philistines were subdued and they did not come anymore within the borders of Israel. Listen to this. This part is important. They did not come anymore within the border of Israel and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The hand of the Lord was against the Philistines. How long? All the days of Samuel. That's important. The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel from Echoron even to Gath and Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. So there was peace between Israel and the Amorites. By the way, remember none of these people should even be in the land. There should be no Philistines in the land. There should be no Amorites. There should be no noites other than the Israelites. Those are the only ones that should be there, but because of the disobedience the Lord left them there and therefore He's going to use them to punish them from time to time. So verse 15, now Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. He used to go annually to the circuit, on circuit, I'm sorry, to Bethel and Gilgai and Miss Paa and he judged Israel in all these places. Then he's returned to Ramah for his house was there and there he judged Israel and he built an altar to the Lord. Here is the problem. Chapter 8 verse 1. This is where, what is it like, what is it like if you are the leader of a nation and you're not a good father? What is it like when you're the leader of a nation and your children are in sin? We look at your son and your son just did doing, you know, that does speak about you to some degree, right? It really does, but and we see this with with Samuel. Now, Samuel was a good guy, a good wonderful man of the Lord. Parenting skills might leave a little bit to be desired, but then again he was brought up under Eli and Eli's son, Hafi and Phineas were horrible people. By the way, I was kind of playing on playing on something with our current leader in this country. Anyway, back to it. I don't want to get too political. Chapter 8 verse 1. And it came to pass. It came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. No bueno. He appointed his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his first born was Joel and the name of the second was Abidjah. They were judging in Bathsheba. His sons however did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. So because of that now, you know what, we don't want this. We don't, we don't want this and so what happened? All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, came together at Ramah and they said to him, behold, you have grown old and your sons are not walking your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. But the thing, but the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when he said, give us a king, judge us and Samuel prayed to the Lord. So if you all can see my wife right now, she is, she is. Anyway, so they are upset not just with Samuel, obviously with Samuel's children and it gives them an opportunity to do what? It gives them an opportunity to do really what their hearts desire is. They said, we want a king like everyone else, but the thing was displeasing Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us and Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord, verse 7, said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, Samuel, although your sons are horrible, they have not rejected you, Samuel, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Notice how God put this, they've rejected me as God from being king over them, from ruling over them. By the way, this word for king, let me put on the screen, make it a little higher, this word for king is the Hebrew word for melek, which is to be king or to rule over. Okay, and so you can rule over someone without being king, but that's really the the verb and the noun, the same two words. And so they don't want God ruling over them anymore. Now, here's the problem though, who needs to rule over them? By the way, they've just witnessed, they know that as long as Samuel has been judging them and leading them, obviously through God, I mean with God, through Samuel, the hands of the Philistine or the hand of God was against the Philistine and they didn't have the problem, but they don't get that or they don't care. I don't care about how prosperous the nation has become. I don't care how wonderful this nation is, even though there's some ungodly attributes to this country, even though there are some issues with us, things have been fairly prosperous. There's always going to be problems. Matter of fact, let me just take a step back and kind of even apply this even to our country. I know there are some people that are watching that are not here in the United States of America. There are some folks in the UK, South America, in South America, in the Caribbean, Canada, and so forth. But here in this country, there's been times where people had some relatively decent morals. There's always going to, there always has been and always will have been and always will be people who aren't godly. That's just the way of the world. But overall, the country was seen as a place that you can go to and they still are, to be told, knocking down the doors to get here. By hook or crook, they are trying to do their best to get here. People aren't running to the hills to go into these other countries. Now, some are because of the proximity. And so there was a time where it just looked like, it just looked like that America may have had God's hands on them, may have looked like that and compared to the rest of the world, it was. Just to keep it honest, compared to the rest of the world, it was. Now, was everything perfect? No, there was always, there might have been some too much racism, too much sexism, too much whatever isms. There's always going to be that find the place where that's never been the case. You won't find that place because that's just how the world is. It always will be until God actually rules over us and we recognize that. But in the meantime, and the reason why I'm making this point is because what ends up happening is we will say things like, well, what about Switzerland? Or what about France? Or what about this country? What about that country? What about we want to take certain parts of that country and make it and bring it here? Well, so what's the, what's the, what's the key? Go to that country, right? Or you'll see that people from one state to another state. There's this big debate right now. People moving from a red state to a blue, I mean, from a blue state to a red state. And people in the rest, it's like, don't, don't leave. Don't, no, don't come here. Don't come here. I know you like what's happening here, but what you, you guys are doing there. We don't want you here, right? Well, the same thing is happening there. People are wanting to disregard the blessings of God to be like everybody else. Why? Because is it possible that we can still have the protection of God, the prosperity of God, but still live like the heathens in other countries? So therefore we want a king like other nations, and we really don't want a king like other nations. What we really want is to live in debauchery like other nations, but with the same protection. This is what they, this is what Israel want. By the way, let's be honest, this is really what we all want to. In our heart of hearts, our flesh would like for us to be protected, have money in the bank, food in the refrigerator, and me be able to live like I want to live. Uninhibited, unencumbered by any rules. Let me just do me, but also bless me. Well, what we have, that is what we call this new Christianity. And I say new Christianity, it's not really Christianity. That's this new gospel that's going out, live how you want to live, do what you want to do, be what you want to be. I don't care. But when I need you Lord, make sure you are Johnny on the spot. God, don't make me have to come look for you to ask for a blessing. I need you to be there right now. You know what I need before I ask of it, so give it to me before I ask for it. Matter of fact, put the money in the account before I ask for it. And so God ends up becoming our genie. That's not how this works. Again, above all else, God is sovereign. You ain't, you depend on him. He doesn't depend on you. He needs, he needs nothing from you, but we don't get that. We think that we're, we think that we're teammates of God. We think that he's our teammate. He's not our teammate. And he's not. He's not even the coach. He's not the coach. He's not the offensive coordinator. He's not the general manager. He's the owner. It's his team. It's his league. It's his world. And we, and we don't get that. The Jews don't get that. And you know what? And by the way, why don't the Jews get that? Because what did the Jews do? They left them in the land. They also got to partake of some of their hedonism, some of their sin. They got to eat some of their food. Like, wow, this food that you give, this is some, this pork chops. Where do we pork chops? Wow. Barbecue pig stuff, whatever, pig knuckles. This is, this is wonderful. They began to partake of the things and the foods and the lifestyle of these other people. And then they wanted that, but still wanted the protection of God. And so God says, you know, I tell you what, since you don't want to do what I want you to do, I will leave them here. So they can in turn frustrate you and cause you. Again, I said this before. If the only time you ever, ever, ever call out to God is when you're in trouble. When things aren't going great. If that's the only time you call out to God and God wants to hear your voice, then what's going to happen? He's going to leave them there to cause you. If that's what it takes to get you to call out to me, we're all going to be here. Who do I say are the Jews today? It doesn't matter. It absolutely doesn't matter. It's almost one of the worst questions. And I'm not saying you, but, but, and honestly, it's one of the worst questions you could possibly ask. Why? Because if you want to be a true Jew, then you've got to take what the true Jews are having to deal with. They have a spirit of stupor over them. They have a partial hardening that's given to them by God. And what's next up in the agenda? What's on the, what's on deck? What's the next part of the schedule for Jews? Is a tribulation. It's a problem. Jacob's trouble. That's what's next for them. And the overwhelming majority will be killed and will go to hell. But God will save a remit for them. But what you want to be, more than being a Jew, is you want to be part of the church by placing your faith in Christ. So that's what you want. Because if you are Jewish ethnically or you're a Gentile, non-Jew, the same result happens. Placing your faith in Christ and then you are saved. You become part of the church. Only the church is saved. Only the church is saved. Jews can become part of the church. The church can become part of, can't become part of Israel. Okay? Now we'll deal with more of that later. But that's the answer to that. And so that's why you don't want to have, you don't want, that's not even a good question. Because to focus on that question means I want to find out who is, and we don't even know who are the true Jews. God does. And so that being the case, going back to it. So they have rejected, not you Samuel, but they've rejected me. Verse eight, like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them from Egypt, even to this day, in the day that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. This is God telling Samuel, this isn't anything new. This is nothing new, Samuel. They've always done this. They've always played the part of a harlot. They've always forsaken me and come back. But this time, this time, if we were in church, I'd get a pin of calls and tell you, turn your neighbor and say, this time, this time, I'm going to grant their wish. I'm going to give them, I'm going to give them what they want. And there is a reason why. Remember, one of the attributes that God has is he is all knowing. He's all knowing. He's omniscient. And he's omnipresent. Well, what does that mean? When we say he's omnipresent, that means he's everywhere at the same time. But he's everywhere at the same time, all the time in the past, in the present and the future. And so God makes a statement. We've covered this before. Now it's like anybody ever watched the 18? You watch the 18 and Hannah will say, he'll light his little cigar at the end. He says, I love it when a plan comes together. Well, God's plan is being fulfilled. It's coming together. What did he say when they were? Okay, let's go back to Genesis, where we get in Genesis 15. Let's go back to Genesis 15. Abraham asked a question. He asked a question. He says, how will I know? And what does God say? Now when the sun's going down, God said, even verse 13 says, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve. And afterward they will come out with many possessions. Now, what is he speaking of? He's speaking of them going into the land of Egypt and being put into servitude for 400 years. But prior to that happen, prior to that happen, as they go into Egypt, they are blessed. And they're blessed because of this man named Jacob who is blessing. He's putting these blessings on his children on his descendants that are going. These are the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. One of them is a man by the name of Judah. Abraham, Jacob puts his hand on Judah and says this, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes. Remember, we covered this last week. Where are they located? Where is this happening? Shiloh. So the beginning of this is taking place in Shiloh. And we're going to see Shiloh show up again. Shiloh, Shiloh, Shiloh. We're going to keep seeing this because, again, God says what he means and means what he says. But wait a second, God, what in the world do you mean by this scepter? What scepter? There's no kingdom. We don't have a king. Oh, yes, you will. How do I know? Well, because in a in just a short amount of time in a few pages, my hardheaded people, my disobedient people, my unfaithful people are going to ask for a king. They're going to ask for a king. And I'm going to give them one. I'm going to give them what they're looking for. But what do I want? Is what they want going to deter what I want? No. The Jews want something. They want a king. I hope you all are following this. The Jews want something. Abram asked for a sign. I'll give you a sign. And before the sign comes, there's going to be this blessing from Jacob, who is a descendant, obviously. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is Abram's grandson. God has made a covenant with Abraham, also with Isaac, also with Jacob. And so Jacob turns around and blesses his his children. He pronounces blessings on them. And one in particular, Judah, way says the scepter. Well, the scepter is for a king. Well, let's go back to Genesis. We need to go back to finish reading Genesis. And instead of Genesis 13, I mean 15, let's go to Genesis 12, because he makes a statement in Genesis 12, this other covenant. Now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your father's country and from your relatives and from your father's house to a land in which I will show you verse two and three, the important ones. And I will make you a great nation. How can you make me a great nation? Well, you need people. You need people in order for it to be a great nation. And I'm going to make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And so we've got, we've got this blessing that Abram has no idea how this is going to work out. No one at this time can tell, but why is this important? Well, because previous to that, another statement was made. Another statement was made previous to this because remember they're asking for a king. Nothing best stated is catching God off guard and what does he want to do? He wants to bring about this other promise, this earlier promise. Don't forget about this promise. I said before, there are a few verses that if you like, if you guys like tattoos or you want like, you like writing stuff down, write this down or tattoo this. How about, how about this passage verse 15? And I will put entity between you and the, and the woman between your seed and whose your seed. This is Jesus. So is this catching God off guard? No, which is why the prophecy came about to say that there will be this scepter that will not depart from Judah. Who comes out of this line of Judah? Well, Jesus, the problem is though, here's the problem. Judah is not going to be the tribe whereby this king comes from. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. We'll get there. Now let's, let's, let's continue. He says, now then listen to their voice back to 1 Samuel chapter seven verse nine. Now then listen to their voice. However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them. So this is what the king is going to do. Go ahead and give them ample warning. Tell them what will happen if there is a king over you. So Samuel spoke the words of the Lord to the people who asked him. He said, this will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons. Look what he says. He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots among his horsemen and they will run before his chariot. They're going to serve him. He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and his equipment for his chariots. He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and to give his officers and to his servants. He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks and of your and of your I'm sorry and your sales will become his servants. You will become his servant. That's important. You will become his servant. Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for you for yourselves but the Lord will not ask you in that day. What are they going to say? We don't care. We won't want anyway. Think about what he's saying. All the best you have he's going to take the best lands. He's going to take your people and put them in his armies. Well, look around the globe, ladies and gentlemen. Don't we have that in our government? Taking, you know what the government said? I like that plot of land. That plot of land is ideal and central as a matter of fact, it's in the best interest of our country of or our state or our city for us to have. Some of you all are familiar with eminent domain. A lot of the best plots of land in these cities have become the city's property because of eminent domain. The lands, the people, the armies, the government, the people that work for them. And then it ends up being that, wait a second, if the government is supposed to be for us, why is that we serve them? But this is just what this is just what God says. And then what does he say to them at the very end? He says, but in that day, you will cry out. But what does he say? But the Lord will not answer you in that day, just that day. Nevertheless, people refused. The people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. And they said, no, but there shall be a king over us. We don't care. We want a king. We want a king. And matter of fact, God, we want you to bless our king. We want a king. Verse 20, that we also may be like the other nations. We want to be like the nations, the guy that you just routed. We want to be like them. And so that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. Israel, people, are you that ignorant? Did you just hear what he just said? You want this king to go out and fight our battles. He's not going out to fight your battles. No, your sons are going out to fight the battles. By the way, isn't that kind of what it is right now? We're going out to fight our own battles, but because we have the Lord, we win. When we don't have the Lord, we get routed. But now you want the king to do it. Okay. Now, after Samuel had heard all these words of the people, he repeated them to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and appoint them a king. So Samuel said to the men of Israel, go every man to his city. Now, there's going to be a search. We won't go into the actual search, but there's going to be a search and they're going to choose. He's going to choose this man from Benjamin. Verse one of chapter nine, this man from Benjamin, whose name was Kish, the son of him. He's going to get Kish's son name. What's his name? Saul. And so here he's going to choose Saul. Now, he's not telling you guys go and choose him. I'll choose Saul. God actually chooses Saul. And he chooses Saul. Saul is tall, good-looking. The next tallest man according to the scriptures comes to his shoulder. Saul's a tall guy. He goes out and get Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He goes out and get Shaq. He goes out and get some tall, good-looking guy. Who, by the way, is kind of hesitant to become a king. Saul is a little bit timid, not really interested in becoming the king, or he's a little bit afraid. Now, I won't go through the whole story of chapter nine. I'll let you guys look at that. I want to go ahead and jump into... Is that what I'm going to go to? Yeah, I want to go ahead and jump into chapter 10. There it is. Now, he's going to anoint Saul. Saul is a Benjaminite. That's important, because the prophecy is that the scepter shall not depart from Judah. Saul is not from Judah. He's from Benjamin. Verse 1 of chapter 10. Then Samuel took the flask of oil, poured it on his head. Kisserman said, Has not the Lord appointed you a ruler over his inheritance? When you go from me today, you will find two men close to Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelza, and they will say to you, the donkey which you went to look for, they have found. Remember, Saul is out looking for some donkeys. His father sends him out, and so he comes across Samuel. God tells him that's the guy. And so Saul is with Samuel, and Samuel tells him, go back and you'll find that the donkeys that you were looking for have been found. The donkeys which you went to look for have been found. Now behold, your father has ceased to be concerned about the donkeys. Now he's concerned about you. Verse 3. Then you will go on further from there, and you will come as far as the oak of Tabor. And there are three men going up to God at Bethel, will meet you carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a jug of wine. And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you will accept from their hand afterwards. You will come to the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is, and it shall be as soon as you have come there to the city, then you will meet a group of prophets coming down from a high place with the harp of tambourine and a flute and a lyre before them, and they will be prophesying. Then the spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them, and be changed into another man. Shall I catch that? So he's giving him some things that's going to happen, and then when you meet these other men, these prophets, they will be prophesying, and then the spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and then you will be prophesying with them. Now question, because it's important, because I think sometimes we forget or misunderstand what a prophet is. A prophet is someone that gives an utterance. There are two types of prophecies. There's a foretelling, what's going to happen in the future, and then there is the forth-telling. What does sayeth the Lord? A revelation. Both a revelation, but this revelation that we're thinking of, here's the question, do you all think that this revelation is a revelation that is foretelling that all of these prophets, including Saul, are saying what's going to happen? Are all of these prophets saying, hey, the Lord is going to do this in a few days? What do you all think? I'll write this out. What do you guys think? Do you think Saul and the rest of these prophets saying, hey, the Lord is going to do this? I know some, there's somebody here with a backache. The Lord wants to bless you. The Lord is, I think I'm thinking of somebody whose name begins with L is that what, no, that's not the kind of prophecy that he's giving. Remember, most prophecy is a right now. It's the indicative. It is the, it's a right now, a current revelation, either of what it said or what has been said, not what will happen. It is really, in many cases, in many cases, the prophecy just maybe simply just blessing the Lord, saying or heaping blessings and adoration upon the Lord. That's what most prophecy, or not most probably, but a lot of prophecy is, or saying what the Lord has already stated. Are you guys with me? So that being the case, the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, not in him, but upon him. Why is that important? Because somebody might later say, somebody might later say that this prophecy, I'm sorry that the Spirit upon him, that Saul was saved, that Saul was a Christian and then lost salvation. No, that's not what happened here either. The Spirit of the Lord can come upon anybody. Can come upon anyone. Does not mean that that person is a believer at that time. He will use whomever and however, whatever, whenever, just to bring about his glory and to bring about his will. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily and said, and you shall prophesy with them, verse seven, it shall be when these signs come to you, do for yourself what the occasion requires. For God is with you and you shall go down before me in Gilgoth and behold, I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice and peace offerings. You shall wait seven days until I come to you and show you what you should do. Now, we're going to find out that Saul is not a patient person. Saul is not a very faithful person. Saul is not the kind of person that God would choose, although God is using him for the moment. Verse nine. Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel that God changed his heart. By the way, I want to focus on this part right here where says God changed his heart. This is not to say that God changed his own heart. No, this is God changing Saul's heart. Saul is a guy that needed. Saul is a very emotional, insecure person. And we're going to see that even more so. Saul is an emotional, insecure person. Munkmoo said Saul was just a tall dude. Now let's not go hating on the tall people. I have a buddy of mine who's really tall and we would just, you know, we jab at each other. And I would say something. I said, I said, tall people are stupid. Didn't you read the Bible? And so he get mad at me. What I told him that you could, the taller you are, the likelihood of your intelligence diminishing is noted. And he would just, he just get furious with me. But tall, put tall, Saul was tall, but being tall is not a bad thing. Being short or tall doesn't matter. But in this case, this was someone that the people can see. I chose a tall person that everyone could see could stand out. He was a good looking person and so forth. So all of that, that's who Saul is. But that doesn't mean that that's a bad trait. Unless you want to make fun of somebody. When they came to the hill, their, behold, a group of prophets met him and the spirit of God came upon him mightily so that he prophesied among them. Verse 11, it came about when all who knew him previously saw the prophesied now with the prophets, that the people said to one another, what has happened to the son of Kish is Saul also among the prophets and there said now who is their father. Therefore it became a proverb is Saul also among the prophets. So people started saying, is Saul among the prophets? Is Saul a prophet? Is Saul a prophet? Because Saul is giving a rebel previously. So it's clear that previously Saul was not given these revelations of the Lord. But now we see this happening. So when they had finished prophesying, he came to the high place, verse 14. Now Saul said to him and his servants, where did you go? And he said to look for the donkeys. Now this is where he finds out that the donkeys have come back and so forth. So we go ahead and leave that. I want to drop down to verse 17, however, and Saul being chosen before the people. Thereafter, Samuel called the people together to the Lord at mispot and he said to the sons of Israel, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. I brought Israel up from Egypt and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you, but you. So he's rehashing, replaying what God has done. I've done all these things, but you, verse 19, have today rejected your God. God has done all these wonderful things for you constantly been delivering you, but you have rejected your God who delivers you from all of your calamities and your distresses. Yet you have said no, but said a king over us, now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans. Thus, Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by Lot. Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by his family and the Metrite family was taken and Saul, the son of Kish was taken, but they looked for him. He could not be found. So here we are. Saul is your coronation and you're not there. Not only do you turn out to be a horrible king, you are a weak, feckless, scared king. Can't find you. It's your day. The spirit of the Lord came upon you and you, this is their king. This is who you guys chose. This is who you guys chose. So let's see what happens. Then they brought the tribe of Benjamin. I'm sorry, verse 22. Therefore they inquired further the Lord. Has the man come here yet? So the Lord said, Behold, he is hiding himself by the baggage. So they ran into them. They went, they went to go get Saul. Saul, this is your day. What's going on with you? Saul, you big sissy. When they finally brought, let's go to verse 23. So they ran and took him from there. And when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders up. They came about right here. Verse 24. Then Samuel said to the people, Do you see whom the Lord has chosen? Surely there is none like him among the people. All the people shouted and said, Long live the king. Long live the king. In spite of all that God has done, Long live the king. Okay. Verse 25. So then Samuel told the people, The ordinances of the kingdom, And wrote them in the book, And placed it before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, Each one to his house. Saul also went to his house at Gabbiah. And the valiant man whose heart God had touched went with him. But certain worthless men said, How can this one deliver us? They're probably smarter though. But how can this man deliver us? And they despised him and did not Bring him any present, But he kept silent. So it makes you all get the picture. See what's happening. God has given them what they want. Now some Amorites, I'm sorry some Amonites, Decide to start a problem. A guy by the name of Nahash. Nahash, the Amonite, Came up and beseeched Jabash Gelyad. And all the men of the Jabash Said in Nahash, Make a vow. I'm sorry, Make a covenant with us. And we will serve you. So here come Nahash and his people. Make a, Nahash. Nahash and his people, The Amonite, Make a covenant with us. And what do the people of Jabash say? Make a covenant with us So that you won't hurt us. But Nahash, The Amonites said to them, I will make it with you on this condition. That I will gouge out the right eye of every one of you. Thus I will make it a reproach on all Israel. So now, So now this guy says, Yeah, I'll tell you what, I won't kill you. I'll make a covenant with you, But you're going to have to cut out your right eye. They said, Well, you know what, Give us some, Give us some time to think about this. This is, This is, This is interesting. It's interesting. We can either, Let's say either die or we can serve you by making this covenant before we're going to have to cut our right eye out. Yeah. Yeah. Ambrose is what a covenant. It's a horrible covenant. You know what? I kind of like my right eye, but then again, I also like my life. So can we think about this? Yeah, you can think about it. Verse five, Now behold, Saul was coming from the field behind an ox and he said, What is the matter with the people that they weep? So they related to him, the words of the men of Jabash. Then the spirit of God came upon, Saul mightily when he heard these words and he became very angry. So it's going to take the spirit of God to actually give this man some background. He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of Messier saying, Whoever doesn't come out after us, same thing going to happen to you. This happened to this oxen. And so they started gathering men. They started gathering the sides. I mean the their armies together and they're getting ready to go to battle. Let's go down to verse 12. Then the people said to Samuel, Who is he that said shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men that we may put them to death. But Saul said, Now, Samuel says, Those folks that came against you, let's put them to death. But Saul says, No, don't kill them. Okay. Not a man should be put to death to this day for today. The Lord has accomplished deliverance in Israel. Now this is after they go and they destroy Nash, the Ammonite. And so to go ahead and get rid of all of those that have come against you, including those that said it in secret in silence. But what does Saul do? Saul does not. Saul doesn't have the stomach for a lot of things. Saul doesn't have the stomach for a lot of things. And so therefore Saul, you're just not a good person. You're not even a good king. But let's continue. Then Samuel said to the people, Come, let us go to Gilgai and renew the kingdom there. So all the people went to Gilgai and there they made Saul king before, I mean Lord, I'm king before the Lord in Gilgai. There they also offered sacrifice and peace to offerings before the Lord. And there Saul and the man of Israel rejoice greatly. Now Samuel is getting ready to address Israel. Do I want to go? Yeah, I do. I do. I do. I want to read this because it's important. Yeah. Yeah, Sheila. Saul is soft. Saul is extra soft. Then Samuel said to all of Israel, Chapter 12 verse 1, Behold, I have listened to your voice in all that you have said to me and I have appointed a king over you. Now, here is the king walking before you, but I am old and gray. And behold, my sons are with you, but we don't care about your sons. Saul, I mean Samuel. And I have walked before you from my youth, even to this day. Now look what Samuel says to these people. Here I am, bear witness against me before the Lord and his anointing. Whose ox I have taken or whose donkey I have taken or who I have defrauded. Whom have I oppressed or from whose hand have I taken a bribe to blind my eyes with? I will restore it to you. They said, Samuel, hey, no, Samuel, you haven't done that. You have not defrauded us or oppressed us or taken anything from any man's hand. He said, and then the Lord is witness against. The Lord is witness against you. And he anointed his witness. I mean, I'm sorry. And his anointed is witness this day that you have found nothing in my hand. And they said he's a witness. What is Saul doing? I mean, Samuel doing, he's saying to them, you have been treated right. I've not done anything wrong to you. I have led you in a faithful way in a godly fashion. I have not defrauded any of you. If so, let me know. You haven't done any of those things, Samuel. And so what is Samuel's response? Well, then the Lord is my witness against you. Well, wait a second. We just said you can do anything wrong. I was, yeah, that's why there's this witness against you because in spite of all of that, as in spite of how good God has taken care of you, you don't care. Then Samuel, verse six said to those people, it is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron who brought you and your fathers up from the land of Egypt. So now take your stand that I may plead with you with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did before you. So now he's getting ready to recount all of these things what he did with Isaac, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, bringing them up out of the land of Egypt, all of these things being handed to the hands of Cicero, still bringing them out of that. In verse 10, they cried out to the Lord and said, we have sinned because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashras, but now deliver us from the hands of our enemies and the Lord's sincerable. So he's recounting what he has done. Every time you guys mess up, I delivered you. Verse 12, when you saw that Nehash, the king of the sons of Ammon came against you, you said to me, no, but a king shall reign over us. All over the Lord, your God was your king. So even after God delivers you, you got one last shot and you still don't care. No, long live the king was what you said. Long live the king. You trust in gold, you trust in government, but you do not trust in God, who you have seen time and time again deliver you. Verse 14, if you will fear the Lord, I'm sorry, verse 13, now therefore here is the king whom you have chosen. Now he's actually going to give them a shot. Here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have asked for. And behold, listen to what Samuel says. This might, this is kind of, it might seem a little bit weird. He says, this is the king whom you have chosen, who you've asked for. And behold, the Lord has set a king over you. If, big word here, if you will fear the Lord and serve him and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of the Lord, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God. If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you as it was written, I mean as it was against your father. Now what's going to happen is they're going to follow these kings and many cases, especially after this upcoming King David, they're going to follow these kings and these kings are going to cause them to turn away from the Lord their God. And what will the people do? The people will follow what the king says to do. They will follow after these foreign gods and leave the God who has saved them. That's going to be the problem. Verse 16, even now take your stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. Is it not, I'm sorry, yeah, is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call to the Lord that he may send thunder and rain. Then you will know and see that your wickedness is great which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourself a king. So Samuel called to the Lord and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. So I'm going to let you know, give you one last sign to show that you have done bad. You have done such a horrible thing by this thundering and the people were afraid. Verse 19, then all people said to Samuel, pray for your servants to the Lord your God so that we may not die. For we have added to our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king. But they still want a king now. Samuel said to the people, do not fear you have committed all this evil yet. Yet, this is important guys. You have done all this evil. Yet, you have done all this evil. You have turned your back on me, long live the king, give us a king. You have done all this evil. Yet, do not turn aside from following the Lord but serve the Lord with all your heart. Where have we heard that before? Serve the Lord with all your heart. You've done all this evil. You can't do right. Why? Because your real nickname is can't get right. You can't get right. You can't do right. You don't want to do right. Because you just don't want to be right. You'll even make up a song. If loving you is wrong, then I don't want to be right. If doing sin is wrong, I don't want to be right. That's you guys. But he says, yet in spite of all of that, in the face of all of that, in this mountain of history with your people, you've seen God deliver you. You still chose a king. And he said, yet if you just simply steal, serve the Lord, I'll be with you. You must not turn aside verse 21, for then you will go after a futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile. For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself. Stop the presses. Can I ask you guys in class, when I ask you guys a question? What I just said, super, super, super profound. Did you catch that? I'm not sure you caught it. I'm not sure you caught it. I'm going to make sure you caught it. I'm going to make you catch it. Verse 21, you must not turn aside for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile. Verse 22, for the Lord your God, for the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself. Did you catch what I did? Did you catch it? Did you catch it? Did you caught it? Are you catching it? Did anybody catch this? No amber amber says sounds like one saved always saved, but it is kind of rooted in principle, but no whatever we go back and look at and look. What did you say? I put those scriptures up for a reason earlier, and there's this theme that keeps getting woven into we've been reading it over and over and over, and oh and I've said it as we've gone through it. I have mentioned this as we have gone through this, and I want you guys to remember this. By the way, it's even more than Israel being Israel. It's even more than that, but what does God, how do I put this? If God says it, what's going to happen? Whatever he said. Now, God is not impressed by you or me. He's not impressed by how well you think you're keeping his word, because you're not, because he sees your heart. What God is always obligated to. What's the one thing that God is always obligated to? Can someone tell me? What's the one thing that God is obligated to? Amber gets a gold star, his word. Dutch says the same thing. Sarah says the same thing, and the rest of you guys are coming in, his word. He is obligated to his word. You're going to hear these absolutely silly, goofy statements today, where they're going to say things like, you can't put God in the box. Who are you to say what God will and won't do? His word. I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt what God will and won't do, what God can or can't do. Yep, me, little old me. You know, I can tell you that because it's his word. It's not me saying I'm not commanding God. God has stated what he will and won't do. God says it, and so he's going to follow it. What's the old statement some of you Pentecostal folks? I'm going to run on to the end. How's it go? Help me out, Lisa. I know you know this. How's it go? I'm going to run on to the end and see what the end. And I've heard a billion times, and I never get it right. But I'm going to run to the end and see what the end will be, or I'm butchering this thing. I'm killing this thing, but I can't. Some of you guys know what I'm talking about. You've heard it before, and you hear a lot in Pentecostal, especially the older Pentecostal here or a hole in his church. I can't think of how this little phrase goes. But I'm going to run on and see what the end is going to be like. Well, guess what? God has been there. God has been there. He knows what the end is. And so when he says he's going to or not do something, he knows. Now he gave a simple command that all you got to do is all you got to do. There it is. That, thank God for Lisa, she says. I'm going to run on and see what the end will be. Amen. It's not that difficult, but I never get that right. I never get that right. But it's not that we're putting God in the box. God has told himself or told us what he's going to do. And it's not that we're limiting him. We're just agreeing with what God said. God said this, so guess what it's going to be? Is God going to change his mind? No. Why would God change his mind? He doesn't have to change his mind. He knows what it's like. He knows exactly how it's going to be. He knows that your foolishness will still not inhibit what he's going to do. And so he is going to do exactly what his word says. He's obligated to his word. So now he makes this statement and put it back on the screen. Let's put it back on the screen. The Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself. Remember statements like this, Leviticus 26 verse 40. If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers in their unfaithfulness, which they committed against me, which is what they just did here in 1 Samuel, all these different things you've done. But if you remember me, all these different things in their unfaithfulness, which they have committed against me, and also in their acting with hostility against me, those are pretty strong words to do that towards God. I also was acting with hostility against them to bring them into the land of their enemies, or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humble so that they then make amends for their iniquity. Here it is. Then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will remember also my covenant with Isaac. I will also remember my covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. Corey, why did you go over all those other passages talking about the covenants early on? Because God has obligated himself to do what he said he's going to do. And he stated throughout, as we've been reading this, he's been stating, you guys aren't about anything. You guys are some horrible people, by the way. And I'm not going to do this for you because you're great, but because I will remember my covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, what did you say? And I'm going to put you back in the land. Oh, by the way, I will remember the covenant that I even made with this land. I will remember what I said and what I purposed to do. And so this covenant that he makes with Abraham, he didn't say, hey, Abraham, let me go ahead and make a covenant with you. What do you think about that covenant, Abraham? Abraham, what say you and I make a covenant? Okay, no, that's not how it worked. They didn't come to an agreement. No, God said that I will do this with Abraham. And in doing so, it's going to benefit who? Israel and non-Israel. Well, that's pretty much everybody. All the nations of the earth will be blessed, according to Genesis 12-3. So now, he's going to remember his covenant. Let's go back to, For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself, moreover, as for me, far be it from me, that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you. So what does he say? I'm going to keep praying for you, though. But I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done. But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away. But if you still do wickedly, if you still sin, if you still want to be evil and wicked, you and your king will be swept away. But are you saying we're going to have a king? Oh, you're going to have a king. You're going to have a king. However, it won't be the king that you want, because we're going to see Saul is a moron. Was that mean of me to say, Saul's a moron. Saul is an insecure moron. He's not given difficult tasks. He's not given difficult things to do, but he is the worst kind of a leader, but it's what they want it. And so God is soon and soon and very soon, he is going to choose a person of his own choosing, not their choosing, but his own choosing. And yet it does say a man after his own heart, but he's going to choose someone of his own choosing who will be in leagues with the prophecy of Genesis 4910 out of the tribe of Judah. Who was it that asked earlier? I think it was Joan that asked earlier about Ruth, this kinsman redeemer. And so he's going to redeem his people through this lineage. And the fact that Joan brought it up, they are in this lineage of Judah. Boaz, who has a baby and marries Ruth, who then they have a child named Solomon and then Obed and then Jesse and then David who's in this lineage. At this point in time, David, I don't know what David's doing. He's over on the side somewhere doing, he's turned to the sheep, he's turned to the flock, but God is going to choose him. And he is the part of the little group, this little small little group, Jesse's house. Now Jesse's got some boys there and he got some tall, I guess he's got some bigger boys, but there's this one little runt that he's going to choose, this little short guy, Ruddy. I guess he's looking, choose him instead, who is going to follow after God. So now the whole point of this though guys is, and I think all of this still is really super profound. It really is, but the most important point is, the most important point is what we're seeing is everything that God says. You know what we didn't have to do and this is why I'm saying the best part about what we're doing is to develop how we read the Bible. Do you know what we didn't have to do? None of what we cover is us ever having to do a deep look into him. Let's find the spiritual meaning of what he's saying. You know we haven't done that yet. I don't know now, let me just stop for a second as we get ready to close out, but from Genesis up to 1 Samuel, not once have we stated, huh, once it says this, but is there some deeper hidden meaning? We haven't, we haven't done that yet. We haven't done that yet. All we've done was taking the word at face value, what it said. Amen, Amherst, the plain reading. This is my problem with most of, I shouldn't say most of, but with a large portion of Christianity today. This is my problem with even the folks who are a solo scriptura. This is my problem with the folks who go this way or that way. My problem, my problem is how we read the text. I've got, I love them, I love them to death and they disagree and I keep asking people what is your hermeneutic? Well, my hermeneutic is Christ centric. That means absolutely nothing. That is, huh, what is that? Well, mine is God centric, mine is Bible centric. You're just throwing words. What is your hermeneutic? How consistent are you? If you read it this way in this passage and then go to the next passage and you read it differently, now I'm confused and I'm confused because you're setting up rules that you yourself can't even follow. You need to be consistent in how you read the scriptures and you, nine times out of 10, you'll come to the same conclusion that everyone else does if we read it consistently. The plain reading, the plain literal understanding without spiritualizing, going too deep, we come up with the same understanding. Does that mean that every time that there is something, a word that's given that we have to take it literally? Well, sometimes you can't take it literally. If we're talking about face to face with the Lord, that's not literal, but you know what it means. It means right before his face in his presence. Are you guys with me? So far, we haven't done that once and everything that we've covered so far is lining up perfectly. Even, even guys, even the prophecies are lining up perfectly. Everything is just falling right into place because what I want you guys to do is to figure out and have a consistent way of how you read the scriptures and the word, the beauty of the message just unfolds before you. Like, wow. And what you end up doing is, is what you end up doing is you end up giving more glory to God. You give, and of course that makes sense because then you don't have to say, or the Lord showed this to me. The look, because have you ever noticed that folks with bad harmonics always say the Lord showed this to me? The Lord, no, the Lord didn't show it to you. The Lord gave it, revealed it to us in his scriptures and we just read it. You big genius. That's what it was. It's nothing special about you. You're not so smart. You're not so great. You're not so deep. You're not so, none of us are. Not me, not you, not no one you've ever met. We are the densest of all. The lowest of all. You know the difference between us and the dumbest people on the planet? About this much. God didn't expect that much from us. All he expects is loyalty. Just follow him. He makes it really easy. Just follow him. Well, Cor, are you calling us dumb? Yep, yep. You're going to do something dumb today. You know why? Because you did something dumb yesterday. Just like me. Tell me you haven't forgotten something. Got your glass on your face and I can't. Listen, I put, I told you guys before I put my coffee mix in the microwave and turned it on. It's just us. It's just us. We do, but thank God. Thank God for God. Thank God for God. Thank God for the profit, Mike Todd. You can be saved and stupid. Treat that. You can be saved and stu- Hey, man. Thank God that he didn't judge us because of our stupidity. We are ultimately going to be judged because of our faithfulness in him. And what have we seen? Do you know what, you know what Samuel literally said to these people? He said, y'all have just done some dumb stuff, some evil wicked stuff, but all you gotta do is now be faithful. Just be faithful going forward. Be faithful going forward and we're good. That's it. Trust in the Lord as he says with all your heart We haven't heard about this guy named Jesus just yet. We haven't gotten the word, the name. Jesus has not been introduced to us, but they're going to, he's going to, and they're going to ask him, well, which of all the commands that we've been taught? What's the greatest one? What's the best? What's the most foremost command? The Lord your God has won. And to what? Love him with all your everything. That's literally what Samuel just said. That's literally what Samuel just said. By the way, before I forget, Avery Nate, thank you for the super chat or super stickers. Also, Chayun Cat, thank you as well. Would you say should you use letters that are after some sentences? What do you mean? Should you use the letters that are after some sentence? I'm not, I'm not following you. Ask in a different way, Anela. I'm not, I'm not sure what you mean. And the reason why I don't know what you mean is because I'm one of the, I'm one of the slow. So I'm not, I'm not sure what you're, what you're asking. So it's a good question. How can anyone have just one hermeneutic when some scriptures are literal, symbolic or historical? Wouldn't consistently come from ex juices? No, here's why. The people that will tell you that you need to consider genre and so forth. Those are the guys that don't have a consistent hermeneutic, typically. So let's say we come to something that's symbolic. I still read it literally. If I tell you something, and I'm using symbolism even in our own language, don't you, do you, you know how to take that? You take it literally, including or, or keeping in mind what was said symbolically or metaphorically or idiomatically. Man, it's burning up, it's, it's hot outside. I mean, it's like, it's burning up out there. Well, I just, I just said something that's not literally, you didn't take it little, but you understood the literal meaning behind it. And so when we get to places like, let's say like Psalms or Proverbs, and there is not a lot of context to them, we still understand what's being stated. When we get to Revelation, he's trying to, which is why he used this word like, that tells us that he's trying to explain it to us. And so when I say what he's saying, literally, but we get that. And so the problem is though, we want to take everything that we might disagree with and make it symbolic. Again, God doesn't think that we're that smart. And there's never been a civilization in the history of mankind that lived, talked, act, breath, read, understood everything symbolically. They were, everybody's, we all are literal people. We all are. We didn't speak and talk in poetry. Oh, oh, oh, I see you're asking, you're asking when I put the screen up, like let's say for, on this, I don't know, but if you still, you mean on here. Okay. These letters on, on the screen here, let me click on this. What it'll do is it'll show a reference. So like this A right here, let me make this bigger. This A right here refers to a particular passage. Sometimes, sometimes like this number right here might refer to like this word fear or reverence. If you look at, uh-oh, wait a second. Can you guys, hey, what's happening? You can't see my dog going out and mess something up. What did I hold on? I done messed up something. Didn't realize I messed it up. You guys can't see the whole screen. Huh. Let me fix that. Let me fix that. There it is. Pull this down. There it is. Now, when I highlight something, there it is. So at the very bottom, so I've got this B highlighted. It might, it's referencing other scriptures. If I, on this one, this word fear, this is the word, um, yirah. This word fear also means to reference. And so sometimes the word might be translated this way. Is there another word that might help me to understand it? And so that's what these are. They, they just, they're just giving references to either to other words or to other passages, things like that. So, you know, and what's funny is I never actually thought about you guys actually seeing those little letters and numbers behind it. That's a good question though. That's a good question. Oftentimes, I mean, I see them all the time, but I kind of, I don't pay attention to them. So, I take it back. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. As a matter of fact, let me, let me just correct myself. A lot of times I do. I see that, what are they referring to? Now, always, I don't always refer to them, but in many cases, you'll find why this is helpful, this particular software. Same thing in Logos. This is, this is Accordance Bible Software and then also use Logos. They both have the same thing. And so, where this phrase is mentioned, I might see this phrase come up somewhere else. And it does help. It really does help because, hey, you know what? This passage is also reiterated over here in John or Paul said this or Peter said this. So, Devon, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you for the super chat. Okay, guys. So, what I want you to do, and by the way, who was the young lady that asked the question? Where is she at? Where is she at? Where is she at? No, I didn't click back on it. I'm sorry. I am. So, what is that young lady's name? If I can find, there she is. Life with Natalie. What I would say is this, because I want you guys to develop your own hermeneutic with one caveat, one thing in mind. I'm going to be as consistent as possible. I want to be able to apply the same way of reading it in Genesis as I do in Exodus, as I do in Malachi, as I do in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as I do even in Revelation. Because you can have a little hermeneutic, even when you're reading symbolic words, when you're reading poetry, because even those things are trying to convey an actual meaning. And so, that's the whole point. So, think about how you're reading. Think about your hermeneutic as you're going, and then just try to see if you can figure it out. So, all right, guys. Thank you. Yes, I will be watching the Cowboys game tomorrow. I watch the Cowboys all the time. I literally watch as many of the games as possible. So, I'll be watching Buffalo, and I'll be watching Seattle, and I'll be watching Detroit, and I'll be watching my Colts. Hopefully, we're here. We go one in 16 and get the number one draft pick. Guys, I love you so much. I will see you all. There'll be a few other videos later today. So, I will see you all then. God bless you. Be safe.