How to Avoid Destructive Habits and Harmful Patterns: 1 Samuel 12:1-25

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Well, Wesley, good morning, good. Morning, we talk good morning to you. Actually I think I was off key there, so hey, good morning everybody, or good evening if you're listening in the evening. My name is Chris. This is Wesley. He's filling in for Jeff, and today we are the Bible Guys. Yes, so that is our title improved. That's it, younger, handsomer, right, more charming. Jeff's not listening, so we can say we can. Just go on the line, right, Gee. Is that's so funny? So hey, we're gonna start out with a segment that Desiree has given to us. And I'm telling you it's only because, as Jeff always says, we are committed to give the best news. Yes, just the only yes. And of course, if you don't know, Babylon b is a satire site, So this article that's posted here is actually the title of. It is so funny. I love these, by the way, sophisticated humor because it reads like it's supposed to be, you. Know, I think it's so good. So the title is Facebook renamed more accurate Keeping Track of People's Birthdays book? Okay, so it says this US. Facebook is currently undergoing a change a name change. To bring its brand more in line with. Its sole purpose remaining use reminding people of upcoming birthdays. The new name, Keeping Track of People's Birthdays Book was announced by Meta during a quarterly earnings call. People use Facebook because they all they've always used it, But no one's interacting with friends and loved ones on our horrible, clunky, ad infested app. They're just checking birthdays. Founder, Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuerberg explained, just call a spade a spade. Okay, oh hey, it's my mom's birth that he added, before abruptly ending the call. Short and a survey of its users, Meta determined that everyone thought Facebook was a built in calendar app on their phone and didn't know that you could post pictures in common on your day with it. Wait, this is a social media network, said one user, who had been using social media network for over ten years. At publishing time, Meta announced it was renaming Instagram. To Facebook with extra steps. Graham, that's hilarious, is it? Yeah? I was going to say, birthdays and. Cats birthdays and cats that's it. And puppy videos. Well, you know what's so funny is that, you know, it's definitely a generational thing, right, so those who grew up with Facebook like me, where Facebook was actually sort of the only thing, right. Do you remember my Space? So I remember MySpace. I wasn't on MySpace, so that would have been I'm trying to think, would I have been in high school. I might have been in college when my Space came up, but yeah, I was never on it, never on that one. So that would have been my kids kind of thing. So, like, I remember I was never on MySpace, but my kids actually you know, had a MySpace and I was like, I was like, what is happening? This? This is crazy? And then and then Facebook, you know obviously you know, skyrocketed and and it you know, and still by the way, the most popular, uh downloaded that. But I think people today, uh, anybody my age and younger. Yeah, I honestly think that people just have Facebook because they feel like they have to, don't. You Sometimes people send out like invites to the events, yes, via Facebook and things like that. Yeah, and so people you can always tell by the photos yeah. Right, so if they don't have a lot of photos, they don't really care about Facebook. Yeah, I just want to let you know about this rs VP, right right. So yeah, but that's pretty funny though. So how many friends do you have on Facebook? I'm not on Facebook as much as I used to be. If I had to guess, like seven hundred, seven hundred a lot of prints, yeah, I've got you probably have two jillion. Yeah, well it is. It's maxed out on Facebook. But it's only because I was a part of a large church, right, so you know, you know when you have when you have a church of four thousand people on a Sunday morning, uh, you know, eventually you're just gonna fill that suckle up, right. And then our church was much bigger at the time. And then I came over to Heritage, and I thought about canceling my old Facebook and opening up like a corporate account because it's unlimited like a business account. But I thought, nah, because it won't grow like that again. Right, So anyway, so. But surely I had to go in because your limits five thousand. Yeah, so you have to go in and you sort of have to delete people, and so you know, I'm sort of slowly adding new church people. And so were you're going through. Yeah, I never liked that person. To be honest. It's not that, it's more like, I don't know who this is. I have no idea what ninety percent of who these people are, right, So I always say five thousand of my closest friends. Yeah, it's our nobody, right. Yeah, So anyway, that's great. Well, hey, listen, if you were here last time, then you heard Wesley Reid from First Samuel and we talked about how excuse me, how God anointed or God, you know, asked Samuel to anoint Saul as the first king of Israel. And today we're going to see that Samuel, as the last judge of Israel, is going to give his farewell speech and he's going to say goodbye. He was old, he's retiring. You know, God had judges for over three hundred plus years, and Samuel is the last of those. And there's like eight or nine of them. I can't remember how many, but but you know some of them were very significant. Yea. And so Samuel is going to basically bow out, and then we're going to start the reign of kings, and then we all know that after kings, well some of us know that after the Ring, the reign of King Saul is going to be King David, and so God's going to use this and so, you know, an overall sort of thing that we'll eventually get to is, even though that it wasn't God's idea to have a king of Israel. At least, you know, an earthly king, we're going to see that. God takes even our worst ideas and somehow still uses them for something good. Yeah. Well, how that scripture talks about how God will work out things for your good. He doesn't cause the bad things, but he can take the mess sometimes that we create and work something out for our good out of that thing. Yeah that's great. Yeah, yeah, it's an old song that I was saying. He brings beauty from ashes, right, grace from fear. Anyway. So, first Samuel, chapter twelve, verses one through twenty five. For those of you who have been with us week after week, we're reading out of the New Living Translation, and it says, then Samuel addressed, all Israel, I have done as you have asked and given you a king. Your king is now your leader. I stand here before you an old gray haired man, and my sons serve you. I have served as your leader from the time I was a boy to this very day. Now testify against me in the presence of the Lord and before his anointed One. Whose ox or donkey have I stolen? Have I ever cheated any of you? Have I ever oppressed you? Have I ever taken a bribe in perverted justice? Tell me, and I will make right whatever I have done wrong verse four. No, they replied, you have never cheated or oppressed us, and you have never taken even a single bride. The Lord and his anointed One are my witnesses today. Samuel declared that my hands are clean. Yes, he is a witness. They replied. It was the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron. Samuel continued, he brought his ancestors out of the land of Egypt. Now stand here quietly before the Lord. Is I remind you of all the great things the Lord has done for you and your ancestors. When the Israelites were in Egypt and cried out to the Lord, he sent Moses and Aaron to rescue them from Egypt and to bring them into this land. But the people soon forgot about the Lord. Their God. So he handed them over to Cicera, the commander of Hazor's army, and also to the Philistines, and to the king of Moab, who fought against them Verse ten. Then they cried to the Lord again and confessed, we have sinned by turning away from the Lord and worshiping the images of bel and Ash death. But we will worship you and you alone, and you will rescue us from our enemies. Then the Lord sent and Gideon bedon Jephthah and Samuel to save you, and you lived in safety. But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Amen, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you. And even though the Lord, your God, was already your king. All right, here is the king you have chosen. You asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request. I actually love that line right there, you asked for it verse fourteen. Now, if you fear and worship the Lord and listen to his voice, and if you do not rebel against the Lord's commands, then both you and your king will show that you recognize the Lord as your god. But if you rebel against the Lord's commands, and refuse to listen to him. Then his hand will be as heavy upon you as it was upon your ancestors verse sixteen. Now stand here and see the great thing the Lord is about to do. You know that it does not reign at this time of the year, during the wheat harvest. I will ask the Lord to sin thunder and reign today. Then you will realize how wicked you have been in asking the Lord for a king. So Samuel called to the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and reign that day. All the people were terrified of the Lord and of Samuel. Pray to the Lord, your God for us, or we will die, they all said to Samuel, for now we have added to our sins by asking for a king Verse twenty. Don't be a free Samuel. Reassure them you have certainly done wrong. But make sure now that you worship the Lord with all your heart, and don't turn your back on him. Don't go back to worshiping worthless idols that cannot help or rescue you. They are totally useless. The Lord will not abandon his people, because that will dishonor his great name. For it has pleased the Lord to make you his very own people Verse twenty three. As for me, I will certainly not sin against the Lord by ending my prayers for you, and I will continue to teach you what is good and right. But be sure to fear the Lord and faithfully serve him. Think of all the wonderful things he has done for you. But if you continue to sin, you and your king will be swept away. Woo. There is a lot there. Hey, So Samuel's farewell address comes with it a lot of things. Yep. I love how at the very beginning he tries to sort of remind people. At first glance, it may seem like he's tooting his own horn, right, He's like, Hey, at the end of my career, check me out. I'm faithful, I've not done a single thing. I am awesome. But that is not what he's doing. I believe what he's doing is he's establishing credibility for what's about to happen. Right, He's reminding the people that, like, Hey, I have something really important to tell you. This is my last speech, this is my last farewell address, and I'm going to prove to you that you have sinned by calling you know, announcing that you know. Here comes rain, here comes thunder that you already know is impossible during this time of the year. But I'm going to tell you just to prove to you that what I'm telling you is true. I've told you all along you've sinned by asking for a king. So I think what he's doing is at the very beginning, he's probably doing multiple things, but I think he's establishing credibility of saying, can I remind you who's talking to you? Can I remind you that, even though you're enamored with what you're about to get, that I want to remind you who I am and who you've had, right, because he's like, hey, listen, He's like, don't you remember that when you when you did well, everything was great when you did when you when you sinned. Your ancestors have sin your you know, your mothers, your fathers, your grandfathers. You remember those guys and. When they sinned and they were worshiping bail, don't you remember what happened? Right? And then they sent for you. All these people, including myself get in and those other guys and myself were the ones that that that God used to rescue you. And so you understand that I've been faithful, and so they said, yes, you've been faithful. He said, Okay, now now that you recognize just who it is that's talking to you, let me tell you something about yourselves. I think that's what's happening here. I think, Chris, there's something to be said about reflecting back on what God has done for us. I think oftentimes as we move forward in life and we're facing different issues, the enemy will try to make us think that God won't do what he said he would do. The enemy will try to wear us down and make us think that God is and faithful. God won't answer that prayer. And I think it's in times like that that we have to reach back and remember, yeah, God did bring me out last time. Yeah God did bless my family. Yeah God did answer that prayer. So I think that's a really important thing to do for us to not forget, because I think it's easy to just look forward and you can sometimes forget all the things that God did for you. Right right. Yeah, Well, it's no different than you know, being confident and just about anything. You know, when something is faithful in the past, you know, and something always comes through that, it gives us more confidence in the future, you know, in that same scenario. And that could be true for a personality, it could be true for quite honestly anything, right. But but yeah, when God continues to be faithful, it hopefully will propel us to trust them for greater things. Yeah, right, and so and. So there will be seasons when things look bleak. But that's why the Bible says we walk by faith. So we walk by our confidence and belief in God's word, not what we see. So there will be seasons where things are going to look rough, things are going to look bad, and you've got to reach back to some of those old things to sustain you. Right. Another thing that it sticks out to me in this passage in this speech is there's probably not too many uh, you know, leaders that could be able to make the claim that Samuel made. He's like, he's like, name me one time. Yeah, right. It's basically like he's saying, call me out once, yes, just throw it out there. He's like, I dare anybody to come up with a single incident, and by the way, if you do, then I'll make it right, right, because you know, he definitely wants to be humble about what he's saying. So he's like, hey, if you if you can find one, I'll make it right. So he's not you know, that's how you can see his humility. But what he's really doing here is he's saying like, hey, I've been faithful, and so think. About it when we get to the end of our lives. This is one of the greatest things that can ever be said at our funerals, right, think about this did every day at the time that I went to the Promise Keepers conference. So you know, remember Promise Keepers. Yeah, so Promise Keepers was a pretty big movement. You know. It was the men's conference, you know, focusing on you know, the promise that we keep and all these kinds of things. And so anyway, I was in Atlanta, Georgia in the Georgia Dome and it was sixty thousand people. So just like I mean, think about Ford Field, right, just being completely filled up. And anyway, so the coach was the leader, you know, of the Promise Keepers. He's up on the stage and he says, I want you to exercise. I want everybody to stand up and get in groups of you know, three or four whatever, and he goes, I want you to share with people at the end of your life, what do you want to be known for? And I was with my little tiny church staff at the time, and we all stood up and we were talking, and we went around the room, and my pastor that I worked for said, you know what, at the end of my life, I want to be known as an evangelist. And I was like, well, that's that's great, that's a good thing, you know, but it didn't just seem it didn't seem big enough. He was like, you know, I mean, being evangelist is great, but we're talking about the thing that you want to be known for for your entire life, you know how, And that's a pretty hard thing to choose. And then the worship leader says, well, I want to be known as a guy who worships, you know, has a great worship. And I was like, well, that's good too, you know, but it just didn't seem big enough. And I was trying to think, God, give me a word that's that's encapsulating. And then and then I said, I got it. I said, I want to be known as somebody who's faithful, because faithfulness encapsulates everything. I want to be faithful in my marriage right because I grew up in a household where nobody practically was faithful in their marriage. Right, I want to be I want to be a guy that gets to the end of my marriage and says, you know, I've been faithful to my wife. Right, that's a that's a goal. I want to be faithful to God. I want to be faithful in ministry. I want to be faithful. You know, faithfulness encapsulates everything. And so I was I was really happy with that answer, and they were like huh. They shook their head, you know, they were like, yeah, that's good. And then we all did our exercise, get done, and then we looked up and then coach says, hey, I want to let you know that we got a hold of Billy Graham because the back then he was still alive. And we said, we're going to listen to what Billy's answer was. And then they played the video and Billy says, you know, at the end of my. Life, I want to be faithful. Y'all want to be found faithful. And I was like, yes, I was like, I did it. I think the same answer as Billy Graham. You know. I was like, that's it. And honestly, I think that has stuck with me for thirty years because I think it's one of the best things that could ever be said at anybody's funeral. And if you think about it, that is exactly what Samuel's saying. He's saying, name me a time where I've broken my faithfulness, and they're saying, Nope, you've done it. You know, I think that's just an incredible goal for all. Of us to drill down even a little further. Verse four. This is related to what you're talking about. It says no, they replied, you have never cheated or oppressed us, and you have never taken even a single bribe. Yes, I think about our own lives. You know. Maybe there are some listeners who work in a corporate environment. Maybe you do real estate, maybe you work in a factory. You can work in lots of different areas. Can it be said in your workplace that you never cheated or oppressed others or have never taken a single bride yea, even when let's say it's culturally acceptable. You know, let's say that you work in an environment where it's okay. I won't say okay, but people will look the other direction if you kind of shave off the edges a little bit. You know, as long as we meet our sales quota, as long as we you know, we're profitable, and yeah, we'll kind of look the other way. Are you still faithful? Are you still honest? Are you still all of those truthful? Even when culturally it might be acceptable. I think that's something for us to think about. Yeah, it reminds me of that movie Family Man where Nicholas Cage. It's almost like it's a Wonderful life type scenario where the angel disguises himself as a clerk and he and lady gives him a couple of dollars, like a five, and he gives her change for a ten. Yeah, and and and uh and uh and then she just drabs it and runs out and he goes, man, he goes, look at that, and she sold her soul for like eight dollars. You know, He's like, come on, rit eight bucks, you know. Uh. And you know there's another good sermon that's hidden in here, is uh. Samuel goes through great lengths to let them know that they have done sin. And it's almost like it's almost like it's almost like you feel like the only reason why he would do that is because they don't really realize it, right. She goes through great lengths and he says, I'm going to even prove to you that God's on my side by creating thunder and rain. And then and then all of. A sudden they said, oh, my goodness, pray for us or we're gonna die because apparently you've proven to us that God is angry right with under loud thunder everything about security that is, and you know, on demand. Thunder on demand, right, Yeah. And so then they finally get to the point where they're like, we have sinned. We're fearful. You know, we have right sized our perspective. We understand who God is and who we're not. We've done this wicked thing, so please pray for us. For us, we're going to die. And they finally get it, and then here comes the mercy. Yeah. And then and then Samuel says, don't be afraid. He reassured them, yes, you have certainly done wrong, but make sure now that you worship the Lord with God without your heart. Don't turn your back on him. And what he's really saying is, as long as you realize that you sinned, just worship him and God will take care of you. God will never abandon you. Yeah. I love that line in verse twenty two, the Lord will not abandon his Yes. I love that. Yes, no matter what you've done, he will not abandon you. Yes, Because I know there's someone listening who may feel that way, like Chris Wesley. You don't know my past, you don't know what I've done, you don't know what I did yesterday. And I'm the exception. Yeah, And I have everybody listening online. I'm the listener that probably is the most disqualified. Yeah. Right. And the Bible says, I don't care who you are, where you're from. The Lord will not abandon his people. And I just love that. So then in verse twenty one, really quick, I know we're running short on time, but that one line where it says, don't go back to worshiping worthless idols. But I just want to go back to the beginning of that where it says, don't go back. I love that. I don't know who needs to hear that today. I don't know what you're dealing with, what you're in, don't go back. That's right. Maybe it's a bad relationship in that person keeps calling you and saying, hey, you know we should get back together. Don't go back. Maybe it's a habit, right, maybe it's a habit. You know, you need to quit don't go. Back, right, Yeah, that one drink will lead you down to a place that you've already been. Yeah, and you don't want to go again, you know where it leads. Yeah, and don't go back. That's great, man, that's that's what. It's really good. That's a sermon in there. Right, we can call it don't go back. Yeah, we do a series on don't go. Back, so we got to do a fiery series. That's right, that's right exactly, don't go back. Well, i'll tell you what this is. This is a great lesson for us, it's certainly a great lesson for Israel. And we're about to find out this big journey that Saul takes and eventually it ends up with David. So hopefully we'll see you next time on the Bible guys. Mhm h m