By T’Naya Edwards
A little recap..
So last week we find Israel insisting on being like the other nations around them and they demand a King. Did you see the passage in Deuteronomy where this wasn’t completely out of line and they were actually given instructions for when they would have kings? God was already completely aware of what His people would do in seeking out a ruler beyond Himself, so He had some guidelines set in place for when that time came. Talk about being omniscient.
We know that a human King was not God’s desired intentions for His people. He wanted them, and in turn us, to recognize that ultimately HE ALONE is King. But despite Samuel’s warning that a King will come in and take and change everything, and that what they are really doing is rejecting God as King, the people insist, and so we see that God gives them what they ask for and appoints Saul as King in the chapters from our last lesson.
This leads us to Chapters 11-13. The people of Jabesh send for help after Nahash comes and makes the eyeball threat. From here we see Saul’s first big act as king of Israel.
'He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, "Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!" Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man. '
1 Samuel 11:7
In your homework it had you sum up Saul’s message that he sent along with the mutilated oxen in five words or less from 11:7.
Come fight or die.
The Israelites’ response leads me to my first point in looking at a contrast of two different kinds of fear that I want to talk about.
Fear of Man
Vs.
Fear of the Lord
This was their response…
“Then the dread of the LORD fell upon the people, and they came out as one man.”
Some versions say terror, yet some others say fear…
So why does it sound “off” from what we have learned and talked about in the past concerning “fear of the LORD”? Well the fear these people were experiencing was merely a self-preservation kind of fear.
The Hebrew word for fear here is the word pachad(pah-hed).
It does say “dread of the LORD” and some versions actually say “fear”, but when we look at the original Hebrew is when we find our explanation of why the different versions say different things.
The word for the FEAR OF THE LORD that we like to talk about, the “good” fear, if you will, uses the Hebrew word yare (yaw-ray) for fear.
If you have been with us awhile, or studied this on your own then you know that a proper fear, or yare, of the LORD involves reverence and awe of God Almighty. It has everything to do with understanding that God is God, and I am not, and we trust Him because of that fact. Don’t get me wrong here, it still does include a certain amount of dread and terror. If you have even a little bit of understanding of all-powerful God who can part the seas, send the plagues, thunder down from heaven, and conquer death, there’s a certain amount of terror and dread that comes along with that knowledge.
The word pachad has the same weight of fear, terror and dread, that the word yare has, BUT it is void of reverence, respect, and awe. So as we look at the motivation behind the Israelites response to Saul’s summoning to war, we see they feared only for the sake of their lives and God working through Saul. There was still some understanding that God was involved. They knew God was behind making Saul King, and even as far back as their deliverance from Israel. But what they lacked was their own personal yare of the Lord. That’s why in the beginning, I said this was a “fear of man, vs fear of God” issue.
The Israelite’s pachad was their weakness. It’s what got them into this boat in the first place. They didn’t have their own personal intimate understanding, reverence, awe, and respect of God. The “good” fear of the Lord has everything to do wisdom. This is why they demanded a King. Even though we have moved forward out of the book of Judges, it is still the same group of people doing “what was right in their own eyes.” They knew some and part of God but they did not know Him in whole. They didn’t know Him like our buddy, Samuel, who did have proper fear of the LORD. Samuel did have wisdom and eyes to see and ears to hear directly from God. Which leads me to the second bit of my lesson tonight.
Samuel's farewell address. Chapter 12.
Samuel stands before the people of Israel and basically says,
“Well, you got what you wanted. A king to rule over you. Did I ever do wrong in leading you? Was I immoral? God delivered you from Egypt, then time and time again after that. Even when you turned from Him and were evil, when you turned back to Him and cried out for deliverance, He was faithful to save you. Remember how He used Jurubbaal, Barak, Jephthah and hmmm, OH YEA, ME, and delivered you from your enemies? Then deliverance wasn’t enough, God’s way wasn’t enough. You wanted to be like everyone else and have a King. Now, God has given you what you want, a king, even though you ALREADY had one in Him.”
Then we see two different powerful IF/THEN statements in his goodbye speech.
The first is this..
'If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord , and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. '
1 Samuel 12:14
If… you
Fear the Lord
Serve Him
Obey His voice
Do not rebel against His commandments
Follow Him
Then…
It will be well. You will have God’s favor, blessing, and victory!
And the second this...
‘But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord , then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king. '
1 Samuel 12:15
If…
you don’t,
Then…
God’s hand will be AGAINST you.
Clear as day. No confusion. And quite...simple, right?
Even though the Israelites have now moved into a new era of having an earthly king, does this really sound any different than before? No…
Even in our insanity and God giving us what we insist on, He stays the same, and what He requires stays the same. He is immutable, unchanging.
What is important here is that we always GET TO make the CHOICE. God never forces our hand. Nor does He manipulate us into doing what He wants.
The choice is always before us and God’s desire is that we choose Him! He says “I am what is good for you, I am the one you should follow. ME! CHOOSE ME.” All throughout the bible we see this. But the reality is that while he might be imploring us to choose Him, He certainly isn’t begging us. Reality is that God’s will, will be done, with or without us. He isn’t sitting there saying “well, I’m just waiting for Angie to finally do x, so I can do y and z”. NO! He has already accomplished X, Y, AND Z. He is simply asking if you want in on the blessings He has for those who do make that choice to partner with and serve Him!
We get to choose whether or not we want to be one of those metaphorically tacked up in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11. In as much as God desires for us to partner with Him, He certainly does not need us.
Please please please don’t misinterpret what I am saying and assume that if you do choose God, that there won’t be trials and struggles. There absolutely will. Over and over we see God’s people doing what they are supposed to yet still opposition and attacks came. Did you just read through Job with us in the #devotedbiblechallenge? Enough said right? When we are choosing God, attacks have absolutely nothing to do with God’s hand being against us and everything to do with the ENEMY attempting to derail us out of God’s will.
So what choice are you going to make?
I read this the other day and it really resonated with me, especially after reading these Chapters for this lesson.
“When God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity.”
Is that not exactly what we see if we backtrack to Chapter 11 with the Isrealites when even though they didn’t have the “complete” fear of the Lord as they should have, He still gave them victory over the Ammonites? Or every other instance of their history until this point?
Even though they weren’t necessarily choosing God, they were God’s chosen.
And so are we.
In the midst of their stupidity and having Samuel spell it out for them yet again, the Israelites now have finally realized what they had done.
'And all the people said to Samuel, "Pray for your servants to the Lord your God, that we may not die, for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for ourselves a king." '
1 Samuel 12:19
Here’s Samuel’s response to them, and in turn God’s response to us as well.
'And Samuel said to the people, "Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord , but serve the Lord with all your heart. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. '
1 Samuel 12:20-22
Here we see a call to repentance. Again, they were trying to fall back into pachad, fear without reverence. But Samuel gently guides them onto the right path and reminds them of who they are.
Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that God’s strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.
Samuel invited them to see that “yea, yall messed up big time. And there is no undoing what has been done by appointing this king. BUT there is room to be better. There is redemption, and opportunity to grow in your yare of the LORD.”
To fear, serve, obey, and follow God well, we MUST acknowledge our weaknesses and what we MUST NOT do is dwell on them.
When we attempt to control just as they had done by demanding a King we are not relying on God’s strength but rather our own.
When God leads us to this place of showing us our weaknesses and calls us to repentance, it AGAIN comes down to CHOICE.
DWELL OR SWELL
Dwell on your weaknesses and stay where you are…
or
Acknowledge, repent and empty yourself of your weakness and make room to SWELL with God's strength to accomplish His work in your life.
“Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never accept their service. What man does unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casts away. He will reap only that corn that whose seed was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love. God will empty out all that you have before He will put His own into you. He will first clean out your granaries before He will fill them with the finest of the wheat. The river of God is full of water, but not one drop of it flows from earthly springs. God will have no strength used in His battles but the strength that He Himself imparts. Are you mourning over your own weakness? Take courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will give you victory. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up. When I am weak then I am strong, Grace is my shield and Christ is my song.”
-Charles H. Spurgeon Morning and Evening
November 4 Entry
So
Who are you relying on? What kind of fear do you currently have
Pachad of man
Or
Yare of the Lord?
What strength are you walking in? Are you looking to be like the world and become like the “Ammonites” of our world and seek out a King to put your faith in and be the source of your strength?
Or do you rely on God alone? Will you choose Him to be your King,your strength, and your shield.