Serve Yahweh with All Your Heart

1 Samuel 12:13-25

13Now therefore see the king whom you have chosen, and whom you have asked for. Behold, Yahweh has set a king over you. 14If you will fear Yahweh, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then both you and also the king who reigns over you are followers of Yahweh your God. 15But if you will not listen to Yahweh’s voice, but rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then Yahweh’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers. 16“Now therefore stand still and see this great thing, which Yahweh will do before your eyes. 17Isn’t it wheat harvest today? I will call to Yahweh, that he may send thunder and rain; and you will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in Yahweh’s sight, in asking for a king.” 18So Samuel called to Yahweh; and Yahweh sent thunder and rain that day. Then all the people greatly feared Yahweh and Samuel. 19All the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to Yahweh your God, that we not die; for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king.” 20Samuel said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. You have indeed done all this evil; yet don’t turn away from following Yahweh, but serve Yahweh with all your heart. 21Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain. 22For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people for himself. 23Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against Yahweh in ceasing to pray for you: but I will instruct you in the good and the right way. 24Only fear Yahweh, and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you. 25But if you keep doing evil, you will be consumed, both you and your king.”

Give cool water to someone who has nothing to drink, and at first they are sincerely grateful just to be able to drink. But before long they will complain that no one can live on water alone; once they have food, they will want a life of ease; and after that they will want to become a king of this world by strength and power. Such is the evil nature of man.

The human heart is formless and empty, and covered in darkness. Nothing at all can fill it. What are you praying to God for so earnestly right now? If God granted just that one wish, could you truly live content? Faith that knows how to be content in God is the right faith.

In 1 Samuel 11:14 Samuel told the people that they should go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there, and he had a clear reason for taking them all the way to Gilgal to do it. The name Gilgal carries the meaning “the reproach of Egypt has rolled away”: God had removed the shame they had suffered in Egypt for four hundred years. With the conquest of Canaan before them, Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan and set up twelve stones at Gilgal as a memorial. Gilgal, then, was a special place for Israel.

And there, with the war against Canaan ahead of them, the people put their lives on the line and were circumcised. To be circumcised with the enemy close at hand is to leave yourself defenseless; it is impossible unless you rely on God completely. God made Israel undergo circumcision at Gilgal to teach them that they could not live unless he protected their lives. As the name Gilgal says, the shame God’s chosen people had borne as slaves, the mockery and disgrace and contempt, had all rolled away and was gone. From then on they had only to dwell in grace as God’s people.

Samuel meant to bring the people back to the very place where their ancestors had entrusted their lives to God and been circumcised, to make them see once more who their king was. They gathered at Gilgal to look again at the faith of forefathers who had trusted God enough to put their lives in his hands, and so to recover their own faith.

The God who kept the fathers of the faith and the God who was keeping Israel now are one and the same; since a thousand years are like one day to him, he does not change. But Israel could not depend on him. God was still protecting them and fending off every attack, but that was not enough for them; they wanted to do better for themselves. What they wanted was the visible fruit of this world. They longed for a leadership stronger than the kings of the nations, so that they might prosper more than the Gentiles; but God did not feed their greed. It is just like us today, when we see worldly people prospering and think their strength comes not from God but from money.

But this world is only a short pilgrim road we pass along, and so God, the eternal King, wanted his people to enjoy the blessing of eternal life. We think God is not helping us, but in truth he has always helped and shielded us before trouble ever came, and that is why we have not yet realized how much we owe him thanks.

When life goes on comfortably, without difficulty, what goes through your mind?

Since nothing good or bad is happening, you may feel as though God is not with you and you are not being blessed. In God’s sight, that is a truly evil heart. Life is a path of thorns from the start. Have you ever thought that you can walk an easy road only because the Lord went ahead of you on that thorny path and broke off the sharp thorns? If your uneventful, humdrum days leave you dissatisfied, I hope you will look down at the road you are walking. You will find the Lord’s bloodstains where he snapped off the thorns, and you will realize that all this time you have been walking on his precious blood. Someone who can be thankful for health only after falling ill, and who grasps God’s grace only after suffering, will never know in their whole life what happiness is.

Those who know how to give thanks will never choose a king of this world. These were people who had rejected the almighty King and asked for a worldly one, so Samuel sought to rebuild their faith at Gilgal.

1 Samuel 12:15-16

15But if you will not listen to Yahweh’s voice, but rebel against the commandment of Yahweh, then Yahweh’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers. 16“Now therefore stand still and see this great thing, which Yahweh will do before your eyes.

Samuel began to rebuke the people for the unbelief that had led them to reject God. The people, of course, had offered an excuse: they no longer wanted a judge because Samuel’s sons had become corrupt. But Samuel showed them, point by point, that the excuse did not hold. Whenever a judge fell into corruption and the people suffered, God raised up a new judge and delivered them from all their troubles. To forsake God on the grounds that Samuel’s sons were corrupt was therefore no reason at all, since the judge of Israel was Samuel, not his sons. They had Samuel, who was faithfully proclaiming God’s word, and yet, anxious about their own future, they cast off both Samuel and God. The truth of their hearts was an unbelief that trusted God even less than it trusted Samuel.

In verse 3 Samuel asked the people whether he had done anything wrong as a judge that would justify forsaking God. He asked whose ox or donkey he had taken, whom he had defrauded, and from whom he had taken a bribe to pervert judgment. The people answered that he had done none of these things, for he had governed them with an upright faith. In saying so, they were admitting that they were now forsaking God and Samuel for the sake of their own cravings. The very things Samuel asked about, seizing the oxen and donkeys that worked the fields, taking bribes and twisting justice, oppressing people by force, were exactly what a king of this world would one day do to them. A people that could not see this was asking for a worldly king.

Whenever Israel falls away, the Bible calls the exodus back to mind. That is how decisive the exodus was for Israel: it was a fact that left them no choice but to acknowledge God as their King. To remind them that only God could part the Red Sea and give manna and quail from heaven, he sent thunder and rain at wheat harvest, as verse 17 says. The wheat harvest usually ran from the third week of April to the second week of June. People took it for granted that no rain would fall, since it was harvest time. God first declared that he would pour down thunder and rain in this dry season, and then he sent them just as he had said, showing that everything was his doing.

Did you see, in this event and through Samuel, God begging his people to accept him as their King? You must see these foolish people choosing the world over the word, even while God, grieved to watch them walk toward death, kept on helping them. Because if you see neither the God who begs to give eternal life nor the Israelites who betray him, you too could end up sitting where they sat.

Matthew 27:28-29

28They stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on him. 29They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Here sinners are mocking the King of kings, saying he is not fit to be king. If those who mocked Jesus had believed that he had set aside his throne to come into the world, they would never have done such an evil thing. Suppose the chairman of a large conglomerate is sitting in the chairman’s office. Even in a shabby jacket, that chairman would never be treated carelessly. But meet the same chairman on the street in worn-out clothes, and you might well take them for a beggar and step around them. If you had looked down on them as a powerless old person and treated them rudely, and then found out at a job interview that they were the chairman, what do you think would happen?

The Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son. This is the Father’s love, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Jesus said that those who do not honor him, failing to see that the one who came in a body with nothing attractive about it is God the Son, do not honor the Father who sent him either. The people who pushed God off the throne and set up Saul, and the Roman soldiers who mocked Jesus, are sinners alike. Sin has no lighter or heavier weight, and so in God’s sight all are sinners.

Revelation 22:3-4

3There will be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him. 4They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Just as the rich man could see Lazarus at Abraham’s side, if those who have fallen into the fire of hell were to see the throne of God and of the Lamb in heaven, the very sight would be torment. Something is not absent just because we cannot see it, and what we can see is not all there is. What human eyes can see has its limits.

God created with more concern for what is unseen than for what is seen. If we do not understand this, we will commit the sin of driving God off his throne in order to grasp at what we can see. Samuel knew this, and so he told the people in advance that God would send thunder and rain. In showing a sign before the people now, God is battling the unbelief in their hearts. While God is laboring to drive the unbelief out of their spirits, the people must repent, and quickly.

Satan prowls like a roaring lion, looking for someone to bring down; he makes people hurried and anxious and plants in them an urgency that says they cannot simply stay still. They feel that while they sit still others will get ahead and take everything, and in the end they are shaken. Before the Red Sea was parted, Moses told the people not to be afraid, but to stand still and see the salvation Yahweh would work for them that day. If they entrusted everything to God, even their fear of the Egyptian army pursuing them, and stood still to watch the salvation he would bring, they would share in an astonishing miracle.

Samuel, like Moses, told them to stand still and see the great thing Yahweh would do before their eyes. To be still does not mean that laziness is fine. It means that, as we watch the miracle, we drive out the unbelief that has taken root in us and enthrone God as King, fully and without reserve. The faith the people were to keep was this: to serve as King, with all their heart, the “invisible God” who works above the “visible King Saul.”

Samuel performed a miracle before the people, but his heart must have been heavy. He promised that, for the sake of their true understanding, he would never commit the sin of ceasing to pray, and that he would teach them the good and right way. Even if Saul ruled from the throne like the kings of the nations, they would be blessed only if they knew that the true King was God and feared and served him alone. People think they can be happy only if they hold worldly power, and that they will survive only if they go deep into the world; but in the end that is the road on which everyone dies, because it is the unseen Kingdom of God, not the visible world, that lasts forever.

If you do not live in the fear of God, everything you serve as king will perish. I am not threatening you; this is the word of God. And all who did not serve God as his word commands have perished. To put wealth, children, power, or your own righteousness on the throne instead of serving God as King is evil, and so God, who wages war on sin, will permit hardship for the sake of your blessing.

As Samuel pleaded with the people, I too earnestly ask this of you. My hope is that you will serve God alone, live by the word of Christ, and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit. When you do, you will witness a miracle: rather than visible fruit, you will see with your own eyes and touch with your own hands the fruit of blessings that were hidden before. This is the blessing God gives his children who have faith. To enjoy unseen blessings as though you could see them is a sign that God’s grace has fully come upon you, and so the blessings you have received from God will never be taken from you.

If you enthrone God as King and serve him in spirit and in truth, he will marshal heaven and earth to help you and will walk with you forever. May you always love what is unseen more than what is seen. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.

1 Samuel 13:8-15

8He stayed seven days, according to the time set by Samuel; but Samuel didn’t come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him. 9Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering to me here, and the peace offerings.” He offered the burnt offering. 10It came to pass that as soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him. 11Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you didn’t come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines assembled themselves together at Michmash; 12therefore I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down on me to Gilgal, and I haven’t entreated the favor of Yahweh.’ I forced myself therefore, and offered the burnt offering.” 13Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you; for now Yahweh would have established your kingdom on Israel forever. 14But now your kingdom will not continue. Yahweh has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and Yahweh has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept that which Yahweh commanded you.” 15Samuel arose, and went from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. Saul counted the people who were present with him, about six hundred men.