1 Samuel 7:3: True Repentance

Outline

• God-directed obedience
• Wholehearted obedience
• Sacrificial obedience
• Inward obedience
• Loyal obedience

Introduction

The bible discusses two types of sorrow over sin.  There is godly sorrow which leads to repentance, and there is worldly sorrow which ends in destruction, 2 Cor. 7:10, ‘ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.’  We can see these two different types of sorrow demonstrated in the denial of Christ by Peter and Judas.  In the case of Peter we see a man who is sorrowful but who eventually returns in repentance to Christ, but with Judas we see a man who is sad over what he has done but ends up taking his own life.  I have found it many times in my experience with working with addicts that there is always sadness related to sin.  It is impossible to push deep into the heart of sin and be a slave to sin and not experience the poison and the destruction of sin.  There have been men who have wept over what they have done to their families, they have come in a complete transparent humility that willingly owns their guilt and heap shame and guilt upon themselves.  However, their sadness is not a sadness that grieves over the actions as being against God and they mourn its horror as something that violates His will and contradicts His holy person.  Instead they are sad because they don’t like the consequences of their actions.  They don’t like the feel of the consequences.  They have not come to agree with God about their sins and are willing to turn from sin altogether.  If you offered them consequences free sin they would jump at the opportunity because they weep not out of a profound Spirit wrought understanding of the wrongness of sin, but merely as a carnal reaction to pain.  If you would gladly sin if you knew you could get away with it, then the reason you are not sinning is because you love God and seek His will but because of a carnal fear not a holy.  God has various fore-preachers that He employs.  God uses conscience to prepare the ground of our hearts to hear His word of law and grace.  God uses joy to turn our hearts to seek the source of their blessing.  And God also uses pain, to ready us for our dealings with Him.  When God cursed the earth with thorns, with toil, with pain and death He created an environment where we could not sit without being constantly provoked to questions and seeking comfort.  In His mercy He created an environment where many by virtue of pain have been pointed to God and found salvation.  it is for this reason that God gives grace to the humble, for it is those who are living in pain and feeling the truth of sin who are brought to a clearer understanding of their need for a Saviour.  The bible discusses two types of sorrow over sin.  There is godly sorrow which leads to repentance, and there is worldly sorrow which ends in destruction, 2 Cor. 7:10, ‘ For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.’  We can see these two different types of sorrow demonstrated in the denial of Christ by Peter and Judas.  In the case of Peter we see a man who is sorrowful but who eventually returns in repentance to Christ, but with Judas we see a man who is sad over what he has done but ends up taking his own life.  I have found it many times in my experience with working with addicts that there is always sadness related to sin.  It is impossible to push deep into the heart of sin and be a slave to sin and not experience the poison and the destruction of sin.  There have been men who have wept over what they have done to their families, they have come in a complete transparent humility that willingly owns their guilt and heap shame and guilt upon themselves.  However, their sadness is not a sadness that grieves over the actions as being against God and they mourn its horror as something that violates His will and contradicts His holy person.  Instead they are sad because they don’t like the consequences of their actions.  They don’t like the feel of the consequences.  They have not come to agree with God about their sins and are willing to turn from sin altogether.  If you offered them consequences free sin they would jump at the opportunity because they weep not out of a profound Spirit wrought understanding of the wrongness of sin, but merely as a carnal reaction to pain.  If you would gladly sin if you knew you could get away with it, then the reason you are not sinning is because you love God and seek His will but because of a carnal fear not a holy.  God has various fore-preachers that He employs.  God uses conscience to prepare the ground of our hearts to hear His word of law and grace.  God uses joy to turn our hearts to seek the source of their blessing.  And God also uses pain, to ready us for our dealings with Him.  When God cursed the earth with thorns, with toil, with pain and death He created an environment where we could not sit without being constantly provoked to questions and seeking comfort.  In His mercy He created an environment where many by virtue of pain have been pointed to God and found salvation.  it is for this reason that God gives grace to the humble, for it is those who are living in pain and feeling the truth of sin who are brought to a clearer understanding of their need for a Saviour.

In the portion we have before us we find Israel lamenting before the Lord, 1 Sam. 7:2, ‘From the day that the ark was lodged at Kiriath-jearim, a long time passed, some twenty years, and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.’  We will see from the rest of this chapter that the Philistines are still in the driver’s seat and have Israel under their thumb.  We see a period of twenty years where the Lord has allowed the goading effect of the Philistines, as He used many other enemies of Israel during the earlier times of the judges, to bring Israel to a place where they were sorrowful before Him.  Was it a true sorrow or a false sorrow?  It appears that the people are ripe for true repentance and under Samuel’s direction they will as a whole nation repent before the Lord.  This event is extremely significant because it concerns ‘all the house of Israel.’  It appears that Samuel has been busy during the last twenty years probably preaching throughout the land preparing Israel for just such a time as this.

This chapter has a very summarising feel to it.  It ends with a summary of Samuel’s life, a general description of his life, and a gloss of the effect of his rule in Israel as it affected the Philistines.  It appears that this chapter has a seminal feel to it and is taking perhaps one of the best events in the life of Israel and one of the most significant under Samuel’s influence and putting it on display.  It will be a standard they soon slip from.  But in beginning this chapter we will see what true repentance looks like.