Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Life of David | Richard Turner | Week 01

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Life of David | Richard Turner | Week 01 · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

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  Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
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  Speaker B: Okay everybody, we are going to go ahead and get started. This class is the Life of David. I want to go ahead and kind of just dive into a few different things. So this is me. My name is Richard. This is the beautiful part of my family. This is Eliza, Finn and Sarah. They are awesome. I love them so much. Sarah Singh over here eating some tacos because she was late after work today, but get to know us. I yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I provided the tacos. So it was from a youth group thing downstairs. I am the youth minister right now at Madison. I work with our 7th and through 12th grade. I've been doing that here since 2017ish, I guess now and it is awesome. I love it so, so, so very much. I don't oftentimes get to teach our adult class, but for the last however many years of my life I've been working through what is called a Master of Divinity program. It's a bunch of hours of school and sometimes I really enjoy my classes, sometimes not so much. But I've learned a lot in the midst of it. Through all of this, I've gotten pretty good at the different biblical languages like Greek and Hebrew. So I've worked with some of you guys before. If you ever have questions about that stuff, I may not be able to answer it in the moment, but I've learned just enough to where I can do a pretty good job researching it afterwards. So if you ever want to talk to me about some of that stuff, feel free. Throughout my different studies, I've gotten to do some really wild, crazy, cool stuff. I've been sponsored to go both to Egypt and to Israel to participate in different archaeological digs over there. I got to go to Egypt I guess a year and a half ago now. And so I taught Life of Moses last year just While it was fresh in my mind. And I got to go to Israel seven years ago. So I'm doing Life of David, and it was not fresh on my mind. So I have reviewed a lot of different things for this class. I always like to do this slide, not necessarily just so that you guys know things about me, but the best professors that I've ever had have actually gotten to know the different people in their class, had discourse back and forth about different things during the week. So I do want to share something with all of you because I know that this is a big group. I'm going to go a couple slides ahead. I'm going to try something a little bit different in this class. Maybe two of you will join. If two of you join, we're just going to have a great time. If more than two of you join, that will be fun as well. But I felt like this was an aspect that was missing from a class I did last year. And this is something I've done with our teenagers. But I'm going to have a group me, and on this text, group me. I'm going to be posting some different things during the week. It'll give you guys an opportunity to ask questions, if you have questions about certain passages. The stinky thing about teaching during the winter quarter is actually the best thing about it is there's all these holidays. But the bad thing about it is that there's also holidays. So this class, while it would normally be a full 13 weeks, will only be nine to 10 weeks long in the end. But in the midst of all of that, I'm not going to assign homework or anything. But I really hope that this class is a class that allows us all to just kind of dig in and focus on a certain portion of the Bible for a period of time while we allow it to affect us. I can share all that with you guys later. I'll have a QR code for the slides at the end of class, which will give you access to it again. But for the schedule for the quarter, here's kind of what I'm thinking. I'll break it down even more a little bit later. But when you study first and second Samuel, it really originally was just one scroll called Samuel or the Book of Samuel. And it was originally split into five different parts as well. Those five parts essentially cover the great people that are mentioned in this series. The first portion is on Samuel himself. After that, we learn about Saul. After that, we learned about David for two or three portions. And then we learned about the Kingdom of God. At the very end of the Book of Samuel. So if you hear me say the Book of Samuel, I don't necessarily mean first Samuel or second Samuel. I'm just talking about Samuel, Samuel. But as we're getting through this, I would love to spend a lot more time on Samuel specifically and on Saul. But we're just going to have one class on each as we're working through. And this one today is going to be on Samuel and we'll learn a little bit more about him in the next little bit. Before I like starting these classes, I like laying out a variety of different goals and I want to explain these very briefly. So number one, understanding the context of Scripture and recognizing lenses. I had a professor probably four or five years ago now who did a really good job teaching me that no matter who you are, you're going to read Scripture through a specific lens. It's going to come with the background, the baggage, everything else that you've been through. It's going to come with you looking at Scripture and probably assuming a variety of different things based on what you've heard or what you've experienced. A real simple one that I can just like throw, throw at you guys that would. We'll talk about when it comes to the life of David, but you have Psalm 23 when he says lead beside like still waters, like going to green pastures and stuff like that. If you look at where David is while he writes that psalm, he's in the midst of the desert. So if you have a lens that's like me and you grew up in a church Bible class setting with them having a felt board and a happy guy tending sheep and everything's green and pretty around him. That's not the case. He's writing this from a desert in the absolute middle of nowhere. So at that point, saying like, hey, he's going to lead me to green pastures is a pretty big deal because there's not green pastures in the midst of a desert. That's an easy version of that. But when it comes to theological viewpoints, we're going to look later on this semester or quarter, whatever we call it, at David dancing and stuff as he worships God. We're going to look at David taking on the role of king and priest and God being excited about that, while Saul took on the role of king and priest and God banished him from being king forever. And we're going to look at how those things work in conjunction. And some of those things might very well be impacted by your modern day lens that you're looking at Scripture through as well. Number two, which should actually be number one, is passionately read our Bible and allow it to impact our hearts. This is going to be all about David and first and second Samuel and the Psalms. But when you look at David as a character, he was a man after God's own heart. He was a man who allowed God and his Word to impact him. Bible classes are not meant to be like 45 minute little increments once a week. It's supposed to be something that truly impacts us and has a lasting impact and something that allows us to just like spend some time and really delve into some things. So hopefully this class will allow you guys and help you guys kind of move into that realm. We're going to look at how God or how David fits into God's big picture. I love reading the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, because you start looking at specific words and phrases and stuff like that. I know some of you in here. I guess all of us are in the Genesis series at the same time. We're going to see some words in Samuel that began appearing in the Genesis story. And when you're a Jewish reader, these are going to be like immediate links to these different things that we may just not necessarily see. And then obviously David fits into the Christian story as well, which we'll work towards at the end. I have three big questions that I feel like have impacted me and my Bible study the most. And I would just recommend all of us as we study Scripture to ask these three questions, whether we're a class teacher or a student. But anytime that you read, I seriously think you can get a lot of asking these three what does this tell me about God? What does this say about the context that I'm in and what I'm dealing with, and how can I use this in order to impact others? This is not going to be a class where we simply like read about what David did and then just walk away. We're going to attempt to ask these big questions and work towards some answers in them that I hope impact us and then finally just develop some new to me, new to you questions. Anytime that you work through any of the major portions of Scripture, especially I'm talking about anything with Moses or Abraham, anything with David, obviously with Jesus, with Isaiah, with others. Anytime that you work through it, I don't care if you're my age or 90 years old, you're going to discover something new and different that you haven't seen before. These books have been around for millennia and people are still like discovering and seeing insights that they just haven't seen or felt in their lives before. If I don't bring those up for you guys, then it's not all on me because ultimately I hope you're studying your Bibles and coming up with these questions as well. When we are looking at whether we discuss things on the groupme or in class later on, I hope that that's something all of you can take part in. Alright, I like to do this before I start any class as well. These are some of the main resources I have used. Like I've used some others, but these are some of the main ones when I was preparing for this class. I always love bibleproject. I don't agree with everything that they do, but one of the best things that I feel like they have are book overviews and then stuff on the language. So if you're interested in any of those. They don't have a ton about David really, but here are two links for that and again I'll share the slides at the end of this so that you guys can literally just click on it and go there. I attended a ministry conference probably three or four years ago now and had a guy who ironically his name was David but he taught a four part series on David that was excellent and I've gone back and I've been listening to that a little bit while preparing for this and he did a great job with it down below. Here are a few different commentaries that I've used. This is. I made notes at the bottom. I feel like this one by Dale Davis is one of the most readable and best reviewed ones that I found. So if you're looking for like a devotional commentary to work through David, that's an excellent one. I think some of them are available on Amazon for like 8 bucks. This guy David Toshio Tsumura I don't know how to do the ts. At the beginning he wrote a commentary. It's part of NCOT or nikot, the New International Commentary of the Old Testament. This is one of my favorite scholarly commentary series that is also conservative at the same time, honestly for Old Testament and New Testament. If you guys wanted to get more scholarly in that realm, those are normally a series I'd recommend. There's a Church of Christ specific series called the Truth for Today commentary that works through all the books and this guy did do a good job with his from his setting. Freed Hardman, where I went, did a lectureship a while back. They have devotionals online for free. This is an interesting one I want to bring up real quick. And I didn't know if I should bring this up because I want to challenge you guys to watch it and I want to warn you about watching it both at the same time, which almost made me not challenge you to watch it. So there's a series on Amazon called House of David, essentially take. So you have the chosen series with, like, Jesus that makes things very realistic. And there are a few different points in that series where they do take some liberties. House of David takes, like, way more liberties. There are a lot of liberties, a lot of, like, fill in the gap moments that they take. But I did watch the whole first season of this one, and they're coming out with the second season now. And what I will say about the House of David on Amazon is it is the best representation of culturally what this time period actually looked like in Israel at that time that I've been able to, like, see visualized. They do a lot of things that are very incorrect in that show. And. But if you're wanting to see, like, what did these tribes, like, actually look like who were in Israel at this time that didn't necessarily have a kingdom put together? What did these farmers in the middle of nowhere look like? What did the different areas of Israel look like? Because you see David traveling up and down this whole region, and certain times you might not read about it in the text, but he might be in a desert land, he might be in a mountainous land, he might be in something like, something different. This show actually does a good job when they're in a specific city, making it look like they're in that land or that city. Now, a whole other portion of the show is about entertainment. And I want to say again, I do not, like, biblically support everything in that show, but it was good entertainment. And to me, they did an excellent job culturally presenting what things looked like. And then this is a Bible that I. I love all Bibles, but this is one that people have added to that I love and hate. It's a cultural background NIV commentary that does an excellent job 90% of the time showing what culture or context was like in certain settings of scripture. While you're working through, I disagree with it about 10% of the time. The cultural aspect. Now, the reason that I bring up so much context and culture is going back to the Len thing that I discussed before. I just want to let everybody know that is that recently, over the last, like, five years of my life has become a big thing that I've really studied. Because as I study it, I see how it impacts me in so many different ways in my view of the Bible, the way that I interpret things, the way that I view things, the way that I believe the author meant things. So I'll be talking about a lot of that in this class. I'm going to try not to talk about it too much, though. So if you guys are getting bored of different things or if it's too much or whatever else, you can tell me, or you can just go to Will Waldron's class and that will be fun. All right, so first and Second Samuel, we're here to get into the Bible. I did not know how long that first portion would take me, so we will see if I have enough prepared for it. I've already mentioned some of this, but I just wanted to lay it out in front of you guys. It was originally one book, the Septuagint, which is the Greek version. So New Testament people are speaking Greek. It's the Greek version of the Old Testament that was written years and years later. They wanted to put all of Samuel, these five parts, into one scroll. And as they were doing it, they realized, like, oh, this is way too much. So instead of five parts, they made it into two parts. And that's how we have first and Second Samuel today. But in reality, they're really just one reading. They flow together perfectly. Traditionally, authorship has been attributed to Samuel, at least until Samuel dies and then Nathan and Gad after that. These are the ways that it's been broken out. We're going to spend today talking about this portion right here with Samuel. We're going to spend next week really highlighting some of these things with Saul. And then we'll spend the last eight weeks, probably the last, the next seven weeks, talking about David, and then the very last week talking about the kingdom of God. Because, I mean, you start with Eden. God is with his people. After that, people. The whole story of the Bible, I think, can be. Can essentially come down to people are searching for a kingdom. And when you break down that word, it's literally a place where the king dwells, which is what Eden was. They were dwelling with the king. As you go throughout Scripture, they're searching and searching. We talked about in the Moses class year or so ago how finally God chose to dwell amongst his people. We're getting a little bit closer to kingdom. Well, the David story just brings us a little bit further along in that story of getting back to a kingdom and dwelling with God. And then right now, Andrew and Brandon are in the Kingdom series, which is pretty cool when the main part of the kingdom comes and then there's still the final kingdom to come. But David definitely has a big part to play in that. All right, I know. Still more background. I'll get to the book at some point. So historical timeline. 11. So if you haven't thought scripturally about what's going on, this Samuel starts about 1100 BC ish is when he's born. It's been 300 years since Moses died. So you think about Moses death into Deuteronomy. All of a sudden the Israelites, the Hebrew people, really are taking over Canaan. They're in the midst of Canaan and throughout Judges, throughout Joshua, there's all these battles, tribal warfare, everything else going on. And then Samuel, the final judge, is born. If you haven't thought about the different judges, Gideon likely dies about somewhere around. And these years aren't exactly the dates, but they're probably close. Most people think that Gideon died about 20 years beforehand. And most people think that the end of Samson's life was actually while Samuel was a young man. So when you're reading Judges and stuff, there's like a period where these kind of intertwined for a section. Samuel is over things for about 40 years. Saul reigns, he reigns for 40 years. And then David reigns, and he reigns for 40 years. This is a Bronze Age to Iron Age transition. Anytime that you go through a worldwide major age change, different major powers are rising or falling. So exactly in this period is when Egypt and the original Babylon are starting to go downhill. Other cultures are starting to go uphill. And specifically in this area, it was a perfect time for Israel to become probably as great as they ever became under the leadership of David, Solomon, everybody else afterwards. And then you have the Sea peoples, the Philistines, who probably were from Phoenicia somewhere over there, that are going down the coast, invading in different areas. So as the book begins, here is how most people see this nation looking like. There's tribes everywhere. These tribes are not like how they will be at the end of the book of Samuel. By the end of the book of Samuel, everybody is united, fighting under one king, one banner. We'll talk about this in a week or two. But one of the things that probably probably led them to actually wanting a king is they couldn't get united. Each of them were almost like history. And scripture tells us that each of these different groups were almost making their tribe more important than the group as a whole. Now we know that the correct answer should have Been, let's get united under God and live under his laws, and that will cause us to live at peace with one another. But ultimately they started living simply as tribes and nothing more. And that allowed during this period. You can't find a map that looks exactly like this anywhere because it depended on which judge was in control. But you have the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, Armenians, the Philistines, Amalekites. All of these different groups are getting inlets this whole period and attacking different tribes and different groups. And you see through judges, Tribe of Manasseh says, hey, help us, Gad. Help us, Reuben. And one decides to help, the other doesn't decide to help. All of this is happening and it's just this blobby whatever. Like this whole time from different people attacking. But specifically when Samuel comes on the scene, the Philistines have taken over this area down here, the Gaza Strip, essentially. And at certain points in Israel's stories, the Philistines, the sea people, literally control almost this whole edge of the sea, which is pretty important for trade and a lot of other things. But that's a picture of this world that we're entering into. All right, sorry, I had so many prequel things, but I think these are interesting. Hopefully I'm not boring you yet, but this first section of Samuel, I'm going to do this in every section that we enter. If you have never done this before, almost every Hebrew name of anything means something. Sometimes it's like a pointless meaning. Everything is transliterated. It's like how the word Bible was from Biblios and it just means book. But we decided to be fancy and call it Bible. Like, every name for the most part is transliterated. So Hanah, we take that name and we say, all right, we're going to name her Hannah, but in reality, Hanah, to her people, she would have been known as Grace or the favored one, or something like that. What's very interesting is all of these different names in this first section mean something. I'll kind of point those out as we go along. The scene we're about to enter, though, specifically has these few right here. And I'll just start by describing their situations. Hannah, her name means Grace or Favor. I feel like the most important passage about God in terms of who he is and the entire Old Testament is found in Exodus 34, two chapters after the Israelites, like create a golden calf. God comes down. He could have destroyed them, and instead he decides to one up his I am name from Exodus 3 and really tell them who he is. And one of the most important parts of, of that whole section is how it begins where God describes himself and he says he's a God who has grace, great grace or infinite favor on his people. So Hannah is named specifically after that Exodus 34 passage. So when you think of not only that, you also have to apply it. Oftentimes the people that God used, he chose to use their names in certain ways to also bring about a message to us. Hannah is probably someone, if you're a Jew reading First Samuel, the second that you see her name, you're going to think to yourself, if this lady's in the Bible and her name's Hannah, she's about to be someone that God has grace to and has put a lot of favor upon her. Samuel, if you don't know this, anytime that there is a word or it really is a word, period. But it could be a place, a name that has El, so Samuel, Elkanah, Eli, that's God, Elohim, so Shema, Samuel, Shmuel, God has heard. So Hannah, a person who God has grace on, then gives birth to a child.
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  Speaker A: And.
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  Speaker B: And God has heard. So we'll see that in a little bit. Elkanah, her husband belonging to God. Eli, my God. Peninnah, precious stone. Hophni could mean strong. It could also be a fighter. Phinehas is just such an interesting name. I never expected it to be in the Bible, but it's in the Bible twice. I think one of Aaron's son's names was Phinehas. He probably came from Egyptian culture. And the Egyptian Phinehas means dark skinned. So more than likely when Aaron had one of his sons, one likely had darker skin than the other, and he likely named him dark skin. And that was the Phinehas that we see that like, what's the story? He like kills some people who had stolen something. In that situation, he was slightly more righteous. This guy Eli probably names Phinehas after him, but the Hebrew word for Phineas is serpent's mouth. So all of a sudden there's a twist. So Phinehas is probably not a good guy. Ebenezer, we have a song about that. We'll learn about that. And then Ramah, we'll talk about probably as we go along. All right, let's get into the text. I have at least a little bit longer. And again, I'll say this really quickly. I kind of expected myself to do this and ramble in the first class in most classes. So we're going to get to the text I'll have questions to the side and we're going to discuss this first class. There's a lot of setup though to get through some of these things. So I want to do is dig into this first section of Samuel. First Samuel, chapter one. You guys can follow along with me. There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah, son of Jehoram, son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zeus, the son of Ephraimite and Ephraim. He had two wives. So this guy has two wives. Alright, not a good thing. One is Hannah Grace or Favor. The other was Peninnah, precious stone. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none. Anytime that scripture tells you anything physically about anybody, it's very important. If somebody was left handed, if somebody didn't have children, if somebody was a fat person, if somebody was, whatever. The only time the Old Testament will ever bring up a physical characteristic about somebody is if that's going to end up being used in the story in some way. If you can defeat that argument by me, I'll give you browning points. So try to figure that one out. All right. So year after year, this man went up from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the the Lord Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas just talked about them. The two sons of Eli were priests. Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to her sons and daughters. But Hannah, he gave a double portion because he loved her and the Lord had closed her womb. Because the Lord had closed Hannah's womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This is like one of the worst situations ever it sounds like for Hannah to be in. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, by the way, this is not what to say to your wife who's being provoked by your other wife if she can't have kids. Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don't you eat? Why are you so downhearted? Don't I mean more to you than 10 sons? Not a good answer. Once they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli, the priest, was sitting on his chair by the doorpost of the Lord's house. In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the Lord. Weeping Bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, lord Almighty, if you will look on your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant, but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head. As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, how long are you going to stay drunk? Put your wine away. Not so, my Lord, Hannah replied, I am a woman who's deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. Do not take your servant for a wicked woman. I have been praying out here of my great anguish and grief. Eli answered, go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him. She said, may your servant find favor in your eyes. Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. Early the next morning, they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. So Ramah means high place. We're going to talk about that probably a few chapters from now. Elkanah made love to his wife, Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. So in the course of time, Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, because I asked the Lord for him, I like highlighting things that stand out to me. As you're reading, there might be different things that stand out to you. We know that Hannah is in an awful, horrible, bad situation. Husband is not helping, goes, prays to God, Eli thinks she's drunk, but ends up honoring her. And then ultimately the Lord. So think back to God thinking of his people in slavery. The Lord remembered them, so the Lord remembered her. What I would like to have happen, if possible. I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to, like, really dig into some of the things in this text. But whether you guys join the groupme, whether you just leave here with a memory of we talked about Samuel today, or whether you scan the slides and get them, I want to challenge you guys to remember those three big questions I talked about at the very beginning. What does this tell me about God? I think you can get some excellent answers. You guys could probably come up with a lot better ones than me when you examine this passage. We'll talk more about this later. There's so much I already want to get into that I'm excited for in this class. But we'll get into how many people even before Hannah struggled having children prior to this. We'll get into how many second born and not firstborn sons God made great prior to this and after this. All of that tells us something like God is choosing these lesser people to ultimately go through suffering, but then glorify him. That tells us a lot about God and I hope you guys are able to sit on that and consider exactly what that means. What does this say about what I am dealing with? I want to be very clear that if you're struggling with infertility, like this is not a passage that's saying promise a future child to the Lord and he's going to grant you a baby one day. That's not what this passage is saying. However, regardless of your context, there is a really deep application to what God is choosing to do here in the midst of this text. So wherever you are, how does this text speak to you? And then finally, how can you use this text to impact others? I know that I will never utter those words to Sarah. So that's an example from my book. All right, so man, I would like to get into all of this. We're just going to skip chapter seven, but on the way to chapter and that's the first section of Samuel. But on the way to chapter seven, so many things happen. You have Hannah's prayer. You can look at people singing this today, but it echoes back to Miriam like the song after they crossed the Red Sea, but also to Mary later on. All of these are great, great women. I do think it's fascinating that I've heard the book Samuel described as the book of three great men. You have Samuel, you have Saul, you have David. But then who does the book start with and focus on? Well, it's actually a woman. It's Hannah at the very, very beginning. Chapter three, God calls Samuel as a young man. Samuel says, here I am. Who does that make you think of? Well, just three examples. Moses, Isaiah and Abraham all uttered the ex exact same thing to God. This is obviously a thing that means something as people, as Jews, especially reading this text. That's the stuff that's echoing back and forth. And then chapters four through six, some just fascinating things happen. Phinehas and Hophni die in battle. Eli, his name means my God. It's says that he was. The text literally says he was old, he could not see and he was filled with glory is how certain texts will read that. Well, this is interesting. The word for glory also means like large or weighty. So while your Bibles might say he was filled with glory, it more than likely literally meant he was old and fat. And Eli heard that his sons died and he was sad. But then he heard that the Ark was captured, and that's when he falls and dies. Ark is captured, Ark is returned. Really fascinating story with golden rats and tumors. Can't get into it right now, but if you haven't read this text recently, that's a good Halloween bedtime story for your kids. But I challenge you to go back and read some of that. And then you finish this section with 1st Samuel 7, which reads this. Then all the people of Israel turned back to the Lord. And this is after Samuel has fought battles. Ark is returned. Samuel's really leading the way in Israel. So Samuel said to all the Israelites, if you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashteroths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines. It's red because we hear a lot of things like that from great prophets of God. So the Israelites put away their bales and Ashtaroth and served the Lord only. Then Samuel said, assemble all Israel at Mizpah, and I will intercede with the Lord for you. When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water. They poured it out before the Lord. On that day they fasted, and there they confessed, we have seen sinned against the Lord. And now Samuel is serving as leader of Israel and Mizpah. When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled there, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. When the Israelites heard of it, they were afraid because of the Philistines. They said to Samuel, do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us, that he may rescue us from the hand of the Philistines. Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and sacrificed it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on Israel's behalf, and the Lord answered him. While Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to engage in battle with Israel. But that day the Lord thundered with loud thunder against the Philistines and threw them into such a panic that they were routed before the Israelites. The men of Israel rushed out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, slaughtering them along the way. To a point below Beth Gar, vastly different than what we're going to see when The Israelites gather before the Philistines with Saul at their helm. Soon after this, then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shin. He named it Ebenezer. That literally means helping stone, saying, thus far the Lord has helped us. Come, thou fount of every blessing. If you didn't know what Ebenezer meant, yet there it is. So the Philistines were subdued and they stopped invading Israel's territory. Throughout Samuel's lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines. The towns from Ekron to Gath, you may have heard of that one before, that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to Israel. So this is that bubble forming and reforming. Israel's getting larger. And Israel delivered the neighboring territory from the hand of the Philistines. And there was a place between Israel and the Amorites. And then those five sections that I brought up always end with a summary of what the section beforehand was about. So this is the end of the Samuel like story, where he's at the helm of everything. Samuel continued as Israel's leader all the days of his life, from year to year. He went on a circuit to Bethel, to Gilgal, to Mizpah, judging Israel and all those places. But he always went back to Ramah where his home was, and there he also held court for Israel, and he built an altar there to the Lord. I didn't have a lot to say about that. I knew that we'd be over soon. When I got to this point, I do want to bring up, and this is like, man, some of y' all might challenge me on this. We'll see. But there's a big thing happening in America that people are talking about right now. And I've seen claims online, and I try not to get online too much about, like, there's a revival, there's not a revival. There's people coming to God. So there's people arguing about this and people saying certain things. And I read a really interesting kind of blog from one of my friends recently where he used this passage. And I thought it was just an interesting application he claimed in his blog. And I can share that with you guys if you like. That genuine sign of revival may not best be understood by attendance, but by repentance. And depending on the time and place where you are at any given moment, I would like you to check yourself before you claim certain things because it might be vastly different depending on where you are in your area. Is your revival more people attending certain things, or is your revival actually have to do with people truly repenting and pouring out their hearts to God and saying what they have done wrong. Most times when we look in Scripture, a genuine revival has people saying we have sinned against the Lord. And I just thought it was a powerful blog. I asked another question there, but I'll just move on to the next thing. So this week, try to come up. I want to challenge you guys. If you don't want to do homework, I don't care. I'm not grading it. Try and come up with how many people God has used for his glory prior to David that are thought of as lesser in their culture. So the not firstborn, the weak or disabled, the infertile. How many people can you come up with that God uses before and maybe even in the midst of to this Samuel story that have those aspects in their life? And what does that tell us about God? And then once again, I would love for all of you to know about the golden rats and tumors. Take time this week to read 1st Samuel 1:7. I obviously did not get into the five chapters in the middle, but there's a lot there. Here are the slides from this class. When you look at what I've done, some of the other slides in here that I'll get to at certain points, we're not yet at David. Once we get to David and once we get to those, like, weekly breaks in this class where we're gone for two weeks, I really would love for you guys over Thanksgiving break, over Christmas break to just be in the Psalms for a while. Without the Psalms, I think David looks like a much worse person. David really doesn't look like that great of a king unless you use the Psalms to view this heart that God is talking about. There's actually a chronology of psalms that I've saved on there that some people have made up, which are just all of David's psalms in order. So maybe read that as we go through first and second Samuel. I included some, like, archaeological stuff I got to take pictures of in there. But I'll go back to that Slides one. Y' all can take a picture of that. Join the groupme. I'll share that stuff with you guys. If you get the slides right here, you're going to be able to use the slides to get to the groupme code as well if you want that later on. And again, we'll just see how much that's used. So let's say a prayer and then we'll close with class. God, thank you so much for our church family thank you so much for the love that you have for us. Help us God, to use this class not just to study about who you are, but to allow it to impact our lives and our hearts. Help us to be able to use it to impact others around us as well. Thank you for your great love for us and help us to just learn more about it through these examples that we have in Scripture. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.