This week, the ark narratives are over and we meet Samuel, much older and with a very timely message. We dig into [esvignore]1 Samuel 7:3-4[/esvignore]. After two decades of lament and the heavy weight of God’s hand, the Israelites are finally ready to hear Samuel’s call to repentance. Our lesson draws out three points: 1. Returning to the Lord; 2. False Repentance;…

This week we come to [esvignore]1 Samuel 6:1-7:2[/esvignore]. The theme is God’s wrath. We’ll examine what God’s wrath is, how it is manifest, to whom, and why. And we’ll see that God is not playing any games when it comes to people interacting with Him and worshiping Him is a way He has not authorized. The end result of so much wrath…

Here we encounter the delicious humbling of Dagon by God, as the Philistines place the captured Ark of God beside Dagon in a place of subjugation. God is not mocked. This would prove to be a very bad idea. We work through the whole of [esvignore]1 Samuel chapter 5[/esvignore] and learn that man loves to set up his toppled idols over and…

This sermon, from [esvignore]1 Samuel 4:12-22[/esvignore], examines several themes that are present in the terrible days of Israel when the Ark was captured by the Philistines. First we observe the story of Eli’s death. We look at this character, Eli, and uncover why the judgment of God came upon his house, and we see how serious it is to serve two masters.…

We arrive in [esvignore]1 Samuel 4:1-11[/esvignore]. Here the story shifts from its focus on individual people and looks at the nation as a whole. In this sermon we meet the Philistines, the Ark and learn how they will become major characters in the story. Our application is pointed, encouraging us to leave behind superstitions, and the kidn of false religion that seeks…

In this sermon we find that “the Word was rare in those days.” This, of course, explains why the people of Israel were so far from being a God-honoring people. In this portion of our narrative, God calls the boy Samuel to his prophetic office, and immediately gives him hard words to speak. On the one hand, Samuel is delivering a message…

The matter at hand is Eli’s failure to honor God over his own sons. In light of his son’s radical wickedness and his do-nothing attitude, God is stepping in to do what Eli would not. We will actually begin our sermon in [esvignore]Deuteronomy 21:18-21[/esvignore] from which we will hear some very strong opinions that God has about wickedness and how Israel should…

Here we discover that our times are not that much different than the days when Samuel was a boy – gross corruption in the leadership, ineptitude among parents, abusive religious leaders and dismay among the people. We can, if we linger too long upon the bad, forget that there is one who quietly ministers a glimmer of hope to us at all…

This sermon investigates the great reversal of providence Hannah experienced as her strong God and deliverer turned her circumstances from cursed to blessed. In [esvignore]1 Samuel 2:1-10[/esvignore] we find Hannah’s prayer and her prophesy about the anointed King to come. How could she be so theologically astute and knowledgeable about God? Does it matter that women be so well versed in theology?…

We take the first chapter of the story in today’s sermon and see how God places before us a fast-moving and dramatic tale centered upon a family of virtually no significance. Yes, this family’s only significance is that they are not significant – except that God loves to work through the lowly to do the mighty. We first look at this family;…