1 Samuel 12:1-25: God's Mercy toward His People

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of 1 Samuel, and today the next passage we come to is 1 Samuel 12:1-25, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

¹ And Samuel said to all Israel, “Behold, I have obeyed your voice in all that you have said to me and have made a king over you…. ⁶ …The Lord is witness, who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. ⁷ Now therefore stand still that I may plead with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous deeds of the Lord that he performed for you and for your fathers. ⁸ When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place. ⁹ But they forgot the Lord their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. ¹⁰ And they cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.’ ¹¹ And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety. ¹² And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king. ¹³ And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. ¹⁷ Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.” ¹⁸ So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. ¹⁹ 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.” ²⁰ 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. ²¹ And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. ²² 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. ²³ Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. ²⁴ Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you….

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we know it’s your will that we be conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus. And we also know that the way that happens is by your Spirit and through your Word. So, please, Holy Spirit, take this passage and use it to accomplish your purposes within each one of us. Lead us to Christ and conform us to his image. And it’s in his name that we pray, amen.

There are numerous places throughout the Bible in which God’s people are compared to sheep. The Bible refers to God as our Shepherd and speaks of us as his sheep. And it’s not difficult to figure out how God’s similar to a shepherd, in the way he provides for us and cares for us and watches over us. Yet it’s also instructive to consider how we’re often similar to sheep in the way we behave and the kinds of situations we sometimes get ourselves into.

For example, if you do a little research about sheep, you’ll discover that they’re not very intelligent. I came across one news story—reported by several major news outlets—about hundreds of sheep literally running off of a cliff. The story states, “Hundreds of sheep followed their leader off a cliff in eastern Turkey, plunging to their deaths this week while shepherds looked on in dismay. Four hundred sheep fell [approximately 50 feet] to their deaths in a ravine…but broke the fall of another 1,100 animals who survived. Shepherds from a nearby village neglected the flock while eating breakfast, leaving the sheep to roam free. The loss to local farmers was estimated at $74,000.”

So, that’s what happens when shepherds don’t pay careful attention to their sheep. And there are many other similar stories to that as well. It seems that sheep—when left to themselves—will almost always wander off and get themselves into all kinds of trouble. They’ll do the dumbest things sometimes and suffer injury or even death as a result. You may have seen this video that illustrates just how unintelligent a sheep can be. As you can see, even when this particular sheep is rescued from a ditch, what does that sheep immediately do? Well, if you keep watching, you can see that the sheep is rescued but then jumps right back into the very same ditch and gets itself stuck all over again. That’s just the way sheep behave.

So, when the Bible uses the metaphor of sheep to refer to us, it’s not exactly the most flattering comparison. Yet, it’s unfortunately an accurate comparison in many ways. The fact is that, just like the sheep in that video, we often have a tendency to not only wander away from God and get into all kinds of trouble but also do so again and again—often falling right back into the very same sins God’s just rescued us out of.

And even though it’s kind of amusing when we see sheep doing ridiculous things like the sheep in that video, it’s actually quite sobering to think about our tendency to go back to sin again and again. Yet, for some reason, that’s exactly what we so often do. The struggle with sin is a very real struggle in the Christian life and can at times be incredibly discouraging and demoralizing.

So, how should we respond when we fall into sin? And what should we do even when we find ourselves drawn back to the same sin again and again and fall into it for what feels like the thousandth time? These are some of the questions we’ll address this morning as we work our way through 1 Samuel 12.

Thankfully, as we’ll see in this chapter, God is incredibly merciful to his people even in the aftermath of their sin. That’s the main idea of this passage. God is incredibly merciful to his people even in the aftermath of their sin. This is a truth that many of us are tempted to doubt at times. In fact, people have been doubting God’s mercy and hiding in shame from God ever since the Garden of Eden. Yet, as we’ll see, God is more merciful to repentant sinners than many of us have ever dared to imagine.

So, let’s walk through this passage together. In verses 1-6, Samuel gathers all the Israelites and challenges them to name even one instance in which he’s abused his power as the judge and leader of Israel. And no one is able to name even a single instance of Samuel behaving inappropriately. So, having put himself on trial, so to speak, Samuel then turns the tables and puts the Israelites on trial and gives them a very direct and painful evaluation of their own behavior.

He sets the backdrop in verse 7 by announcing that he’s going to confront the Israelites with a description of God’s righteous deeds toward them, which are quite the opposite of their unrighteous deeds toward God.

Samuel then begins doing this in verse 8. He says, “When Jacob went into Egypt, and the Egyptians oppressed them, then your fathers cried out to the Lord and the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, who brought your fathers out of Egypt and made them dwell in this place.” So, Israel’s history began with the Israelites crying out to God for rescue and God rescuing them from slavery in Egypt and bringing them into the Promised Land.

However, it wasn’t long before the Israelites rebelled against God, as we see in verses 9-11: ⁹ But they forgot the Lord their God. And he sold them into the hand of Sisera, commander of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab. And they fought against them. ¹⁰ And they cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.’ ¹¹ And the Lord sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and you lived in safety.

So, we see a number of names and events listed in these verses. Just about all of these are from the book of Judges. And those of you who are familiar with the book of Judges are probably aware that it records numerous cycles—seven cycles, to be exact—of Israel rebelling against God, then God disciplining Israel by allowing their enemies to conquer and oppress them, then the Israelites repenting of their sin and crying out to God for rescue, and then God rescuing them from the oppression of their enemies. So, it’s kind of like a washing machine. Just like a washing machine repeats the same basic cycle of washing, rinsing, and spinning over and over again, that’s pretty much what happens in Judges. The Israelites go through seven cycles of rebellion, discipline, repentance, and rescue.

And that’s what we find a partial record of in these verses. Samuel’s point is that, throughout their history, the Israelites have rebelled against God again and again. Yet, when they cried out to the Lord in their distress, he was always merciful to them and raised up judges time and time again to rescue them from their enemies.

And brothers and sisters, God has that same merciful disposition toward us today. No matter what we’ve done or what messes we’ve made or how many times we’ve fallen into a particular sin, we can always turn back to God with the confidence that God will show us mercy.

John says it this way in 1 John 1:8-9: ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Isn’t that a wonderful promise? If we confess our sins God, he’ll “forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Think about that idea of God “cleansing” us. You know, most of us have probably had articles of clothing that have gotten a stain on them that’s proved impossible to remove. No matter what we’ve tried, the stain just wouldn’t go away. And sometimes, we might be tempted to view our sin that way—and think that the stain of our sin is too deep to ever be removed. Yet here we see that God’s able to cleanse us not just of some unrighteousness but of “all unrighteousness.”

And how is it that God’s able to do this? John tells us in the subsequent verses. In 1 John 2:1-2, he writes, ¹ My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. So, we see that it’s through Jesus and Jesus alone that we’re able to be cleansed of our sins.

John tells us that Jesus is the “propitiation for our sins,” which means that Jesus—through his death on the cross—is the atoning sacrifice that averts God’s wrath. God’s righteous wrath against our sins is averted—or turned away—because of Jesus voluntarily offering himself as a sacrifice in our place on the cross. And, of course, Jesus didn’t stay dead but was triumphantly raised from the dead three days later with the result that all who put their trust in him are rescued from their sins. So, that’s the response required on our part—turning away from our sins and putting our trust exclusively in Jesus to rescue us from both the guilt and power of our sin. And when we do that, we can have absolute confidence that our sins are forgiven. As Paul says so well in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And returning to our main passage, we can see this same disposition of God to be merciful to his people displayed throughout Israel’s history up to that point. The Israelites had rebelled against God repeatedly throughout their history. Yet, whenever they cried out to God for rescue, God had shown them mercy over and over again by delivering them from the hand of their enemies.

However, as we move forward in this passage, we see that the Israelites of Samuel’s day have unfortunately been rebellious toward God yet again by insisting on having a king. Samuel says to them in verses 12-13, ¹² And when you saw that Nahash the king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king. ¹³ And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you.

So, when the Israelites faced a significant threat from Nahash, king of the Ammonites, the Israelites should have put their trust in God. After all, God had shown himself more than able to defend his people and give them victory over their enemies time and time again throughout Israel’s history. However, instead of putting their trust in God in the midst of the threat they faced from Nahash, they insisted on having an earthly king of their own who could lead them in battle. They saw that all the nations around them—such as the Ammonites—had a king, and this made them desire a king of their own—so that they could be like those pagan nations. And God interprets this as a rejection of him as their King.

So, yet again, the Israelites have rebelled against God. When you think about it, their behavior is similar to that of a drug addict relapsing into their old habit after experiencing many such relapses in the past. Most of us are probably aware of how common it is, unfortunately, for someone who’s addicted to drugs to get clean and seemingly break away from that addiction for a little while—only to fall right back into it after a few days or weeks or even months. And just as drugs are a powerful force that pull people back into the throes of addiction again and again, there are many other sins—I would argue—that are just as powerful in pulling us back into their grip. We can see it with the Israelites in these verses as they once again put their trust in something other than God for deliverance, and unfortunately, all too often, we can see it in our own lives as well as we also experience ongoing struggles with particular sins.

We then come to the crux of Samuel’s speech to the Israelites in verses 14-15. In light of them rebelling against God yet again, Samuel tells them, ¹⁴ 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. ¹⁵ 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.

So, Samuel’s very direct in telling the Israelites what’ll happen if they continue to disobey God. God’s hand will be decidedly against them. Yet, at the same time, I can’t help but notice the incredible mercy of God we see in God’s willingness to bless the Israelites if they’ll follow him from that point onward. Even after they’ve effectively rejected God by insisting on having a king, God doesn’t reject them but—amazingly—is still willing to bless them and watch over them.

Yet, at the same time, notice that God does require repentance. We see in verse 14 that God’s willing to bless his people if and only if they’ll fear him and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against his commandment from that point onward. So, in order to experience God’s mercy, the Israelites had to repent of their rebellion—and specifically of their rebellious rejection of him as their King. Although God’s not suggesting that the kingship be taken away from Saul, he is requiring that Saul and the rest of the Israelites repent and be faithful and obedient moving forward. 

Likewise, this requirement is very instructive for us as we consider how we need to respond to our own sin in order to receive God’s mercy. Whether the Holy Spirit reveals to us a sin that we weren’t previously aware of or whether we fall into a particular sin for what feels like the thousandth time, the process of repentance is the same. And very briefly, here’s what that process looks like.

First, confess your sin to God with heartfelt grief. Instead of trying to deny your sin, minimize your sin, rationalize your sin, or blame your sin on someone else, confess your sin to God. And do so with heartfelt grief—making sure, of course, that you’re not merely grieving over the earthly consequences your sin may have brought but rather that you’re grieving over the way your sin has grieved God. You should be grieved over the fact that God is grieved.

Second, renounce your sin. Genuine repentance involves not merely feeling sorry for your sin but actually purposing in your heart to turn away from your sin and to live differently from that point onward. And I’d recommend clearly verbalizing your commitment to do that in your prayer to God. Tell God that you desire to turn away from your sin and never go back to it.

Then, third, look to the cross with full confidence that God will keep his many promises. We’ve seen one of those promises already in 1 John 1:9, that if we confess our sins, God’s faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And there are many other such promises in the Bible. So, look to the cross and stand on the promises God’s made to those who trust in Jesus. Understand that Satan would love nothing more than for you to wallow in shame and guilt and self-condemnation. Yet Jesus died so that we can be free from all those things.

After that, number four is to pray that the Holy Spirit would keep you from ever going back to that sin. If you try to overcome the sin merely in your own strength or through your own willpower, you’ll fail every time. Instead, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8:13, it’s by the Holy Spirit that we put to death the sinful deeds of the body.

And lastly, make changes to your lifestyle that will prevent future temptation. If there are certain environments in which you’re likely to sin, avoid putting yourself in those environments. If there are certain people who often pull you into sin, stop spending time with those people. If there are certain substances—such as alcohol—that are a source of temptation for you, get them out of your house. And if there’s anything on your phone or any other electronic device that proves to be a frequent source of temptation for you, do whatever’s necessary to remove that temptation from your life. Also, not only should we seek to avoid temptation in all of these ways I’ve suggested, it’s also often very helpful to ask mature Christians to hold us accountable on a regular basis in whatever areas of our lives in which we frequently struggle with sin.

So, this is what the process of repentance looks like. This is how we should respond whenever we become aware that we’ve sinned against God. And any time you’re tempted to become disheartened or discouraged by how frequently this might be necessary, never forget that—in the words of the Puritan writer Richard Sibbes—“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” So, hopefully that’s an encouragement for us to go boldly to the throne of grace as often as we need to.

Then, returning once again to 1 Samuel 12, Samuel proceeds to give the Israelites a dramatic display of God’s power in order to motivate them to repent of the sin he’s just brought to their attention. He says in verses 16-18, ¹⁶ Now therefore stand still and see this great thing that the Lord will do before your eyes. ¹⁷ Is it not wheat harvest today? I will call upon the Lord, that he may send thunder and rain. And you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord, in asking for yourselves a king.” ¹⁸ So Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel.

The reason the thunder and rain produced such fear in the hearts of the Israelites is not only how suddenly they came about as Samuel called upon the Lord but also how rare rain was during this particular time of year. One commentator writes, “The wheat harvest was early summer, when no rain falls. A thunderstorm in this season would have been an unknown occurrence.” So, that’s why the thunder and rain had such a powerful effect on the Israelites.

We then read in verses 19-21, ¹⁹ 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.” ²⁰ 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. ²¹ And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

So, the Israelites are shaken to the core. Yet Samuel comforts them by assuring them that they need not be afraid—though, as he reminds them, they need to be very careful never to turn aside from the Lord in order to pursue empty things.

Samuel then offers the Israelites even greater words of comfort in verse 22: “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.” So, God’s ultimate motivation for not forsaking his people is for the sake of his own great name. And notice at the end of this verse the emphasis on God’s initiative in the formation and preservation of the Israelite nation. The reason God brought the Israelites into existence and made them into a great nation is because he desired, as it says, to make “a people for himself”—that is, a people in whom and through whom he could display his glory.

So, if something was allowed to happen to God’s people—such as Israel being destroyed or entering into a permanent state of servitude to another nation—then it would reflect poorly on God’s great name. And God simply won’t allow that to happen. He won’t allow his great name to suffer disgrace in that way. So, that’s the ultimate reason why, as Samuel says, “the Lord will not forsake his people.”

And that applies not only to the Israelites but also to those of us who are Christians—since we’re the people of God today. We can be confident that God won’t forsake us or allow us to fall away from him in any final sense because he cares too much about his own great name to allow that to happen.

You see, just as it was God’s initiative that brought about the formation and preservation of the nation of Israel, it’s likewise God’s initiative that brought about—and is bringing about—our salvation. As Paul says in Romans 8:29-30: ²⁹ For those whom he [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. Notice the number of times the pronoun “he” is used—referring to God. In fact, that’s the only pronoun that’s used. Every aspect of our salvation is brought about by God. It’s “he” who foreknew us, “he” who predestined us, “he” who called us, “he” who justified us, and “he” who will one day glorify us in eternity. Our salvation is the work of God from beginning to end.

Therefore, we might say that God’s reputation is on the line. If we who are Christians fall away from God in any final sense, God will have failed. Imagine a world-famous builder being granted a contract to build an enormous skyscraper in downtown Manhattan but then abandoning the project halfway through and leaving the skyscraper only halfway finished. Or imagine a world-famous sculptor announcing that he’s going to create the best sculpture of his lifetime and getting started on his masterpiece but then leaving it only halfway finished. If either a builder or sculptor did anything like that, I dare say their reputation would be ruined.

And that would likewise be the result if God allowed us to fall away from him. So, God isn’t about to let anything like that happen. That’s why Paul can say so confidently in Philippians 1:6 (CSB), “I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” God will complete the good work he began. Quite simply, his reputation depends on it. And that’s our ultimate source of confidence that he’ll enable us to persevere in our faith all the way to eternity. Even though we may have some very significant struggles with sin in this life, if we’ve truly been born again and truly belong to God, God will make sure we persevere. And if you sense your own weakness the way I sense mine, that’s one of the most comforting truths you could ever hear. Our salvation depends not on our ability to hold onto God but rather on his ability—and his commitment—to hold onto us. We are eternally secure.

Yet there’s one more thing I’d like to point out from this passage. Look at verse 24. Samuel says to the Israelites, “Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.” So, it’s not as though the Israelites could just sit back and do nothing and count on God not to forsake them. Instead, it was imperative that they “fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all [their] heart.” And what does Samuel say should be their primary motivation for doing this? They should do this, Samuel says, as they “consider what great things he [God] has done for you.”

And that should be our greatest motivation for living for God as well. It’s as we “consider what great things [God] has done for [us]” that we’re motivated to live for him. This includes the fact that God created us and has blessed us with innumerable earthly blessings. Yet, of course, the greatest thing God’s done for us is rescuing us from our sin and adopting us into his family and allowing us to spend eternity with him. And considering these things God’s done for us should lead us to love God more than anything else and delight in him more than anything else and therefore desire more than anything else to live in a way that brings glory to him.

So, if you’re struggling to overcome a sin in your life, the most important thing you can do is consider what God’s done for you and, in that way, acquire a deeper love for God and delight in God and joy in God. Because, when our hearts are full of love and delight and joy in God, sin no longer seems appealing.

You know, when I’m full of a nice steak dinner, I’m no longer tempted to snack on stale potato chips. And when you’re full of joy and delight in God, you’re not tempted to fall into sin. So, all sin can basically be traced back to a failure to delight in God. That’s why we commit sins. Whenever we commit a sin, it’s because—in that moment—we’re not delighting in God. We’re sinning because we’re empty.

So, the way to overcome sin isn’t to simply grit your teeth and try harder but rather to do what Samuel says and “consider what great things [God] has done for you” and thereby be brought into a state of loving God and delighting in God to such a degree that your desire for God overpowers whatever desire you might otherwise have for sin.