“’Now therefore, hold still; and see the great deed which Adonai will perform before your very eyes. Now is wheat harvest time, isn’t it? I am going to call on Adonai to send thunder and rain. Then you will understand and see how wicked from Adonai’s viewpoint is the thing you have done in asking for a king.’”-1 Samuel 12:16-17
Ever found yourself in a chaotic situation because of your sins?
Maybe you’ve got a broken family situation on your hands because you cheated on your wife multiple times…
Maybe you got caught stealing, went to jail, and now have to deal with having a criminal record for the rest of your life.
Maybe you maxed out your credit cards and now find yourself in a situation where you can’t pay next month’s rent.
Or maybe, and this is the most common one, you decided to walk away from God and seek nothing but your own personal pleasure.
After many years of doing drugs, whoremongering, and daily drinking yourself to death, one morning you wake up and find that you’ve got no job, no home, and your reputation has fallen to pieces.
If you find yourself in what seems to be a no-escape and no-hope situation, today’s and tomorrow’s posts are for you.
Why?
Because the above scenarios I painted are similar to the situation Israel found themselves in when they rejected God’s prophet Samuel in favor of an earthly ruler.
Starting from verse 16 in 1 Samuel Chapter 12, Samuel is going to peel back the curtain and give us some deep insight into how the Lord operates when we’ve sinned against Him.
But more importantly, you’ll get some divine instructions on what to do after your situation has been irreversibly damaged.
To get things started, Samuel proposed a demonstration.
It was to be a display of supernatural power and was to take place during the yearly wheat harvest involving the basic elements of nature.
It’s important to understand this was early summer when there was barely any rain.
Samuel tells the people that when he calls on the Lord, the skies are going to cloud up and it will start to thunder and rain like there’s no tomorrow.
The reason he is calling on God to perform these violent acts of nature is so the people will understand the anger of the Lord and just how heinous a sin they have committed in demanding a human king be placed over them.
Now why did this demonstration center around the weather?
There were a couple of reasons.
First, the ancients believed it was the gods who controlled the weather, and when it thundered, that was believed to be an expression of a deity’s displeasure on some matter.
To this point, notice how we’ll often see thunder used as a metaphor to express God’s wrath.
So you had best believe the people were quaking in their boots when the skies thundered at Samuel’s command.
Second, rain is usually considered a blessing, but only when it pours when it’s supposed to.
Rain didn’t usually pour during the harvest time…
And it was definitely a rare occurrence during the summer.
I can attest to this when I visited Jerusalem during the hot month of August.
During my 2-week stay, there was never one rainy or even cloudy day, not even once.
So when the rain started pouring in droves at Samuel’s command and lasted all day, the people knew something supernatural was up.
More importantly, the foolishness of what they had done and how they had so offended the Lord in rejecting Him for an earthly ruler struck home with an intensity they had never experienced before.
Here’s their response:
“All the people said to Sh’mu’el, ‘Pray to Adonai your God for your servants, so that we won’t die; because to all our other sins now we’ve added this evil as well, asking for a king over us.'”-1 Samuel 12:19
Amazing, isn’t it?!
The people had experienced a radical change of heart.
They begged Samuel to mediate for them and asked God not to kill them for their wickedness in asking for a human king.
Now, Samuel’s next response is what I want you to pay close attention to.
Notice he didn’t further condemn Israel…
Or tell them things were going to get worse from here on out…
Instead, he said four little words that must have startled everyone as much as it relieved them.
“Do not be afraid.”
Those words were as important to Israel then as they are to us now…
Especially if you find yourself in a no-hope and no-escape situation due to your sins and baboonish behavior.
We’ll continue with this the next time we meet…
This is a powerful teaching!
You could almost say “Be afraid!” first, because . . .only AFTER seeing *His* power and *their* guilt did they want to repent.
After the “Be afraid” comes the “Be not afraid”
This whole scene also prefigures somewhat Elijah’s showdown with the prophets of Ba’al in 1 Kings 18.
At this time of year, Ba’al – Lord of Lightning, Rider on the Clouds – was trapped by his brother Mot (death) in the underworld. It is not until the rainy season – around the 1st day of the 7th month – that he returns to his throne and can bring rain again.
Samuel shows they who the REAL God is!
Amen Eric.
To your point about “Be afraid”, recall the proverb “The FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).
Or the many times in Scripture we’re told to FEAR the Lord.
Be blessed!