The ramifications of Confession and repentance

1 Samuel 7:7-17

Have you ever given thought to the ramifications of confession and repentance?  First, let's look at the negative, the one who has had control of your life is now on the outside looking in, and the old thief or Satan is not at all happy that you are no longer his child.  Jesus was very clear about this when he was talking to some religious Jewish people.  You’re doing what your father does.”  “We weren’t born of sexual immorality,” they said. “We have one Father—God.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me because I came from God and I am here. For I didn’t come on My own, but He sent Me. Why don’t you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to My word. You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars.”

So when we come by faith to an understanding of the cost of the Cross, that our redemption was paid in full by the blood of Jesus Christ and it is by grace through faith that we leave the control of Satan and enter into Christ.  That is salvation and victory, but it is also the beginning of the battle, not to recover us, but to render us unusable to our Lord.  It's often referred to as living a defeated life as a follower of Christ.

That is where we find the children of Israel, they are the chosen of God, but they live in fear of the Philistines, and they have allowed the gods of the Philistines to be part of their lives much like so many in todays church.   Now today they do not look like gods, we call them sports, IRA’s, 401K’s, children, or grandchildren, even government, and lifestyle, and the list is very long.  But a god is anything you spend more time with and give more thought to than God.

Today the fear factor is off the charts, as it was with the people of Israel, and yet they remember and once more put their trust in the living God and that’s when Satan got excited and aroused the Philistines to attack the people of God.  Now the people of Israel were smarter than most of us.  They did not go and buy a gun to defend themselves; they went to the man of God, Samuel and said, “Do not cease to cry out to the LORD our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.” 

This is the rest of the story; Samuel took a young lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the LORD.  And Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him.  “Samuel was offering the burnt offering as the Philistines drew near to fight against Israel. The Lord thundered loudly against the Philistines that day and threw them into such confusion that they fled before Israel. Then the men of Israel charged out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines striking them down all the way to a place below Beth-car.

Afterward, Samuel took a stone and set it upright between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, explaining, “The Lord has helped us to this point.” So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israel’s territory again. The Lord’s hand was against the Philistines all of Samuel’s life. The cities from Ekron to Gath, which they had taken from Israel, were restored; Israel even rescued their surrounding territories from Philistine control. There was also peace between Israel and the Amorites.”

Faith and fear or like oil and water they will not mix, and in the Scriptures, 366 verses tell us; Fear not.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice