The Way Back to God, Part One

It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the LORD. And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtoreths, 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 and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, “We have sinned against the LORD.” And Samuel was leader of Israel at Mizpah.

When the Philistines heard that Israel had assembled at Mizpah, the rulers of the Philistines came up to attack them. And 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 offered it up 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 Israel in battle. 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 Car.

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the LORD helped us.” So the Philistines were subdued and did not invade Israelite territory again. Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines.

1 Samuel 7:2-13

First Samuel 7 reveals to us the way that an apostate people can come back to their loving and gracious God. It is good to study the context of this chapter so that we can appreciate God’s mercy in the lives of his people.

The Context of Apostasy

This chapter is set during a time when Israel had become apostate. The word apostasy means to stand away from something, which, in this case, was God. Because of her apostasy, the nation of Israel began to suffer oppression from her inveterate enemies, the Philistines of the Pentapolis, in the cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath.

As we study this chapter, may we think about how many of us are miserable because our own standing away from God. God is not the cause of our miseries, but, praise be to God, he comes to us in grace to deliver us from the pit of our own making. As we consider God’s grace as revealed in this chapter, may we learn to not blame other people or God for our misery, but to truly acknowledge our own failures and sins and to turn to God, that he may help us.

The Israelites were oppressed by the Philistines because of their own apostasy. In 1 Samuel 4 we read that the Philistines had engaged in a war against Israel and killed about four thousand Israelites. The elders of Israel, who themselves were backslidden, did not know what to do about this setback. Woe to a people whose elders are not walking with God! It is like the blind leading the blind into the pit of destruction.

The confused elders of Israel asked, “Why did the Philistines defeat us?” Then they diagnosed their situation very superficially and unwisely concluded, “We can probably take care of this thing very easily. We’ll just bring the ark of God with us to battle.” They thought that merely bringing of the ark of the covenant to the battlefield and giving a great shout would ensure the type of victory they had experienced in the days when Joshua fought against Jericho.

The ark was brought out to the battlefield, but when the battle resumed, there was no victory for the Israelites. In fact, by the time the second battle had ended, another thirty thousand Israelites lay dead. The Bible tells us that a young Benjamite ran to Shiloh to relay news of this terrible defeat to Eli, the high priest, and we find his report in 1 Samuel 4:17. First, the Benjamite said, “Israel fled before the Philistines.” This itself was a shocking statement because Israel was supposed to win all her battles. Then the Benjamite continued, “The army has suffered heavy losses.” Then he added, “Your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead.” What was his final word? “The ark of God has been captured.”

What terrible news! The Bible tells us that when the messenger spoke about the ark of God, ninety-eight-year-old Eli, who by this time was heavy and unable to see, fell backward, broke his neck, and died.

Eli’s daughter-in-law also died that day after giving birth to a son. Before she died, this woman named her son Ichabod, which is a terrible name meaning “no glory,” but which also reflects her understanding that God had departed from Israel. I believe this woman was a godly woman, even though she was married to Hophni, one of Eli’s wicked sons. I am sure it was a terrible marriage because, although Hophni was corrupt, this girl was a person who feared God, as we see in her spiritual insight. Instead of weeping for her dead husband or even for herself, she wept because God had departed from Israel. In verse 22 we read her words: “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured.”

The events of this passage are a fulfillment of what God had threatened to do to his apostate people. In 1 Samuel 3:11 God told Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle,” and now God was acting in fulfillment of his promise. How does this apply to us? Just as God acted then, so he will act today. God always deals with his own people when they take him for granted.

What are the effects of apostasy? Apostasy brings about death, defeat, and destruction. Apostasy causes God to depart from our midst and abandon us to our own devices so that we might reap the fruit of our own sin. In 1 Samuel 2:30 God gives us this principle, “Those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disdained.” Israel suffered defeat, not because the Philistines were so strong, but because of her own internal weakness. In fact, it was the God of Israel who defeated his own people. The Israelites thought that by bringing the ark with them, God would be with them, even though they were apostate, but they were wrong. We cannot manipulate God.

The Philistines also tried to manipulate God by manipulating the ark. But no man can control God. God is sovereign over all and controls all. After they captured the ark, the Philistines took it to Ashdod and placed it in the temple of their god Dagon, who was the chief deity in the Philistine pantheon. The god of fertility and storm, Dagon supposedly lived in the sky from where he fertilized the earth with rain. But the truth is that Dagon was just an idol, and idols are nothing and can do nothing. Only the God of Israel, the true and living God, sends rain down to the earth and gives us our bread.

The true God is not just one of the many gods in a pantheon of gods, so the ark of the true God, the God of Israel, judged the idol of the Philistines. The Philistines had set the ark next to the image of Dagon, but the next morning they discovered that sometime during the night Dagon had fallen face down before the ark in the posture of worship. The priest put the idol back up, but the next day he found that it had fallen again. This time Dagon’s head and arms had broken off in the fall. It was as if the Sovereign God was declaring that all the idols of the world are brainless and powerless. They are nothing and less than nothing, mere postulations of human imagination.

Not only did God judge the Philistine idol, but he also judged the idol-worshiping Philistines. The true God not only judges his own people, but he is the judge of all the earth. After Dagon had been dealt with, the Philistines themselves became afflicted with tumors in their groins. This caused them to realize beyond doubt that the God of Israel was acting with power to trouble them. Yet even then they refused to repent and believe in God, just as modern people do. Rather than submitting and trusting in the God of Israel, the Philistines chose to send the ark of Israel promptly out of their country, and for twenty years the ark stayed in Kiriath Jearim at the house of Aminadab.

That is the context of the events of 1 Samuel 7. God abandoned his people to live in misery, defeat, confusion, degradation, and oppression. What was the reason for their condition? Their own refusal to keep the covenant of the Lord.

The Way Back to God: Realize Your Condition

How, then, can we get back to the living God? First, we must recognize our true condition. After twenty years, the people of Israel were fed up with their apostasy and the resulting oppression they were experiencing. They had had it! Let me ask you: Are you fed up with your life of sin, your life of defeat, your life of powerlessness, your life of confusion, your life of misery? Not everyone will answer yes to that question. There are some worms who thrive in the sewer. But if God has chosen us to be his people, then God will bring about this type of fed up condition in our hearts and we will long for God and begin to seek him.

We read about this in 1 Samuel 7:2: “It was a long time, twenty years in all, that the ark remained at Kiriath Jearim, and all the people of Israel mourned and sought after the Lord.” Let me ask you: Has it been twenty years for you? Are you fed up with your sin, or do you want a little more? You must make up your mind today. Young man, young woman, old man, old woman, are you fed up with it? As the prodigal son became fed up with his miserable condition and began to long for his father’s house where there was plenty of food, have you also come to a place where you are fed up with your sin? Have you come to your senses and realized that sin has brought you not happiness but only great misery?

Are you fed up with your life of misery? Are you fed up with your wanderings from God? Are you fed up with your apostasy? You sought happiness without God but found only wretchedness and confusion. Do you now realize that idols cannot save you? Do you now realize that only the true God of the Scriptures, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, can save you? Are you also like the prodigal son who came to a sound mind through his experience of misery? Have you seen that the way away from God is littered with nails of sorrows and pain and that idols cannot save you, independence cannot save you, but only the Sovereign God can save you?

The late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said philosophy cannot save us, even though it has become the idol of the modern world. Twentieth-first century man doesn’t want the very word of God. He is creating mountains of books of his own cogitations, but they cannot save us. Idols of science cannot save us, nor can idols of social legislation. Our new-found wealth cannot save us, nor can our youth. We are all dying and we will die. I hope we will realize our folly and long for God as the Israelites did.

The Way Back to God: Repent

What is the second thing we must do to get back to God? In verse 3 we read, “And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, ‘If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” The second word is return, or repent.

God realizes that we are fed up with our situation. God realizes that we have had it. In fact, it was God himself who made us miserable enough to realize our true condition and who causes us to long for him. No man on his own initiative will long for God unless such a longing is birthed into him by the mighty power of the Spirit of God. That is why I said not everyone who is in a miserable state will return to God. Some love the misery. In fact, they enjoy it. It is their natural environment, just as the natural environment of worms is the sewer. They thrive in it and relish it.

But if you are truly miserable, listen to the wise counsel Samuel gave to God’s people. He told them to turn from all apostasy and idol worship and return to the true and living God and to his word. He told them to return in wholehearted repentance. He told them to change their thinking rather than trying to negotiate a return to God. He told them to acknowledge they had been completely wrong in their thinking concerning God and all reality. He told them to confess their insanity and delusions that man can live without God.

What happens when we change our thinking in this way? We will also change our behavior. Additionally, we will change our affections. Before, we loved sin but now we hate it. Before we hated God; now we love God, worshiping and serving him alone.

We must do these things wholeheartedly. During the days of King Ahab, Elijah asked the Israelites, “How long will you waver between two opinions?” Double-minded people are unstable in all their ways, James tells us. So Elijah said, “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him” (1 Kings 18:21).

Jesus said we cannot serve two masters. We cannot negotiate with God. He is a totalitarian who dictates terms to us and demands our total surrender to his terms. That is why our repentance must be wholehearted.

The Way Back to God: Rid Yourselves of All Idols

What is the third thing we must do to return to God? If you realize our miserable condition and are truly repenting, we will rid ourselves of all idols. There is no both/and in Christianity. Either we serve God or serve the devil. Half-hearted worship of the true God is wholehearted worship of idols.

Samuel told the people to get rid of all their Baal and Ashtoreths. We get the idea from the Bible that the Israelites had relished these symbols of Canaanite sexual deviancy and immorality. We may think this is terrible, but isn’t that what we as a society have done as well? Pornography is a billion dollar industry in our country today. Every day husbands, wives, and children are on the Internet, committing fornication. It is happening every day throughout this land. In fact, major companies are working hard to find more ways to pump this filth into our homes. They want to make money. Sex has become our god, and Christians and non-Christians alike are worshiping the Baals and Ashtoreths of our day.

But if you want to get back to God, you must rid yourselves of all idols. That includes the idols related to sexual immorality.

The Futility of Idols

In 1 Samuel 12:21 Samuel told the people, “Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.” People go after idols in search of happiness but idols are useless and can do no good.

Additionally, idols are powerless to save us. When God comes in judgment-and he is going to come-what will people do with all their idols of philosophy, science, social action, silver, gold, education, and a know-it-all mentality? In Isaiah 2:19-21 we read

Men will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from dread of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. In that day men will throw away to the rodents and bats their idols of silver and idols of gold, which they made to worship. They will flee to caverns in the rocks and to the overhanging crags from the dread of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty when he rises to shake the earth.

Why are these people throwing their idols away? Because they are powerless to deliver them from the wrath of the Lamb, who is coming. Idols are powerless.

In Isaiah 44:9-10 we also discover that idols are unprofitable. There we read,

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing?

What is profitable? The word of God. It alone is able to make us wise unto salvation. It alone is profitable for doctrine, for rebuke, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work, as we read in 2 Timothy 3:16. (PGM) The wisdom of God as found in his word alone is profitable.

Finally, in 1 Corinthians 10:19-22 we learn that every idol worshiper is really worshiping what is behind the idol, which is a demon. That is why we must rid ourselves of all idols. Paul writes,

Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. . . .

Some people believe in plurality of religions and pantheons of gods, but there is only one true and living God. Everything else is idolatry-the utter lies of men, the worship of useless, powerless, and unprofitable demons. We find this idea repeated several times in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 41:4 we read, “Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord-with the first of them and with the last-I am he.” In Isaiah 42:8 we read, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” In Isaiah 43:3 we read, “I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior,” and in Isaiah 43:11 we read, “I, even I, am the Lord and apart from me there is no savior.” Finally, in Isaiah 44:6 we read, “This is what the Lord says-Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: ‘I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.'”

Idols Must Go

What, then, is the issue? Before we come to meet with God and worship him, we must rid ourselves of all idols.

In Genesis 35 we find God telling Jacob to go to Bethel. In Genesis 35:1 we read, “Then God said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God. . . .'” God was inviting Jacob to meet with him at Bethel.

Bethel means the house of God. Bethel means to meet with the holy, infinite, almighty Savior God, the Judge of the universe, the only and true God. Jacob understood the implication of such a call and so in verse 2 we read, “So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you and purify yourselves and change your clothes.'” And in verse 4 we read, “So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.”

“Get rid of your idols!” Jacob was telling his people. “Don’t you know that our God is a jealous God? Therefore, get rid of anything that you worship rather than God! Bury it before you take one step toward Bethel.”

Joshua makes the same demand in Joshua 24:14 and 23, telling his people to throw away their foreign gods that they may serve the one true God of Israel. We read the same thing also in Judges 10:16 and Hosea 14:3. Whenever there is an interest to go toward God, God’s people automatically want to get rid of all idols. In fact, this becomes our great desire and our throwing out of our idols proves that we are coming to God in true repentance.

In Acts 26:20 Paul told his listeners that they should prove their repentance by their deeds. Those deeds begin by abandoning all their useless, powerless, unprofitable, demonic idols of every kind, especially their own philosophical notions.

Remember, the cause of our misery is our own sin, as we read in Hosea 14:1 and Isaiah 59:1-3. That is why we must get rid of all idols and begin to serve the true God. A Christian cannot operate on a both/and principle. If a person wants to fornicate, he or she cannot thrive in a Bible-believing church. That person is a bad tree who will bear only bad fruit. But a person who wants to get rid of all idols is a good tree. Such a person will thrive in a holy atmosphere.

The Way Back to God: Recommit Yourself to the Lord

The fourth step in coming back to God is to recommit ourselves to him. In 1 Samuel 7:3 Samuel told the Israelites, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of all the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve him only. . . .” Our God is a jealous God who demands our exclusive worship.

In Deuteronomy 6:13 we read that we must fear the Lord our God and serve him only. Jesus quoted this verse in Matthew 4:10 when the devil solicited him to sin and go contrary to the will of God. Jesus told the devil, “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'” That is exclusive service of God.

I asked a boy recently, “What is saving faith?” Then I taught him the difference between saving faith and the faith of the devil. You see, the devil believes in God and trembles, but he will never love and obey God. The devil’s faith is a faith without obedience to God. But saving faith is total commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ to serve him now and forever. If we have saving faith, we will eagerly seek to know and do God’s will always with delight.

Jesus told us, “By their fruit you shall know them.” We hear people saying, “I believe,” “I believe,” “I believe,” all the time. But in this country and throughout the world, most of the “I believe”s have nothing to do with saving faith. It is an expression of demon faith. How can we know that? Because most of the fruit produced from this type of faith is only bad. That is why we must commit ourselves completely to the covenant Lord and serve him only.

Notice, when we read about the assembling of the Israelites at Mizpah, we do not find any mention of complaining or grumbling about the inconvenience of coming there. These people were so fed up with their misery that they would go wherever they must to find relief.

The Bible tells us not to neglect the assembling together of the saints. Let me tell you, if you are fed up with your misery, you will gladly go to the assembling of the people of God. There is the oasis, there is the food, there is the water, there is the healing, there is the salvation, there is the refreshment, and there is the intellectual stimulation you need to find strength for your Christian life.

In verse 6 we read that the Israelites assembled at Mizpah where they poured water out on the ground. It is an interesting and unique action. I believe this was an expression of the Israelites’ true repentance. They were ritualizing their weeping by pouring out water before God. These people were truly humbling themselves before the Lord, and the water represented the sorrow and grief they were experiencing because of their apostasy.

Additionally, we are told these people fasted. Fasting is a form of self-affliction and shows the earnestness with which these people were seeking God. On the Day of Atonement it was required that God’s people fast before him. In the same way, these people fasted to show that they were serious, earnest, focused, and totally committed to coming back to God.

The Way Back to God: Confession

The fifth step in our way back to God is confession. In verse 6 we read, “On that day they fasted and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the Lord.'”

Confession means you own your sin. It means that you blame, not your mother, your father, your country, your pastor, or your church for your problems, but only yourself. It means that when God’s Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will not point your finger at anyone else, but will say, “It is me, it is me, it is me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.” You will beat your breast and say, “O God, I have sinned. Have mercy upon me, a sinner!” as the publican did in Luke 18. You will join with the prodigal son and say, ” I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am not worthy to be called a son. I am nothing. Make me a hired servant so I can eat something.” That is true confession.

In Psalm 32 we read that David didn’t want to own his sin. But because he refused to speak, he began to feel miserable. In fact, the Bible tells us his bones began to crack. Why do you think David was so miserable? Because he was an elect of God and God was disciplining him. But all of a sudden his mouth opened, and he said, “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity” (Psalm 32:5). Let me tell you, our God is able to make our lives so miserable that our mouth will open and we will own our sin and honor God. We will not try to conceal our sin or blame others for it.

Confession means we agree with God-in regards to everything, including sin. So when you confess your sins, you are saying, “I agree with you, God. You are just in your judgments and right in your pronouncements. You are the Judge of the whole earth. You are right, you are true, and I am all unrighteousness.”

What About You?

We will speak more on this in another study, but let me ask you one thing: Are you tired of your misery? Jesus Christ told us he came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. Paul told us, “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and then he added, “we also rejoice in our sufferings” (Romans 5:1, 3).

Let me assure you, it is not divine ordination-it is not God’s intent and plan-that we remain in the misery of our own creation. God is a God who wants to bless us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or imagine. He wants us to come to his oasis and drink. Throughout the Scriptures he tells us such things as, “Come unto me and drink,” “Come unto me and eat,” “Come unto me and be healed,” “Come unto me and find rest.” What wonderful invitations from our loving God!

What about you? Are you like the Israelites who longed after God? Are you like the prodigal who, in the far country, came to his senses and said, “Oh, this is terrible. In my father’s house there is plenty.” If so, there is hope for you today.

It is not the Father’s intention that his people have a miserable existence. Do you recognize the true misery of your condition? Are you paying heed to the divine, totalitarian demand of wholehearted and true repentance? Are you willing and ready even this moment to rid yourself of all idols and every darling sin? Are you ready to throw off every weight that hinders you in your race and every sin that entangles you-the sin that is described as euperistatos, which means every sin that is standing around you waiting to easily attach itself to you? Are you saying, “I don’t want these idols and sins at all! I want to be free from the slavery to idols and the burden of it all”? Are you ready to get rid of all useless, powerless, unprofitable, demonic, and enslaving idols? Are you ready to go to Bethel so that you can meet with God? Throughout his epistles the apostle Paul counsels us to put off falsehood, immorality, and any other sin. Putting off and ridding ourselves is the same idea. And after you have done that, are you ready to commit yourself to the exclusive worship and service of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you ready to confess and state, “O God, you are right and I am wrong. My thinking is wrong, my deeds are wrong, and my affections are wrong. I am all unrighteousness.” Let me tell you, there is deliverance for you when you confess these things.

May God help us to think about these things. God alone is our oasis-the living water, the living bread, the resurrection and the life, the source of eternal life. May the Spirit of the living God fall afresh on us that we may come back to God. As the prodigal returned to his father and rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory, may we also return to our Father and enjoy his presence. Idols are only burdens which wear us out and tire us. May God liberate us from such burdens! He tells us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 1:28). As we come to God, may he grant us his rest even this day. Amen.