This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 15, 1998.

This morning we are beginning our scripture reading in 1 Samuel chapter 4, we begin at verse 1. You might be thinking, oh no, he’s going backwards. Be patient. 1 Samuel 4, verse 1. And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle and pitched beside Ebenezer, and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel, and when they joined battle Israel was smitten before the Philistines. and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines?

Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, which dwelleth between the cherry-beams. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.”

And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was coming to the camp. And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is coming to the camp.

And they said, Woe unto us, for there hath not been such a thing here before. Woe to us who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods. These are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong and put yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that you be not servants unto the Hebrews as they have been to you. Put yourselves like men and fight.’

And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man into his tent, and there was a very great slaughter, for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. and the ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

Then in chapter 7, verse 3, Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If you do return unto the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and the Ashtoreth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only. and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’ And the children of Israel did put away Balin and Ashtaroth and served the Lord only. And Samuel said, Gather all Israel to Mishpah, and I will pray for you unto the Lord. And they gathered together to Mishpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.’ And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mishpah.

Our Father, give us strength as we look to you for encouragement in our prayers. For, Father, we would be availed of the benefit of this means of grace, and we would ask, Father, that in keeping with the intention of our hearts, our prayers might be pure and free from sin. But Father, we would ask at this time that we would be profited by your word, and Lord, that your servants throughout the world would be profited by that word, and that it would please you, O God, to raise up laborers for the harvest. Indeed, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Would you please then, O God, even from among us, send laborers into the harvest? We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

There are two repentances in 1 Samuel, chapter 7. The first is in verses 3 and 4, and the second is in verses 5 and 6. Now, I have suggested in previous messages ways in which we might approach these two repentances. For instance, I called attention to the relationship between this double repentance of Israel at the beginning of chapter 7 and the double defeat of Israel at the hand of the Philistines at the beginning of chapter 4. It is as if we find in the double repentance now the resolution of the double defeat. It is as if we find now in the double repentance the resolution of the double defeat. The repentance in its twofold presentation matches the defeat in its twofold presentation. The repentance then, leading to life, addresses and answers the judgment leading to death.

The repentance spoken of in chapter 7, leading to life, addresses and answers the judgment leading to death in chapter 4. Israel’s sin and the judgment that came upon Israel found an adequate conclusion than only in a work of God in which Israel responds with adequate repentance.

Now think. Think with me here. In this match-up between the double defeat with the double repentance, I don’t want you to conclude that this correspondence means to teach us that our repentance is to be listed in as a satisfaction for sin, or that our repentance is the cause of our pardon.

At the same time, you must know repentance is of such necessity to our sinners that we cannot expect pardon without it. Repentance doesn’t cause our pardon, but we cannot be pardoned without repentance. unfortunately too often in the life of the Protestant Church. Even amongst those who are descendants, spiritually and theologically speaking, from the Westminster Assembly and the Westminster Divines, whom I’ve just been quoting, as a matter of fact, too often in the life of the Protestant Church because people have some vague notion about the fact that their repentance can in itself create forgiveness. These people have forgotten that that repentance is essential and indispensable for a true confession of faith. In fact, you may be as grieved as I am. that much modern preaching of the gospel has had repentance ripped right out of it. Repentance, you see, assumes sin, and sin means that there are sinners.

These facts in themselves Medic, we are told, for a very negative self-image. Such harsh assessments are best left offstage, because there might be those present who would be turned off by such negative vibrations. But also damaging to the Church, if not more destructive, is the widespread conviction that Christian love, in this case, the highest level of Christian piety being invoked, the widespread conviction that Christian love demands that we forgo repentance. that we not insist upon it, that we forget about it, because we’re bigger people than to expect or demand repentance. You know how the argument goes. You’ve heard it, I’m sure. Maybe in the past, I hope not presently, you’ve used it.

God’s love is unconditional, therefore God’s forgiveness is unconditional too. Since his love and his forgiveness are unconditional, our love and our forgiveness must be unconditional as well. And this means, you can follow out the train, this means that we cannot be conditioned in by any expectation in others with regard to repentance. The beaten, bloodied Christian wife must forgive her criminally cruel husband and unconditionally extend her love to him despite the fact that he has not repented either of his deeds or his pattern of behavior.

Thrown in the face of that woman, as many of you know, will be the classic text, Luke 23.34, Jesus’ words from the cross, Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing, that if this woman’s husband is abusing her, the people who hurl that text at this woman are abusing not only the woman but the text itself.

Jesus’ statement in Luke 23.34 is not a declaration of forgiveness. It is not a declaration of forgiveness, it is a prayer for forgiveness. And just how do you expect Jesus envisions that prayer of his being answered?

By the action of God moving to repentance those guilty of crucifixion. And even in this case, their repentance will not be the cause of their pardon, but you may be assured there will be no pardon without repentance. Truly, then, the Church renders no gospel service, either by promoting a message devoid of the biblical call to repentance, or by encouraging Christians to embrace the silly, sentimental nonsense that Christian love demands of us that we nearly forget about sin. Because that’s the way in which we prove just how Christian we are. The Christian, to be sure, stands ready to embrace the repentant sinner. But the Christian also has no right to declare such repentance as these sinners may offer unnecessary.

Let’s get back to the text. Returning to 1 Samuel, if the double repentance of 1 Samuel 7 matches the double defeat of 1 Samuel 4, but the point is not to establish Repentance as the cause of the renewed love for the Israelites, then what, pray tell, is the point? Well, in light of our discussion thus far, the point we must conclude is not so much what repentance promises, expects, or hopes. but what repentance proves and demonstrates. The point is not so much what repentance promises, expects, or hopes, but what repentance proves and demonstrates. To be sure, now, we embrace the biblical truth. sinners may not expect pardon without repentance.

We also believe in what the Westminster Confession and Catechisms call repentance unto life. We can speak about hope, the expectation, the promise of repentance. We can even acknowledge in the text of 1 Samuel 7 itself that Samuel preaches the gospel of hope in verse 3.

Return to the Lord and remove your idols, and the Lord will deliver you from the ballistics. But all of this notwithstanding, as I have said, the point here is not what repentance promises or hopes, but what repentance proves and demonstrates. How do I know this? the ingenious subtlety of God in dealing with his people. He, even by root of that subtlety, places stumbling blocks in his people’s way.

You see, Israel repents in verse 4. But she continues in the hands of the Philistines. She’s not delivered! I only repented in order to get them off my back! You see where the Lord is driving you? You understand what he’s forcing you to go. I repented in order to secure the blessing, in order to secure the hope, the expectation. They repented, and they’re not delivered. What do you say?

Israel is even drawn further on. She is drawn to Mizpah, verse 5, by Samuel and his word, and convened in such a way that seemingly she repents again, verse 6, but still no deliverance, at least not immediately, not in the immediate verse. Well, it could be that you attempted to say that Israel pursued the second repentance with the attitude, the first repentance was inadequate, we remain in the hands of the Philistines, let’s repent again, let’s give God a second chance.

However, it seems from the reading of verse 6, you could spend a lifetime in that verse. It seems from verse 6 that the mood of the people, even the heart of the people, is one of abject and thorough contrition, regardless of the deliverance. In fact, in verse 6 you see, and possibly deliberately nothing is said about the deliverance. is not one word about the deliverance.

And I judge that it is here that we are burrowing right into the soul of these people in this circumstance, a soul that proves itself in its repentant disposition, its contrite disposition. You and I are looking at a people who have embraced repentance as a way of life. But you should be aware that this proof of the repentant disposition is also a demonstration of the nature of true repentance, and that indeed.

These people move on from the response to Samuel’s voice, his gospel voice and his life-giving message, in verses 3 and 4. to further response now to Samuel’s voice in 5 and 6, and here in verses 5 and 6, expressing now, in their repentance, these Israelites give themselves over completely to God and to his justice. I want you to hear that as this message moves towards its conclusion. It is here now in verses 5 and 6, expressly in their repentance, that these Israelites give themselves over completely to God and His justice. Do you wonder about their action? Has that verse, verse 6, puzzled you week by week as we have read it?

As you have considered the action of these Israelites as they come to Mizpah and they draw the water and they pour it out on the ground, seemingly as a religious activity, some form of religious devotion and expression. What are the Israelites doing here? What are they doing by drawing water and pouring it out on the ground before the Lord?

Well, if you turn to 2 Samuel, chapter 14, verse 14, you will have your answer. Here is the story in the 14th chapter about the woman sent to David by Joab to convict David in the matter of the banishment of his son, Absalom. Today is it about the religious condition and posture of God’s people, who live beneath God’s justice, utterly and completely dependent upon His mercy. She says, King James style now, for we must needs die, for we must needs die, or it is for us to die.

We are like water spilled out on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Repentance in its true expression speaks like this woman. Repentance is a self-conscious surrender of ourselves to God’s justice and to the death You see how inappropriate it is for us to place the hope, the expectation, the promise of repentance in prominence?

You see what you’re doing? You get it wrong. You miss the biblical point. The woman gets it right. She speaks the truth. for she understands that repentance is a self-conscious surrender of ourselves to God’s justice and to the death we deserve. That’s what’s going on in your repentance. You may not be thinking like that.

Repentance is a temporary nuisance. We do it because I guess we’re expected to do it, and we get it out of the way. Independence, therefore, is not the giving of ourselves to the hopeful expectations for our predicament, to the positive prospects and possibilities of our situation, as if we were but endure a measure of discomfort and humiliation, which will be grief if not negotiable. much to the contrary, repentance is the willing surrender of ourselves to God and to his justice, and this in a manner in which we identify ourselves with his justice and judgment. Repentance is the willing surrender of ourselves to God and his justice, and this in a manner in which we identify ourselves with his judgments.

The water is the people. They are making a statement about themselves. The water is the people, drawn up, poured out, incapable of being collected, gathered again. The situation is hopeless. As the water is spilt on the ground, impossible to be regathered, so are the people in their repentance.

They are giving themselves over to repentance, and by so doing, identifying themselves in and with the judgment that God renders concerning them. The corollary fast and the confession, with which the sixth verse concludes, express the Israelites don’t eat because the dead don’t eat. They are playing out their death, and the dead don’t eat. of their sin, we have sinned against the Lord, is the acknowledgment that God is right in casting them off and dealing out death to them.” He’s right. No argument, no equivocation, no bartering, no bargaining.

God is right. the nature of true repentance is being laid out in front of you here. But in conclusion now, repentance is not simply a willing identification with God and his judgments, but it is a prescribed conformity to that judgment. It is a prescribed conformity to that judgment. You are being forced to be conformed to the image of the judgment. You are being forced to be conformed to the image of death. That’s what’s happening.

And thus, our text this morning, 1 Samuel 7, 3-6, and the entirety, going back to 1 Samuel 4, 4-7, begins to come together in marvelous harmony, as to the intention of what the Holy Spirit has been saying throughout the course of the whole. included in this is the biblical rationale for the doubling of the repentance in chapter 7 verses 3-6. In the double repentance of chapter 7, the people of Israel are being conformed to the proportions of the double judgment laid out in chapter 4. They are being forced into conformity to the image of the judgment that has come. They are being made to identify with it, and they are being conformed to it. repentance they are being made to look like the dead and the deceived people of chapter 4.

But you will remember just how this lesson has been reinforced, not among the Israelites, but among the Philistines. in chapters 5 and 6, and thus how those chapters also serve these ends. For you will remember that the Philistines were made to undergo a symbolical repentance when they were compelled to make the burden hemorrhoids and the burden wraps. By so doing, in their symbolical repentance, they were conformed to the likeness of God’s judgment that had come upon them in the form of the plagues. They were being forced to confess that they were not just plagued by God with hemorrhoids and rats, but because of God’s judgment, they were hemorrhoids and rats. By the same token, the Israelites now, in their double repentance, chapter 7, are not only identified with those doubly defeated in chapter 4, they become those doubly defeated.

And as those doubly defeated, they are likewise dead. But as the woman in 2 Samuel 14 says to David, and now in paraphrastic form, that God does not take away life, but devises means. The Lord scheming for you to give back to you the dead life. But you know, you must acknowledge that you are dead and utterly hopeless apart from the intervention of God himself.

And what an intervention! For God has marvelously intervened in our Savior who even without any sin of his own, willingly identified himself with us in our sin, and even willingly conformed himself to the very reality of the judgment we deserve. And in him, now, you find a perfect repentance into which you have been privileged to enter by grace. In no wise is your individual repentance diminished in importance or obviated. It is necessitated that you might declare your identity with the Christ who has preceded you, and provided for you the perfect resolution.

Jesus Christ gives himself on behalf of the hopeless dead, that the hopeless dead, through the workings of God confirmed in repentance, might live in and through him. Amen. ask that we might have patience with your word. We have lingered long over these verses and these passages, but Father, we would wring them dry as best we might, and lord that to the benefit of our souls. Help us to profit, O God, for we would know the nature of true repentance, and O Lord, we would declare even here that our Savior is sufficient and that our repentance in relationship to him is most necessary. And in being informed about the nature of true repentance, may we be ever confident that that repentance is ours.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.