I Samuel 7:3 And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods.
Sometimes it is easy to confuse being a citizen of Heaven and being a citizen of our country, in my case, the United States of America. I thank God for America. There is no doubt that we are blessed people. This country has a pluralistic society, by which I mean there are people of a variety of social, ethnic, and religious backgrounds that are all Americans. I am thankful for that. I am thankful that we have some kind of interaction with people of a variety of backgrounds, and hence we are able to give the love and truth of the Lord Jesus to such people.
It is important for us to remember that while we live in a pluralistic society, we are not pluralists if we belong to the Lord Jesus. What I mean is that we do not believe there is more than one ultimate reality. The truth is that every leader in your life, whether it is the President of your alma mater, your pastor, or some other spiritual leader, is or will be under immense pressure in coming days because society is changing.
What has not changed is God. There is an optimism that comes from knowing His truth. We can have the confidence that God is good, just, and knowable through His Word.
In I Samuel 7, Israel had been away from God for a long time. The Ark of the Covenant had been taken from them by their enemy, the Philistines, but the problem was that Israel had gone far from God. They thought that they had God in a box, and, of course, they did not. They were not loving or following God.
When the Ark of the Covenant came back, the Bible says that “the time was long; for it was twenty years: and all the house of Israel lamented after the LORD.” I Samuel 7:3 says, “And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth 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.”
There is an “if, then” proposition. “If you do return unto the LORD” is revival. You can’t revive someone who has never been “vived,” or known the Lord, in the first place. People who don’t know the Lord don’t need reformation or to clean up their act; they need to trust the Lord Jesus. People who trust the Lord Jesus don’t need to be saved again; they need to come back to God as God’s people.
Now we are not Israel, but we are God’s people by faith in the Lord Jesus. So, he says, “If you will return to the Lord with all your hearts.” That is an unrivaled and singular devotion. Then he says, “Put away the strange gods, the gods that don’t belong to you and to whom you do not belong, and serve the LORD only.”
When Israel made sacrifice, the Bible says it was a burnt offering “wholly unto the Lord.” The Bible says that at that time “Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel; and the LORD heard him.” What a wonderful thing! They realized that the Lord had helped them so far. God had not failed them before, and He would not fail them now.
Israel’s problem was not that God had failed them. That was not the cause for their defeat. The cause for their defeat was that Israel had failed God. Israel belonged to God alone. However, Israel had allowed themselves to be absorbed into a larger pluralistic society who served a variety of other gods.
Today, we live in a pluralistic society, but we are not pluralists. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” If I truly love people, I’m going to be thankful for their freedom to choose because God would not have it any other way when it comes to the Lord Jesus. We come by faith in Him or not at all. So we can thank God for that, but we need to love people enough to know the truth, stand by the truth, and share that with them with the love of the Lord Jesus Christ.