1 Samuel 7:3-4 Inward-Outward

”So Samuel said to all the Israelites, “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.“ ‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭7‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

a. Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel: God raised up Samuel as a prophet and a judge (1 Samuel 4:1). Yet Samuel was strangely absent from the whole ark of the covenant fiasco. 1 Samuel 4:1 is the last place Samuel was mentioned, right before Israel schemed to use the ark as a good luck charm in battle.

b. If you return to the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods: Samuel called the nation to repentance. The repentance had to be inward (with all your hearts) and outward (put away the foreign gods).

i. The inward was more important than the outward, and it had to come first. That is why Samuel firstcalled Israel to return to the LORD with all your hearts, then told them to put away the foreign gods.

ii. However, inward repentance is a secret thing. It is hidden. No one can really “see” the heart of another. Yet the inward was proved by the outward. We can know if Israel did return to the LORD with all your hearts by seeing if they really did put away the foreign gods. No one could see their heart, but they could see if they put away the foreign gods.

c. And serve Him only: Israel did not feel they rejected the LORD; they felt they only added the worship of other gods to their worship of the LORD. Samuel called on Israel to turn their backs on these other gods and serve Him only.

i. “A worse enemy than the Philistines held sway over the land…. the people were thus in double bondage; the heavy yoke of the Philistines was upon them, because the heavier burden of a false worship crushed out the life of their hearts.” (Spurgeon)

d. So the children of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and served the LORD only: The local gods of Baal and Ashtoreth were popular idols among the people of Israel. Baal was attractive because he was thought to be the god of weather, bringing good crops and financial success. Ashtoreth was attractive because she was thought to be the goddess of fertility, thus connected to love and sex.

i. “Ashtoreth was worshipped over a wide area as the goddess of fertility, love and war, and plaques of naked female figures from the Bronze and Iron Ages in Palestine are numerous. The Baals were the corresponding male deities.” (Baldwin)

ii. “Baal, god of fertility and the storm, was believed to be the son of Dagon, god of grain. Ashtoreth, goddess of love and fertility, vied for supremacy with Asherah, mother-goddess and consort of El…. The association of Baal, Asherah, and Ashtoreth with fertility, particularly as expressed in depraved sexual ritual at Canaanite shrines, made them especially abominable in the Lord’s eyes.” (Youngblood)

(Guzik)

Inward-Outward

How do people really know you are a Christian? Because if you are truly born again Jesus slowly changes your heart ❤️, your inward self, and when that happens your outward self changes and people see that. You become a living example of Jesus.

Spurgeon says it plainly, “because the heavier burden of a false worship crushed out the life of their hearts.”

We need to examine ourselves daily for idols of false worship so we can stay centered on Jesus, because It’s far too easy to crush the life out of our hearts!

Is there anything you are more passionate about than Jesus? 

Blessings