Title: Mizpah's Repentance/1 Samuel 7:1-17
Content "Repentance of Mizpah"
Humans don't want to change that much. As there is a saying in our country, 'A habit of three years old goes up to eighty', but the Bible says that human nature does not change until death. Still, Christians think that they change their minds when they believe in Jesus.
After all, after the conquest of Canaan, would Joshua have gathered the Israelites together and asked? I have told you to choose whether you will serve Jehovah God, or whether you will serve the gods of Egypt or the gods of the Canaanites. When the people said, “We will only serve the Lord God,” Joshua said, “You cannot serve the Lord because he is a holy God, and he is a jealous God. He will not forgive sins (Joshua 24:19). But if you forsake the LORD, even after he has blessed you, he will turn back and bring woe to you and destroy you.
The Ark of the Covenant has returned from the Philistines. The stolen ark of the covenant came back not because the people of Israel had regained their consciousness and changed, but because the ark had its own power. That power can create life and it can also kill. When the people of Beth-shemesh saw the returned Ark of the Covenant, they rejoiced. But when they looked into the ark of the covenant, fifty-seven people were killed. He even killed anyone who touched the ark (2 Samuel 6:7). The Philistines could not bear this ark of the covenant, but the Israelites could not bear it either. So he had no choice but to bring it into Abinadab's house on the mountain, and he had Eliasar his son set apart to keep the ark. So that's why I stayed there for 20 years.
However, at the beginning of today's chapter, it says, "All the house of Israel longed for the Lord." By examining the background of their longing for the Lord, we can understand the true meaning of why they yearned for the Lord. If you look at it, it's pretty obvious. Israel was now under Philistine oppression. Therefore, it was because of the oppression and suffering of the Gentiles that the Israelites sought the Lord, not because they remembered God's covenant, nor because humans had changed. They sought Jehovah out of pure need. They did not seek God to become Israel for God, but to become a God for Israel. This is what the Bible calls idolatry.
It is against this background that Samuel appeared. Samuel is, as we know, a priest, a judge, and a prophet. When judges appear in the Bible, it tells us that there is an emergency. Judges appeared because they had something to tell the Israelites. It is a warning measure to inform the people of Israel that it is against God's covenant.
So Samuel warned the people, "If you will return to the LORD with all your heart, remove from you the foreign gods and Ashtaroth, turn your hearts to the LORD, and stop serving them, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines." So, the Israelites removed their idols and served only the Lord. However, this was a way to liberate them from their suffering, and not truly to serve Jehovah alone. Israel is ready to serve anything as long as the problems they are suffering from are solved. If you want to fast, you are prepared to do it, and if you want to repent, you are prepared to repent. The next event that clearly shows this fact is that the Israelites gathered at Mizpah after hearing Samuel's words. There, they fasted and repented, but when they heard it, they misunderstood that the Philistines were engaged in war and attacked on the contrary. As you can see by looking at the attitude of Israel at this time, they are trembling with fear (verse 7).
They were fasting and repenting, but trembling because war broke out means that they do not even know the meaning of repentance and fasting. What is repentance? Repentance is like committing suicide. Repentance means liberation from their hypocrisy, and even though it is an act of surrendering all of them to God, they say they will only serve the Lord, but they are trembling in fear because the enemies are attacking them to kill them. To serve only the Lord is the same as saying, “Do as the Lord wills, whether I live or die.” If you call on God’s name to live and repent in order to save your life, even though repentance is also self-renunciation that it is okay to die now, this is idolatry. It is just another aspect of and just another expression of desire. Their repentance was not to banish their hypocrisy, but in a word, it was a mass of hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, Israel won this war. This victory was not due to Israel's fasting and repentance, but because of Samuel's prayer, and moreover, Jehovah God gave victory to fulfill the covenant because of his covenant. Yahweh God caused the Philistines to thunder loudly and defeated them. The reason why the Philistines were defeated here was that they did not know the covenant of the Lord, and Israel was ignorant of the covenant as well. However, the reason Israel remained is to show the reality of this covenant. In their own way, the joy of victory led them to erect a memorial stone. He named it Ebenezer, which means that Jehovah has helped us up to this point. Still, they do not fully understand who Jehovah is and why he has given them the joy of victory.