World Unyielding

For the LORD will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you His people.

1 Samuel 12:22

After recounting the faithfulness of God toward His people, the Prophet Samuel shifts attention to the unfaithfulness of his kinsmen. Repeated deliverance from the hands of their enemies was overlooked by God’s people as they grew weary of serving their Deliverer. To heighten the offense in the sight of God, they asked for a man to reign over them. In requesting a king for themselves, they desired to become like their enemies. Enchanted by the royal customs of surrounding nations, their minds were set.

Having made their desires known to Samuel, they awaited the coronation of an earthly king. Hopes gravitated to a man soon to be seated upon an earthly throne rather than to God, who sits enthroned in heaven from everlasting to everlasting. The LORD God permitted a king and sought out a man of His own choosing. But the guilt of His people remained. In the immediate aftermath of such unashamed disobedience, assurance of the faithfulness of God is given to His people. The command to leave sin and turn afresh to Him is grounded upon this truth: God’s unwavering commitment to His people as contained in this promise.

The reasoning is plain. God’s vow to not forsake His people is not based on their faithfulness. It is a matter of grace and entirely undeserved. And if you insist on finding a reason, look no further than God Himself. For His acts of faithfulness are rooted in who He is and the glory of His being. The LORD does not stay faithful to His people because of their obedience. If that were the case, they would already be utterly forsaken. Samuel had already charged them with the evil of requesting a king for themselves. But for the sake of His own reputation, God overlooked their wickedness.

Believer, are you much better? I fear we are worse than we dare to imagine. Idols creep in to seize our hearts by cruel deception. And do you suppose you are an exception to the rule? Or perhaps the Apostle John later wrote in vain, saying, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” Far from it. It still stands true. The same fallen instinct to wander after the empty things of this world is in us. A soul foolishly risks everything that is to be had in the LORD God. For a few passing pleasures, he turns aside from following the LORD.

If nobody can earn the favour of God, then why does He care to enter into a promise-bound agreement with a single soul? How is it that the LORD is pleased to make sinners His people? As Israel was chosen out of the nations during ancient times, so sinners are chosen out today. Spare some time to survey the conduct of Israel, and you too will wonder. Why did God choose them? They fell into the same evil as the surrounding nations. And as I step down from my pedestal and look in the mirror with sober judgment, I wonder at the grace I have received. All from the hand of the sovereign God who freely chooses unworthy sinners.

The faithfulness outlined here is a fruit of love. Considering it is a love given to a particular people, and thus withheld from everybody else, it is rightly described as the electing love of God. Any beneficiary of such love ought to echo the words of the inquiring disciple, asking, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Yes, a proper understanding of the electing love of God ought to provoke the same question.

Spare a moment to truly consider the God who does whatever He pleases. Once men and women grasp the reality of the sovereign God who chooses undeserving sinners to be objects of His everlasting love, amazement of the highest degree grips them. They too ask, “How is it?” What a wonder. And, left open-mouthed, they call on others to marvel at God’s promised acts and His faithfulness, saying, “O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.” What? Would God be pleased to number me among His people? Would God love such a wretched, poor excuse for an image bearer of Him as I?

The LORD God freely decides to make chosen sinners recipients of His grace. It pleased God to choose from among the fallen mass of humanity a people for Himself. Before an ounce of strength is used in obedience to God, the decision is already sealed by sovereign decree. Would God care to look upon a guilty soul? It is a marvel that the LORD God would spare a dirty, unruly, hell-bound soul from deserved destruction. It is a greater marvel that He would then bring that same soul into communion with Himself.

Such was the case with Abraham, the original Patriarch of Israel, who was salvaged from ancestral paganism. He was the one to whom God promised, saying, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” Reader, are you a token of God’s faithfulness to such a promise? I stand amazed at how He gave my soul the faith to behold and rejoice in the God-glorifying means by which I have been drawn into this everlasting love. For Christ is that seed, and in Him, I am counted among God’s people. Christ, who committed no sin, suffered for sinners. He Himself bore the sins of His people upon the cross. He did it alone, such that there is no other way to reach and experience the loving faithfulness of God.

The people of the LORD stand against a backdrop of multitudes left unchosen. My soul, look around and tell me, what makes you differ from another? Like Israel among godless nations, you are among the multitudes who are beneath clouds of ignorance. Amid a world that does not know the loving faithfulness of God nor His Son, you once shared in its ignorance and brutal emptiness. God manifests His love to His people and not to the world. Therefore, people are in the dark by default. God penetrates clouds of ignorance with the light of truth which comes from Himself. A soul does not know the love of God unless He reveals it to them. They may speculate about love and elevate expressions of supposed love even within the walls of so-called churches, pledging faithfulness to that which God condemns as sin and deserving of judgment. Widespread ignorance persists until God interrupts the madness. Such is the helplessness of everybody.

Yes, there I too once stood among growing confusion. God, in His mercy, singled me out. He intervened and did not forsake me. Purchased at the cross of Christ, the Spirit of God applied redemption to my helpless soul. And now, against a backdrop of depravity, I wonder, ‘Why me?’ It is a mystery of faith which I must hold to with a clear conscience. I do not know the particulars. The secret things belong to the LORD our God. But I will rejoice in the truth of His electing love that has joined me to His people. I will stand in awe of what He has done for the sake of His holy name. I will find security in His promise not to forsake me, for He is pleased to reveal such to me.