In the Midst of Your Enemies: Exposition and Application of 1 Samuel

by Joel McDurmon

Preachers are always looking for more preaching materials and helps, as they have to produce a steady stream of acceptable sermons. In more than one way, this was the impetus for me to start this series. First, I wanted to provide a model of exegetical sermon material written from a Christian Reconstructionist perspective and with applications to the civil and social realm. Few of these exist, particularly in regard to civil matters, and I wanted to equip pastors to begin preaching this way, and to embolden them to produce likeminded works on other books as well. There was a time when preachers preached this way. While pastors and theologians today often frown upon civil and social applications based on Scripture—especially from the context of Old Covenant history—I have been powerfully encouraged by John Calvin’s sermons on Deuteronomy and 2 Samuel 1–13. It is long past time that pastors began to realize this type of application and to deliver it to their congregations.

Second, I personally needed sermon material, since I was preaching roughly twice a month at Christ Church (CREC) in Branch Cove, Alabama. I had always been enamored with the message of 1 Samuel 8 for its direct bearings upon political tyranny in our own age. Then I saw the sanction of arms control in chapter 13. The more I read, the more I saw scenario after scenario which had overt political, judicial, and social applications, and they all seemed to apply just as directly to our own time. So I decided to make a series of sermons preaching through the whole book of 1 Samuel.

What followed was even more fruitful than I imagined at the outset. In our age, denuded almost completely of social or political and legal applications of Scripture, who would dare to think that 1 Samuel addresses nearly every possible phenomena in those realms that we have witnessed in modern times, as well as the psychological and spiritual issues behind them? In fact, if most people remember much from 1 Samuel at all, it may be the faithful prayer of barren Hannah (the subject of so many Mother’s Day sermons), but perhaps is only the story of David and Goliath. Little would most people suspect that Hannah was praying for a political and social revolution in her time or how 1 Samuel addresses, among other things, the direct link between social freedom and God’s Law, national security and God’s Law, as well as specific political issues such as biblical principles of warfare, kingship, national defense, the right to bear arms, taxation, military conscription, national greatness, political candidacy, political parties, party rivalries, jurisprudence (including biblical “common” law versus arbitrary civil or “statute” law), how to remain faithful under a regime hostile to biblical law, expatriation, political compromise, voting, the lesser of two evils, the surveillance state, and more. And it is simply staggering, once you understand the narratives involved, just how closely Samuel’s and David’s situations parallel our own in many ways, and how often the political expressions of modern Christians more closely align with Saul’s than with David’s. Among these pages, perhaps only the first sermon is mostly devoid of such subjects, and this only because it is setting the theological stage for what follows.

May the Lord bless this land with preachers bold enough to speak the whole counsel of God, even when it challenges civil leaders and criticizes cherished civil institutions and practices.

410 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 2014

About the author

Joel McDurmon, Ph.D. in Theology from Pretoria University, is the Director of Research for American Vision. He has authored seven books and also serves as a lecturer and regular contributor to the American Vision website. He joined American Vision's staff in the June of 2008. Joel and his wife and four sons live in Dallas, Georgia.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In the Midst of Your Enemies" is a good model for the type of preaching our churches lack today. It is not often that a preacher will expositionally preach through an Old Testament book-particularly one that the church so desperately needs to hear today.

McDurmon methodically teaches through 1 Samuel, showing the richness of the text, what it meant at the time, and what it means today. The book of 1 Samuel exposes our own complicity in the sins of our day. McDurmon writes:

"The people of God must serve Him 100 percent. We must then fight against all His enemies all the time. When we ignore them, redefine them, excuse them, hide from them, or find any other means of escape, we are denying the God we claim so proudly to serve. It is a step away from blasphemy."

He goes on to argue that the church will "talk of discipleship" but

"Never discussed are the social and economic dimensions flowing from the Gospel: self-sacrifice, God's law, investment, stewardship, inheritance, capitalism, production, education, protection of life (the unborn), etc. Advancing these issues could cause all kinds of discomfort among the congregation, because they require substantial, life-altering dedication and sacrifice-i.e., time, effort, and money. People are often already set in their ways, at odds with the values taught in God's law,. Advancing that law in a sermon series would force their hand: either repent and change, leave that church, or . . . silence that pastor!"

McDurmon comes to these types of conclusions from the text because he's likely much harder on Eli, Saul, and Israel, than most Christians are today. In his discussion of the return of the ark from Philistia, McDurmon, speaking of Israel's confession of sin, writes: "Corporate confession and discipline go together, and build upon one another. Sin is always at the heart of social failure and strife." This stands in stark contrast to the kind of thing we'll hear from our celebrity pastors who say things like "Society is not the report card of the church." The Bible is clear that the sins of a nation put it in a position of judgment from God. That is the teaching found in 1 Samuel 7:3, "direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines."

McDurmon elaborates on 1 Samuel 7, writing, "The whole chapter is nothing short of a return to the Law of God, and God's blessing in return. But these concluding verses indicate that no "revival" should be considered complete unless it also produces reform of public institutions. Whatever happens in the worship services on Sunday, let's not get too excited until we also see God's Law exalted and justice in the land." Yet it is this type of expectation and intention that is utterly abandoned in our day.

The church has absconded from its responsibility to be salt and light, instead, retreating to its ever-shrinking echo chamber, fighting its internecine battles, rather than winning the culture for Christ.

McDurmon goes on to excoriate the kingdom of Saul, whom he demonstrates to be much more than a "bad" Israelite king-but, in fact, equates Saul with "the seed of the enemy", writing that "Saul was the manifestation of the wicked one in the nation. Indeed, the fact that his decapitation is recorded here signals that he was of the seed of the enemy. Just as with Eli, just as with Goliath, Saul's head was crushed-and his death is said to be the work of the God Himself (1 Chron. 10:14)."

While Saul's lawless kingdom is falling apart, God is creating a new kingdom established on God's law through a man after God's own heart, David. McDurmon writes of David, concerning the spoil taken after their defeat of the Amalekite's:

"The text goes on to say that he made it a statute and a rule for Israel from that day forward to this day (30:25). But while David was confirming this Law for the present and future of Israel, we should not think from this that it had originated with him. He was merely applying what was learned earlier under Moses after defeating the Midianites: The LORD said to Moses, "Take the count of the plunder that was taken, both of man and of beast, you and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers' houses of the congregation, and divide the plunder into two parts between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation (Num. 31:25-27). As he had done so often in the past, David remembered that Law upon which he had meditated day and night (Ps. 119:97)."

This is an outstanding book that contains a message from God's Word that the contemporary church needs to hear.