Q&A || Jonathan Juckes || Winter 2015 || Samuel

I hope you guys are all refilled after your tea and coffee and brinies actually, excellent brinies. Thank you for ever made them. We're going to get stuck into our Q&A. As you can see, we've got a substantial amount of questions. We're going to try our best to work our way through some of them, but obviously, it's not going to be possible to answer all the questions, so don't be offended. If you want to, if you have a burning question, go and approach Jonay sometime before, you know, over the dinner table, and I'm sure he would be happy to answer or get any clarity. So we're going to get stuck in here. Jonay, who wrote one Samuel? If Samuel dies, part of the way through the story was at Samuel, and why do we have two Samuel? Why is it broken under two volumes, if you like? Sure, Jon, so we don't know. Let me try at the same time approach the question from method. In these questions, what I'll try and do is address them. Also, you'll hear me think aloud about how to address them. So it's natural to come to a book like one Samuel and two Samuel and say, "Okay, who wrote it? Was it Samuel? Who wrote it?" And it doesn't say that Samuel wrote it anywhere in it. Other times, there are books that do tell us who the author is because that he or you. So we'll try and sort this out. Okay, all right, it's fine. I'm not bothered about it. Should I just go with us here, handheld? Should I take four of them down here? Away from? It's like an evil spirit. Is that better? Okay, fine. I think it's a feedback from us here. Is that better? I'll hold this. So in terms of method, it's a natural question. It occurs to us in important questions. So then all you've got available to you is to see what's the content of the two books name. And if you turn with me to the end of two Samuel, he is long dead by then. He's disappeared off the scene. We're told when he dies, but he's long dead by the end of two Samuel. Even though David is still alive. Are you happy? And so two Samuel, as a collection of two books, looks right back from the perspective of the very end of David's life, right back to the time before David was anointed. Samuel being the king-maker sent by God to anoint First Saul and then David. And so it's impossible to say that Samuel wrote all of it. Similar issues arise, don't they? We're reading the book of Exodus. Did Moses write all of it? It's hard to think that he recorded his own death, which appears there. So why does it bear his name? It's come to bear his name because I guess he is the major character in the first part of it. Why is it divided into two? Other experts need to tell you of this. I think it's likely that there is a hinge at the point at which Saul dies. There is a very different tone to the story after Saul's death, which comes out the hinge between one Samuel and two. We do seem to move on a gear at that point. It could be something structural like this room on a scroll for the first part and then another scroll. I've told you thus far. Okay. And Hannah's song, why does Hannah mention a king when there was as yet no king? I think it's at the end of the song. Let's go to that one Samuel chapter 2 verse 10. Very clear reference to the king. He will give strength to his king and anoint the horn of his anointed. I exalt the horn of his anointed. Take it the answer must be that Hannah is prophesying looking forward to what God is going to do and will do quite shortly. So God is giving Hannah confidence that he will in the end give his people a king. Okay. There was quite a few questions regarding the references in the text to God sounding an evil or a troubling spirit to Saul. What are we to do with the likes of that for Samuel? She is one of them which verse? 16 verse 14. Let's turn to it together. 16 verse 14. Now the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And there's a cluster of questions there, isn't there? In both halves of the verse. What does it mean first off to say the spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul? We tend to come from our side of Pentecost to the Old Testament without remembering that in the Old Testament the gift of the Spirit in the heart of the individual believer is quite different from our side of Pentecost. And actually Pentecost does mark a substantial difference within the intimacy with which individual believers may know God. And so the Old Testament, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon a king. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon him. Should I give up on this and just speak without it? Is that the easiest thing? I'll tell this off. Can he hear me still? That alright? So the Spirit of the Lord comes upon a king. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a priest or comes upon a prophet. There's a sense in which the Spirit of the Lord comes upon an individual to do a job. So if you look in the life of Samson, who's a very a godless character and all sorts of ways, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and then he wins a battle. He does a job. And it's almost as if the Spirit of the Lord puts him down and then comes at him again to do another job, picking up like picking up a shovel and putting it down again. The permanent presence of the Spirit of God in all the individual members of the people of God is a function of our side of Pentecost. So when it says the Spirit of the Lord has departed from Saul, it is not saying he was previously born again and in some way he became unborn again because the Spirit of God departed from him. The relationship between the Spirit and the individual heart in the Old Testament does seem to be a little different from our side of Pentecost. That's the first thing. The second thing that it says is an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. I'm thinking, whoa, hang on a minute, that doesn't sound so good. And that one needs to sort of split hairs. There are questions about each of the ways that that phrase is put. So what is this evil spirit? What does it mean that this evil spirit comes from the Lord? And what does it mean that this evil spirit then tormented Saul? And where left wondering is this a sort of God-sendering, a kind of demon to attack Saul and to sort of disturb Saul in some ways. And I think we just need to go step by step with the evidence that we have available to us and look around for other parts in the scripture that will help us to interpret what may or may not be going on here. And acknowledging that sometimes we cannot actually get to the bottom of it and say, okay, I've got that sorted, I understand that. So here an evil spirit from the Lord. Hmm, tricky that, isn't it? So as you start the book of Job and you encounter Job and you meet Job and all's going well from Job and then you're taken from Job sort of farm where things first off going well and then start to go really badly. You're taken up, aren't you, into where God is and we're told that Satan was where God is and that Satan was given permission to trouble Job and bring all these disasters into Job's life. Do you remember that? You think, hang on a minute, that's tricky, isn't it? Now the way we conceive of the supernatural invisible world can't easily handle the fact that Satan can be in the presence of God having a conversation with God and be allowed to go with God's permission and trouble one of God's own, which Job clearly is. So it seems to me that that's a helpful and relevant place to go to think about this. That's not to say that Satan is in God's employment and that God stands directly, got behind everything Satan stands for but God does allow Satan massive amounts of freedom in his world. In ways that we find very difficult to handle at times, it seems that wickedness is given a great deal of freedom to attack the people of God in the world. Short answer, we don't know, we are not told. Is God the one who is behind giving permission for this evil spirit to damage and disturb and torment all, yes, quite clearly? What does torment mean? Does it mean just that Saul started to experience a fresh bout of depression that seemed to have a kind of supernatural ingredient in it possibly? Again, we don't know. And so that's as far as I want to go on that, you see, to say that it is not beyond the realm of Scripture that God gives permission to Satan or one of his emissaries where to do stuff to his own people. But at the same time, I can't say because I wasn't there and the story doesn't say to us exactly what the impact was upon Saul. Is that enough? Anyone want to come back on that? I know lots of people have got this question. I don't want to be too tight and not too open. You see that. Great. You are critical in your free and work of kind of the street rude from the story to us today and there are application of Scripture. do we avoid? Mae'r i'n gwneud sy'n gweithio'r i'n gwneud oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r oes i'r Goliath o'r familu. Goliath o'r familu yn fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r fawr i'r f Goliath o'r familu'r familu'r familu'r familu. Mae'r rhwch i'r rhwch i'r rhwch i'r rhwch i'r rhwch i'r rhwch i'r oeddwn i'n gwaith i'n gwaith oeddwn i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n gwaith i'n a'r i'n gweith i'n gweithen i'n gweithen i'n gweithen i'n gweithen i'n gweithen i'n gweithen i'n gwyliol, gwyliol, i'n gwyliol, i'n gwyliol, i'n gwyliol, i'n gwyliol, i'n gwyliol, i'n gwyli 'Gath' o'n gallu 'Gath' o'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu'n gallu' ac mae'r gwaith yng Nghymru ac mae'n gwaith yng Nghymru ac mae'n gwaith yng Nghy o ddech yn seitan. Mae'r rhwylwch yn ysgolaieth i'n seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan. Mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan. Mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan. Mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan. Mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan, mae'r rhwylwch yn seitan. Hymnol, hwnnw'n wneud, hwnnw'n hwnnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwnw'n hwn Mae'n yw'n gweithio, mae'r gweithio, mae'n gweithio, mae'r gweithio, mae'r gweithio, mae'r gweithio, mae'r gweithio a'r yng Nghymru a'r Cymru yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru a'r Yng Nghymru Mae'n mynd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o ffordd o f yng Nghymru'n gweith i'n gweith i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i'w i i'n gweithio'r llwyddiad, mae'n gweithio'r llwyddiad, mae'n gweithio'r llwyddiad, yw'n gweithio'r llwyddiad, yw'n gweithio'r llwyddiad, yw'n gweithio'r llwyddiad. So the next verse verse 8, verse 8, although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and once we made perfect, he became a source of salvation. For us, the pathway to learning obedience is marked by disobedience, isn't it? For us, parents say, do not step on the grass, we step on the grass, the consequences follow, and we learn obedience by serial disobedience. But if we were learning obedience through the pathway that only included obedience, we would still be learning. Do you see what I'm saying by that? We would not be becoming obedient, we would be learning to be obedient, we would not be becoming more obedient, because we were already fully obedient, but through being obedient, you are learning what obedience involves, what trust involves. And I think there's a sense in which the Lord Jesus learns that, like a Buddha like that, he's not immune from learning that. Alright, I hope that's helpful. Great. Taking a step back to the Old Testament, the Samuel, and again I think this question relates a lot to a lot of the stuff that we read in the Psalms. And it says, can you speak to the idea in Hannah's songs that the wicked shall be silenced, and the God's adversaries will be broken under pieces. And again, we see that language employed a lot in the Psalms. How do we? understand that today and the here and I, because I suppose behind the question is the reality that we're not going to go out and go to battle and destroy everybody, so maybe that's asked very badly, but by myself. It's a good question. How do we know that God's enemies are going to be silenced? Is that the question, essentially? I think how do we understand that today and the here and now how do we react with evil? Well, the difficulty is that they're not yet, isn't it? The difficulty is that God's enemies seem to be very far from silent and very far from being reduced to silence. You know that's some, which is the reference to the song, be still and know the time God. You know that? What's that song that's coming? Just find that for me somebody, just shout out and say what silence it is. 47, 46, which is it? 46 and 7. 46, first 10, thank you. 46, first 10, that's right, be still and know the time God. You, the point of that silence, we sing that, don't we, there are other sort of gentle chords. Well, it's not that at all. If you look at 46, first 10, do you see what it says there, that in verse 9 he makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire, be still and know that I am God. Is the force of the verse. I will be exalted among the actions I will be exalted in the earth. And the force of that is that God says to these soldiers who are fighting shut up and stop and he insists that they shut up and stop and he makes, well he hasn't made wars cease as he entirely yet. But the vision in the sarm is the same as the vision in Hannah that the day will come when there will be no more, we can go the revelation, can't we, there will be no more tears, there will be no more grief, there will be no more pain, there will be no more reasons for tears or grief or pain. And at that point the voices that are heard are the heavenly cities singing, but the enemies of God have been reduced to silence, if it doesn't happen until then. And so Hannah I think is looking if you like in the short term towards a silencing of those who will oppose the King that God will appoint, they are reduced to silence, but ultimately the silence will only come when the new creation begins as the Lord Jesus Christ comes or as the heavenly city comes down. And that's when silence among God's enemies appears. Is that an answer to the question? Just looking under the future and the ultimate realities of what there are certain happen. Every time God does silence His enemies here enough that's a kind of a preview of the silencing that will follow, take a given example, when God silenced the clamor in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah is very clear that every time afterwards as the Old Testament looks back to that. And as the Lord Jesus looks back to that, it is a preview of the ultimate silencing of God's enemies that will eventually come. And in relation to the commandment, you shall not kill white as God, then order, killing and warfare so often in the Book of 1 Samuel. That's a perfectly fair question. It's part of a bigger question that we face all the time, isn't it? Let's deal with the Commandments first, you shall not kill, says God. And the Commandments, we just need to remember where they come and who they're for and what they're about. The Commandments are instructions, aren't they, to God's people on how to remain in a relationship with Him. He's already rescued them out of Egypt. And He says to them as they meet with Him on the mountain, here is the kind of shape of what it looks like to go forwards in a relationship with Me. When we sometimes come to the Commandments, as if they are sort of things that definitely, okay, I'm okay on that one, I'm okay on this one, okay. But the point of the Commandments is surely to reveal to us what we don't do and who we are not, rather than to show us who we are. So the point of the individual command, as Jesus then develops that command where He says, you shall not kill, you've heard it, you shall not kill, but I say to you, anybody who is angry with his brother without cause is guilty of breaking this command. We tend to assume that these commandments have a small scope and Jesus says, "Mmm, reaches right into the heart and our attitudes to each other are exposed by these commands." So this commandment serves that function of revealing sin all through its history, sin in the individual. Not then do we make of the fact that God, as time goes by, not just as He develops His people into a state, but subsequently in the New Testament, when He is talking about the governing authorities, He talks about the governing authorities being His minister who carries the sword. And it seems that God is glad to create human institutions where wickedness and injustice is to be dealt with if necessary at the point of a sword. Obviously there are others who take different views on this, but my own position is that the commandments are designed to teach individuals about sin, who we are, as we fall short of what full obedience and loyal faithfulness to God looks like, and that it is permissible for the state in the New Testament and in the Old to carry the sword. The question then why does God act so much killing is in the Old Testament is difficult for us, isn't it? Why is there so much blood? And I think that is part of the underlying issue that one and two Samuel are dealing with. Even with a man after God's own heart, there is so much blood. And one of the things that Hannah's song does for us is reassure us that yes there is blood, and the king in the end can't be fully trusted David is blood thirsty and abuses his power subsequently, but he is in the end God's chosen, this is the least worst option going forward and God in his grace is going to use even sinners like King David to carry his purposes forward. But we can still wish it could be done with much less blood, but there is the blood there. And in the Old Testament, God it seems sometimes uses his own people to achieve his judgment here on earth in wiping out parts of the map in ways that are very uncomfortable to us, in ways that he doesn't do in New Testament times where our enemies are no longer flesh and blood, our enemies of the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms. They may work through individual people, but our enemies are not those people, our enemies of the spiritual forces in Ephesians 6 that stand behind those individuals. That's a big sort of frameworky answer, but I hope it's helpful. When you think about the future and increasing chaos in the world today, what do you pray for? Our Father in Heaven, hello be your name, that way, that's how Jesus taught his people to pray, and so that's how we should pray. Is one Samuel 8, that's the chapter where they choose the King, a warning against being a government, I think it's actually a warning against choosing a king. God's people choosing a king, then there. You were saying about you referenced William Kerry, expect great things from God and attempt great things for God, thank you for examples such as Hannah, Jonathan, David, and Jesus. Could you give me any more advice or examples on how to do this today in our lives? It's a very good question, I'm glad it's been asked, and it's the great danger of quoting anything like expect great things from God, attempt great things for God. My kind of answer to it is to rejoice that it was said, to rejoice that it was helpful to William Kerry and the rest of them, and then to read a book by Michael Horton, which is called ordinary, and actually that's very helpful as a perspective on our lives today that were called to be ordinary, children of God, who love God, who love our neighbor, who love God's word and love God's son and read God's word, and seek to serve him in the ordinary places where he has called us, and if he then intends to do something extraordinary and spectacular and great through us, well, hooray, and that's his position, his kind of initiative, not ours very often. Having said that, what's a great thing for God? What's a great thing to God for God, to God being a Christian, isn't it? That's the first thing to go on to be, want to be, is to be a faithful loyal disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, for as long as I have breath, that'd be a great thing, given my own waywardness and weakness and capacity to muck up and stray off, be a great thing just to keep on going, and so let's have a clear sighted vision of what a great thing is, it'd be great to be a godly husband, be great to be a godly father, be a great to be Godly. on to my mother, brother to my sisters. And so let's see what great is. - I've kind of made a mess of dropping all the questions in the floor, so we have got time for an other few questions. Apologies if yours wasn't asked here, but I just want to give the opportunity if there's anyone on the floor who has a question. Andrey. - Can I just hold them on my side for a few more? - Just in terms of where you want us to hear and advance on the draw of asking you to do something and sure during the begins are you sure that you'll try to get it on my question? - I think it's a perfectly good question. Yeah. - If you go on with something, do you only need the question? - Yeah, I think the question you were asking is when is a charge from God? When is it God putting something into your mind that is your then responsibility to respond to? And where do you, in a sense, rely on your own human initiative and say, wouldn't it be great if the whole of Belfast got converted and be great to attend, whatever it is that you're wanting to kind of lead off to see happening, is that right? - Yeah, I guess where you look at what you're saying is that you need to wait a little bit and go on as proofs dropping, do something extra in there, or are you doing plan when you know that that is something that goes like in the heart and not something that you do it all within your ambition and then it's way asserts. - Well, I think ideas, a couple of different ways of responding to that. You know, an idea comes, wouldn't it be great if? Well, then the wisdom must be to pray over a period about that idea. And I think ideas from God have a habit of growing warmer and ideas that are just kind of something we've cooked up grow colder in my experience. So test the conviction over time in prayer and then test the conviction with concentric circles of Christians whose reaction you are able to respect, who know you won't have to say nonsense, you know, too much cheese, or who say to you, you're a great idea, but not, you know, I've got the gifts for it, forget it. Or who say, no, this seems good to us. Let's together pray and pursue this idea and see whether this may be of God. I think that's one thing to say. The other to say is that just occasionally over the years, it just to speak sort of personally, people ring up and say, would you apply for this sort of job? And I say to myself, well, no, I won't. You can pray, and if I can't sleep, I'll let you know. And in a sense, that's a way of testing initiative that comes from somewhere else to see whether or not you feel that you should become caught up in somebody else's initiative. As they don't hold your breath. And you know, when that's happened at them, I go to sleep and I don't make up and I don't worry about it. In the sense, I believe God has called me to be where I am to do the things He's given me to do. And to be able to do those is the great thing for God that He is interested for me to do. That looks pretty ordinary for everybody else, but that's the thing that I have to do. So we read the great ones, you know, Hudson Taylor, given the vision to evangelize the whole of China. And we think that should be like, it should be like that for us. And we've sort of slightly second-class citizens unless we have that kind of target in our sites. And that kind of vision for a great thing. And I don't think that's true. And that's why I quoted Michael Horton, his book, "Ordinary." Everybody is almost everybody is called to be ordinary. If God makes you extraordinary, that's up to Him. And then the other thing to say, therefore, I think is that occasionally, we allow ourselves to be unworthily ordinary, if I can put it like that. In being ordinary, it seems to me, therefore we carry out our responsibilities to the very best of our ability, whatever they may be. So we do the next thing and we do it right. And maybe then we do what's the next thing to do and do that right, too. And that's a great thing to seek to be the best we can be in whatever the particular responsibility as God has given us to do. Without making the way God worked in one person's life 150 years ago, the pattern of how God should work in all of our lives today. I hope that's helpful. - Anyone else? Ben? - Some ways can make it to that. Do you laugh at church at something along the 17 years ago? I wanted to, I don't think that would be an ordinary, no church, a kind of six-litre people. And it's been a fucking way for 17 years. What's your heart and what's kept you doing? - Just to let you know, I was on the team at St. Helens in London, St. Helens Bishop's Gate. In those days, it wasn't as large as it is now, but 1,000 people a week were coming through the doors. And I led the team, again, in those days, the staff was nothing like what it is now, but 13, I think, on the staff when I was there. And I wanted to go somewhere where I wasn't building another man's foundation, where they had not really heard the gospel, as far as I could tell. And in God's grace, the church I now serve in East Yorkshire was that kind of church. My predecessor had worked hard. Been there 11 years, he was certainly a converted man, but it had been very difficult for him. And before that, there'd been somebody there for 30 years, whereas as far as I can tell, there was no gospel during that time at all. So I inherited a congregation of perhaps a dozen at eight o'clock, BCP, sort of common prayer, and nothing else. And then in the morning, an all-age service was about 20, and then a service dominated by a choir, where more in the choir, about 12 in the choir than they were in the congregation. And then perhaps in the evening, again, book of common prayer in the evening, and there were probably a dozen in the choir and three in the congregation in the evening. We didn't go to a service on a Sunday before going there with our young family. We had four children. And as far as we could tell, we arrived, there was nobody else under 50, who was converted with whom we could be friends. And I was 39, my wife also the same. No children for our family to get to know, particularly just one or two, but no Christian friends for them. So it involved trusting God to take us on an adventure of faith, as it were. And we prayed that he would bring to us a new couple or family or individual each month into the life of the church family. Before they got converted, just find a way at home and then be converted. And in his grace, I think he's done that for us each month, since we've been there in May, to May 1998. And they died and moved on. But things are a bit different now. What's been hard, my wife was served as a missionary in Africa in Cassisi Hospital, South West Uganda before we were married. She would say to you, it's more lonely in East Yorkshire than in East Africa, in serving as a minister's wife, herself a minister of the gospel. There was no one to lead Sunday groups for our children. They said, where's the Sunday, well, there wasn't one. And so I encouraged her to teach our children. And then if anybody else learned anything, that was a bonus. And that was hard for her. So every Saturday night, she would be kind of filled with anxiety about the difficulty of teaching the children the following day. There were obstacles to the gospel. Unfortunately, the choir became an obstacle to the gospel. And so someone said to me, after a couple of years, he said, if I was going to be honest about this church, I would say it's an organ console with a church attached to it. Well, we had to move the center of power from the organ console to the gospel, to the word of God. And as I preached the gospel, for the first two years, I always preached from one of the gospels. So it's always talking about Jesus. There's a verse in John's gospel, which talks about it being like the light coming on, that the light shines. And some come out of the darkness into the light, and some when the light shines, go into the darkness. Well, I could see that happening in front of me. There will be people who'd sort of creep into the door and gradually move towards the front, weak by weak. And there are others who are in the church who gradually move towards the back and then out the door, weak by weak, as the gospel sifted people who are in front of me. And in God's grace, we've seen gentle growth throughout that time. What keeps you going, the Lord Jesus, the Spirit of God, and friends, gradually friends within the church, but initially friends from outside the church. Things like this, I go each year to a group of ministers where we meet, I just go wherever it happens to be speaking. And that keeps me going, keeps me accountable. And in God's grace, we're still there and plugging on. Does that answer your question? Well, thank you, Johnny. You've survived very well. Nothing too awkward, just a hot jukes of hazard question. We're going to-- That's what I should say. I should say that jukes, when it's properly spelled, is J-U-C-K-E-S. Nothing to do with a D. There you go, for whoever wrote that question. That's it, guys. We've come to the end of our time together, so we have. I hope you've enjoyed it. I always find that the Q&A are really a beneficial time to reflect on some of the questions that I've had. And I think that's been helpful. And I think it's been beneficial to do that.