1 Samuel 7-8 and Romans 4

"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and those whose sins have been covered.  Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account."  - Ps 32:1-2

"Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them." - I Sm 8:7

"Yet, with respect to the promise of God, [Abraham] did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was also able to perform.  Therefore, it was also credited to him as righteousness."  - Rm 4:20-22

This morning, the Israelites rejected Samuel's sons as their judge and demanded a king instead.  Even though the Lord warned them through Samuel in detail of the problems they would definitely encounter - including drafts and taxes - they still did not listen to him.  On the other hand, in Romans, Paul discussed the belief and obedience of Abraham, and how the Lord came through for him and his belief was credited to him as righteousness.

Again there is a convenient juxtaposition of themes between these two books, this time of obedience and disobedience.  Although we know that God had ample room to redeem both parties' mistakes in the future (Abraham got impatient and fathered Ishamel, giving rise to all problems in the Middle East and the kings of Israel were almost always problematic), it is clear in retrospect that listening to the Lord and obeying Him is always a good idea.

1) Listen to the Lord and obey Him, because He knows the future and has a good plan for it.

Romans is so thick with truth that it's hard to pick just one thing to talk about.  I'd like to mention though that in my translation, it says in 4:25 that "He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification."  The word justification pricked my ears, because I've written the last couple days about how our God is a God of justice.  So as in Genesis where we were made in God's image initially, here He remade us in his image by justifying us.  We were unjust, but he made us just through faith.  Amen.

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