Fill Your Horn With Oil & Go!

FILL YOUR HORN WITH OIL & GO!

1 Sam. 16:1

INTRODUCTION

A. HUMOR

1. Mr. and Mrs. Brown had two sons. One was named Mind Your Own Business & the other was named Trouble.

2. One day the two boys decided to play hide and seek. Trouble hid while Mind Your Own Business counted to one hundred.

3. Mind Your Own Business began looking for his brother behind garbage cans and bushes. Then he started looking in and under cars until a police man approached him and asked, "What are you doing?" "Playing a game," the boy replied.

4. "What is your name?" the officer questioned. "Mind Your Own Business." Furious the policeman inquired, "Are you looking for trouble?!" The boy replied, "Why, yes."

B. TEXT

1. Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” 1 Sam. 16:1, NKJV.

C. THESIS

1. Tonight we’re looking at a beautiful command of God to the prophet Samuel. Samuel thought his work was over with. All he could see was the broken monarchy that couldn’t be fixed.

2. We find that Samuel was way off in every way; God wasn’t finished with him and the nation wasn’t hopeless. God gave him a command which changed everything to God’s vision.

3. The title of this message is “Fill Your Horn With Oil and Go!”

I. GRIEVING OVER THE PAST

A. SAMUEL WEEPS FROM THE SIDELINES

1. After Samuel had prophesied that the kingdom would be torn from Saul’s hand, he retired to his private house in Ramah. He no longer appeared publicly, but contented himself to instructing and training the sons of the prophets. Only here do we see Samuel move back into a national role.

2. Samuel was a tenderhearted man and he was broken over the condition of his nation. Saul had disobeyed God and as a result, God was no longer supporting him against the enemies of Israel. These were dark days for God’s people.

3. And Samuel had evidently been weeping, mourning, and praying for King Saul. Saul had been God’s anointed, with the stature of a king. Samuel had thought he would champion God’s cause and bring victory for God’s people; but he had failed.

4. All Samuel could see was that the old order had collapsed and there was no hope of fixing it.

B. THE PROBLEM OF GETTING STUCK IN THE PAST

1. There IS a season for mourning, but there’s also a season for going on. Many people struggle with that. We all have pain in our past – circumstances/people that wounded us - and we struggle to emotionally deal with it and let go.

2. Frequently we find ourselves going over the same ground:

Why did this happen to me? Why did they hurt me? Why did I do this or that? We keep meditating on the past. What good will that do? We can’t change it! THERE’S TWO CHOICES:

3. You can keep talking about the hurt or start talking about God’s goodness. You can keep asking ‘why’ or get a hope for the future. Samuel learned he needed to “get over it” before he could “get on with it.”

4. God is saying tonight, “Let go of the past! Put it behind you. I have new things ahead for you, focus on those!”

5. JOKE. A woman came to her doctor in a panic.

"Doctor, all day long my daughter eats yeast and car wax, and won't get out of bed! What will happen to her?"

"Don't worry," said the Doctor, "eventually she will rise and shine!"

C. ILLUSTRATION

1. Eight-year-old Frank had looked forward for weeks to this particular Saturday because his father had promised to take him fishing if the weather was suitable.

2. There hadn’t been any rain for weeks, when Saturday morning dawned, it was raining heavily and it appeared that it would continue all day.

3. Frank wandered around the house, peering out the windows and grumbling more than a little. "Seems like the Lord should’ve known that it would’ve been better to have the rain yesterday than today," he complained to his father who was sitting by the fireplace.

4. Then, about three o’clock, the rain stopped. Still time for some fishing, they quickly loaded the gear and were off to the lake. Whatever the reason, the fish were biting hungrily and father and son returned with a full string of fine, big fish.

5. At supper, when some of the fish were ready, Frank’s mom asked him to say grace. Frank did--and concluded his prayer by saying, "And, Lord, if I sounded grumpy earlier today it was because I COULDN’T SEE FAR ENOUGH AHEAD." How true!