Serving A King - But What Kind? October 4, Samuel 8:1 9:1 Matt Rawlings

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1 1 Serving A King - But What Kind? October 4, Samuel 8:1 9:1 Matt Rawlings 1 Samuel 8:1-9:1 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abi-jah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. 4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations." 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them." 10 So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, "These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day." 19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, "No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles." 21 And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the LORD. 22 And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey their voice and make them a king." Samuel then said to the men of Israel, "Go every man to his city." They say history repeats itself. And this can be seen because our tale repeated itself in a way, in the late 1700 s and early 1800 s again in France. In the French revolution, there was massive bloodshed and chaos as the people threw off their king, threw off royalty and wanted to make their society in their own image of so-called enlightenment. From the midst of the chaos, General Napoleon Bonaparte rose. Early, on, Napoleon was successful in his campaigns in Italy and he became a popular and powerful figure. The people appointed him to a 10 year term as the counsel, or commander in chief. France was supposedly a republic though, ruled by the people. But then Napoleon expanded his power to Italy, Switzerland and other parts of Europe. Then, in 1804, he plotted to make himself emperor. And in an act of ultimate pride, when the pope held out the crown to 1

2 2 crown Napoleon, he took it from the pope and crowned himself emperor, envisioning a dynasty that would last. Americans and the British alike lauded him as a hero. But in less than a decade, he dragged Europe into many bloody and senseless wars and even dragged the US into the war of 1812, where the US capital was burned. Napoleon ended up not giving to the people but taking and taking and taking and he made France even poorer and he plunged the continent and his country into war and destruction. It isn t always best to get what we want. The people of Israel found this out the hard way too. In our account in 1 Samuel, we don t just find a quaint tale of Israel s past, we find a historical event with implications for all of us, and we find lessons for the human heart. If you were to read along in the book of 1 Samuel, it would seem that chapter 8 is somewhat surprising. In chapter 4 of Samuel, the people tried to use the ark of God to accomplish their own purposes, without actually trusting and looking to God to save them. As a result, the people were defeated and the ark of God the manifest symbol of God s presence was taken from them. In chapter 5, God showed that He is the One who defeats His people s enemies without their help at all and the ark travelled through the land of the Philistines, killing them off until they sent it away from them. In chapter 6, the ark of God returned and the people were glad at first but some people died because they proudly thought that they could look into the ark, God s presence, and live. So, the people had tried to send God away from them, because they couldn t bear His presence. But in chapter 7, after 20 years of trying to live without God on their own, the people lamented after the LORD. They realized that they had forgotten God and that they needed God to be with them. Samuel told them that if they were really turning to God, then they would put away all of their idols, direct their hearts to God and serve Him only then God would deliver them. And that is what the people did. They repented of their sins, turned from their idols and all of them gathered for worship at Mizpah, where they prayed and fasted together. But just when things were looking up, while they were all gathered together to worship God, the Philistines surrounded them and they were afraid. In the height of their worship, when things looked like they were going well, God allowed the Philistines to surround them, so that they would be desperate for the LORD to save them and so that they wouldn t lean on their own strength. So, they cry out to Samuel to mediate between them and God and they desperately asked for the Lord to save them from the Philistines. Then, Samuel made a sacrifice of atonement and prayed to God and the LORD answered him and thundered against the Philistines and they were routed from before Israel. Israel had turned to God to lead them, trouble came after that, the people cried out to God and He delivered them from their enemies and restored their territory and gave them peace. But now, when Samuel is old, the Israelites forget again that it is God who leads them and that God is the One who fights their battles. So, here at the beginning of chapter 8, they have forgotten that they need to look to God for their help. They ve forgotten that God wants them to turn to Him for deliverance, when they are afraid, when they are shaken and in need. They have forgotten that they ultimately need God to lead and guide them. 2

3 3 So, we have a transition that is about to begin from judgeship to kingship. And if I were to summarize the whole passage into one sentence and boil it down to one thing we should take away from this account, it is this main idea Main idea: Seeking a king of your own choosing is rejecting God and leads to slavery. As this account begins, it begins with some understandable desires. You see it says, When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. Strangely enough, and we aren t told why, Samuel, when he gets old, does something that God had not set up he appoints his own sons as judges. Judges in Israel were not hereditary they were to be appointed by God. It s understandable that they wanted things to change. But their conclusion doesn t make any sense. They wanted to replace the hereditary line of Samuel with a hereditary kingship which you never know how their sons will turn out. But it reveals what was really going on and it is the first point that we see we have in common. You see all humans have the same desire to choose their own king. 1. A desire to choose your own king Samuel himself was above reproach and faithful to God. But his sons were greedy, dishonest and unjust they were not faithful to God. Where before it was easy to see why the dull, Eli s parenting might have produced wicked sons, we aren t given any indication why Samuel s sons were not faithful, nor are we told why faithful Samuel is not seen correcting or replacing them himself. Maybe he followed Eli s parenting example or now, maybe he just got lazy in his old age. The Bible doesn t ignore that his sons didn t walk in his ways and it just leaves us to see that even one of the greatest judges can get it wrong when parenting and that ultimately, the results are up to the Lord. The elders came to Samuel in Ramah and his sons were judging about 57 miles south, in Beersheba, so maybe he didn t really know what was going on after all. In any case, the elders were the representatives of the people and in some sense held the authority that they granted to the judges. But they were about to enter a new era, where the king is the authority and grants it to the people as he wishes this is a fundamental shift in the governing structure of Israel 5 and said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations." It wasn t wrong for them to want a king. But, they were bowing to the temptation to compare themselves they were concerned with what the other nations thought of them. They were supposed to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, set apart for serving God as their king. They were seeking conformity and security, instead of keeping their identity as God s people. They were forgetting that God is the God who is over all things Acts 17:24-25 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. They forgot that God was the One who changed Pharaoh s heart and delivered them from the Egyptians and parted the Red Sea and worked countless miracles and provided for them manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. They wanted security but forgot that God is the Rock, the most secure One. God is the one who protects them like a mother hen brooding 3

4 4 over her young and sheltering them with her wing. They wanted the same status as the other nations, and they were willing to give up their status as the special, chosen people of God. The problem was, they forgot who God is. How often do we forget who God is? How many times are we tempted in a similar way, to give up our status as chosen people of God, to be like those around us? That could look like wanting to fit in and act like those around us, instead of showing that we believe differently by what we do. Maybe this looks like subtly shifting our thinking and desires to be like the world around us, instead of letting our thinking and desires be shaped by who we are in Christ. The elders reasoned that the proven solutions in worldly institutions would work just as well for a divine institution such as Israel. The same logic is displayed today when the church is urged to imitate the practices that make corporations so effective and efficient. How often it is said today that by copying worldly approaches to recruitment, marketing, and product delivery, the church can expand God s market share in the world! The reasoning of Israel s elders continues to be heard among God s people: appoint for us a king like all the nations Bill Arnold Bill Arnold writes that their request was sinful in its motives, since it represented rebellion against God s rule; it was sinful in its timing, since they weren t trusting and waiting for God to bring His king, instead they were demanding a king now. And he writes that their request was sinful because it was cowardly and they took the easy way out of trusting a king they could see, instead of standing boldly in faith, trusting in their unseen King. The people were demanding that Samuel do things the way they thought best, instead of submitting to the Lord s will in faith. Verse 6 tells us that the thing displeased Samuel. That is somewhat of an understatement, a more literal translation reads that the thing was evil in the eyes of Samuel. The people wanted a King to judge them not Samuel, the judge that God appointed, nor his sons. And they were rejecting God as their King and this is indeed evil, when God s people reject God s rule. 2. A rejection of God They also weren t acknowledging God as their ultimate King. After all, isn t that what originally happened with Adam and Eve? God said what is best for you is to enjoy everything I ve created freely but don t eat of this one tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam and Eve believed the lie of the serpent that they would become like God no longer needing His rule and reign but becoming as wise as God the implication was that they would become equal with God and that was the first evil rejection of God s rule over humanity. Ever since, we are constantly tempted to try to rule ourselves and not submit to God and the means He has provided. We don t see Samuel reacting in anger though even though he was displeased, he modeled seeking the Lord in prayer for wisdom first before he responded. 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. The sin of the people of Israel was not that they wanted a king, but that they were rejecting God from being king over them. They were rejecting their covenant God as King and they will pay the price for it. Question: How do we reject God from being king over us? What would that look like for us? What passions and desires are we being ruled by? What motivates and drives our desires? Are we seeking for God to lead us or are we seeking for the wisdom of the world or pragmatism to 4

5 5 lead us? Are we seeking to honor God as King in our attitudes, actions and thoughts, or are we glorifying our own desires and wants and so exalting another king in our hearts? What does rejecting God being king over us look like? Being ruled by things other than His Word expediency, practicality, what seems right to us. We can also be ruled by fear and anxiety. Perhaps what caused them to want to reject God s rule was that they saw that Samuel s sons were not good and they became fearful? Verse 8 tells us that the people were forsaking Samuel s leadership just like they had forsaken God s leadership. Israel was forsaking God by seeking an earthly leader who would be impressive and lead them like all the other nations. It wasn t wrong for them to seek a godly leader to replace Samuel s clearly ungodly sons but it was wrong for them to seek a leader who would give them all the things the other nations had. And so, God evaluated their actions and their hearts and said that the problem was that they were forsaking God s leadership and serving other gods. Question: How do we forsake God and serve other gods? In verse 9, we read that God allowed them to have the evil desires of their heart. This wasn t mercy it was judgment like we see in Romans 1 when people worshipped the created worshipped what they could see instead of the creator and God gave them over to the debased desires of their heart. This is judgment and it should make us take pause and consider whether always hearing yes to our prayers is a good thing sometimes we can want the wrong thing. God allowed the people to have what they wanted, even though it wasn t good for them. God gave them over to the desires of their heart, but even in this, He solemnly warned them and gave them a chance to see what they were really wanting and what the consequences would be. Samuel told the people that they were rejecting God and told them that they were seeking after their idols, serving other gods. And then he explained in detail the very real consequences of their rejecting God and seeking after an earthly king to lead them instead. Ironically, in getting what they want, a king would now be sovereign over them and they were giving up their freedom under God as their sovereign. 3. A tragic outcome of getting what we want, is slavery God tells them six times that their kind of king will take from them and then says that they will be his slaves. And isn t it true, that whenever we reject God s divine rule, we end up being slaves to the master to whom we submit ourselves. Jesus said in John 8 that everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? The terrible thing is that them getting what they wanted meant the taking of their children. I think about my children and the future they could be living in all the time. I pray that God continues to preserve our nation from further moral corruption and debauchery. I pray that God preserves and protects the freedoms that we enjoy, that allow us to worship God freely and tell others about Him without punishment. Like most parents, I want my kids to do well and to be and do better than myself. 5

6 6 So, here, God tells them that their real heritage, their sons and daughters will suffer because of their choice. An earthly king that they are seeking will draft their sons into military service and be forced into the army. They won t get to choose what they do but their role and position will be chosen for them by the king. They will not only fight for the king in his battles. They will work to plow the king s ground and make him wealthy instead of enjoying the fruits of their own labors. Their efforts and skills will be used to make the king more powerful and they themselves will be subservient to him. Verse 13 tells us that even their daughters will be forced into jobs working for the king and won t be able to be wives and work in their own homes if they would want. What God was telling them was that their children will be adversely affected by their serving other gods and seeking an earthly ruler. Their children will pay the price for their idolatry and for them rejecting God and seeking an earthly king. That s true for us as well isn t it? Our kids will pay the price when we serve other gods and when we follow after idolatry. Our kids will suffer when we don t serve the Lord and seek His honor, His fame, His kingdom first. Our kids will serve another king if we don t serve God and that is frightening if you are a parent. It is good and godly motivation to serve the Lord so that your children will not by default serve another king. Not only will the earthly king not rule like the Lord, he will take what belongs to God the best and take it for himself. Samuel says the king will take the best produce of their fields and vineyards and take the flocks of their pastures and everything that they own and give them to his own servants and put them to his own work. In the end, serving this kind of king will lead to them becoming the king s slaves. As we read this may we see that we too become slaves of what we serve. Serving alcohol can become a cruel master. Serving drugs can become a ruinous ruler. Serving money or pleasure or our own way, or success, or whatever we think is a measure of success can become ruinous to us. The next warning is even more frightful: 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day." God says that there will come a day that they will hit rock bottom so to speak and realize just how bad it is to serve a king other than God. There will come a day when they realize just how bad it is to serve a king of their own choosing. Because living for a king of your own making always will end badly. It wasn t wrong for them to want a King but they needed God and His chosen king to be over them. What they really needed and what we really need is God s chosen King. But God says when they cry out because of what their king does to them and how he oppresses them, that the LORD will not answer them in that day. God says the end of that kind of living if we persist in it, leads to being truly on our own. Now, I don t know about you, but I would think that this would be enough to scare the people pretty bad and that it would be a wake-up call and they would turn back to God. But you know what? We have the entire Bible and we still sometimes choose to follow another king. It makes me want to evaluate whether I am living to honor God and to serve Him and it makes me want to get rid of any area where I am seeking my own rule or seeking to have things the way I think 6

7 7 that they should be. You see, it wasn t wrong to want a king but the lesson we can learn from this account is that 4. A king is needed, but not the one we choose It wasn t wrong to want a king but it was wrong for them to want a king in their own way, of their own choosing and in their own timing. Ever since Adam and Eve threw off God as their sovereign, we ve needed God to rule us again and mankind has looked to all kinds of things and leaders to rule their hearts. [Illustration of my daughters getting married too young, to one they choose now ] The people were so stubborn though, that they still sought to have their own kind of leader, their own kind of king a king of their own choosing and not God s choosing. They were cowardly, because instead of standing courageously against their enemies, trusting in their unseen King they wanted a king they could see to keep them secure. They were also rejecting God s Word by rejecting the words of the prophet Samuel. Instead of listening to God s Word, they were only concerned with their own interests. By doing this, they were rejecting their covenant God. They wanted to be successful and prosperous and have their own kind of king judge them and go out before them and fight their battles. As I think about these three categories, it makes me think about how I do the same thing in my own life. They forgot that they need God to be over them that God ruling over them is what is best. Sometimes we want our own way and we aren t really seeking for God to rule and reign over us. We can forget that what we need really, is to be ruled by God in our hearts, in our attitudes and in our behavior. You see, something or someone will rule your hearts that isn t the question it is just a question or who or what we will be ruled by. I know that as I consider this passage that is my prayer God, please rule over me. God, would your kingdom come and your will be done in my heart. Would you rule over the desires of my heart and cause me to desire you to be over me? Would you rule over my thoughts and may I serve you in what I think about myself and other people? God, would you rule over my tongue and keep me from speaking anything that doesn t reflect and obey your rule over me. God may my speech reflect your rule over my unruly tongue? God, would you rule over my behavior? Lord, what I need is for you to be over what I do, so that it reflects you as the King of my life. God, reveal any area where my thoughts, my desires, my speech, my behavior is not being ruled by and submitted to you? They forgot that they need God to judge them that they should seek for God to judge them and knows what is best for them. Sometimes we can get to the place where we think we are able to rightly discern our own motives and hearts and that we know what is best for ourselves and what we are doing is rejecting God as our judge. But what we really need is for God to judge our desires, our thoughts, our speech, our actions through His holy Word, the conviction of the Holy Spirit and through rightly submitting to other Christians as Ephesians encourages us to do submitting to one another. They forgot that they need God to go before them and fight their battles that God is what is best for them. One of the first ways that we are tempted when we face evil leaders, or difficulties, or enemies, or hardship is to leave God behind. And we do this when we fail to look to God, when we fail to cry out to God and to seek Him to go before us and fight on our behalf. But we need God to go 7

8 8 before us and we need God to fight our battles. We need to give up being self-sufficient and to pray to God asking Him to go before us and protect us, asking Him to fight our battles. Now, in the New Testament, there is mercy and forgiveness and God does not cast us off, but He still has these kinds of warnings about not persisting in sin which is following after other gods, being ruled by an earthly king. The end of the chapter is foreboding. They are going to get the kind of king that they re asking for but not the kind of king that they need. But who will be king we are left wondering. Ultimately though, we are not left wondering long either in Samuel or after that. The chapter ends showing us that we need God to be king over us and that we shouldn t be living as if an earthly king is what we really need. Here is the good news for us though God has given all who place their trust in Him, His own King He has given us Himself in His Son Jesus, to be our King and to rule over us, to judge us and to go out before us. The Israelites were looking for a king but the wrong kind of king. What kind of king are we looking for? Jesus is the true Chosen One the chosen warrior-king of all. You see, Jesus has defeated the devil, who ruled the earth and He has taken up His kingly reign. He has gone out before us to defeat our sin, He has fought our battle against our greatest enemy. He is ruling and reigning over every principality and power and over every person and thing. His reign is a reign of peace and mercy. His reign is one of righteousness and goodness. His reign is perfect and just. No matter who our earthly rulers may be, we can be assured that King Jesus is who we need. Let us look to Him and trust in Him, seeking His kingdom first and seeking for His rule to be lived out in our lives. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:3 that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. By making the statement Jesus is Lord, you are declaring your belief that Jesus is the lord or the King, the sovereign over all and by believing that God raised Him from the dead, you are placing your faith in His living and eternal rule and reign. So, becoming a Christian is all about living for and with Jesus as our King. But Jesus is a different kind of king when we surrender our lives to Him, He doesn t take, He gives. Jesus, the Son of Man came to serve. He gave up His throne to become a man, so that He might take our place, live the perfect life we should have and to die the death we deserve. He is the King who gave His life for us. He is the King who gives forgiveness from our sins. He is a King who gives pardon from God s wrath. He is the king who gives new life and peace with God. He is the generous King that gives us His Holy Spirit, to be with us, to guide us, to lead us and comfort us. He is the King who gives us all we need for life and godliness. So, how in the world would we not want to live our lives for Him and submit to Him as God s Only King? All too often, Christians become more like Israel than we care to admit, forsaking the security of the lordship of God and grasping after a compromise authority in order to become something we were never meant to be. Bill Arnold, p15 Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to 8

9 9 resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship When we give our lives to this King, though we may lose the whole world, He will give us everything that matters in return Redeeming Grace Church. This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the Website. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template. 9