Those Who Pray

1 Samuel 8:4-6 ESV

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.

The history of the people of Israel is an incredibly interesting history. And as we view their history, what we see is that the people of Israel are, and always have been very dear to God.

The history of this people actually goes back farther than a lot of people think. Their history actually stretches back all the way to the time right after the Great Flood. Of those from the earth who survived this flood there were only 8 people: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives.

Thus, once the flood came to pass and the waters receded these 8 people remained. These sons of Noah were named Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but it was God’s sovereign will to choose Shem as the one whom the people of Israel would eventually descend from.

Many years after the flood, all of the people living on earth at that time gathered around a man named Nimrod who led them in building a great tower that they hoped would extend all the way to the very heavens.

When this happened, God confused the language of the builders so that they could not continue building. He then dispersed the people and according to their different languages that they now had; they went their separate ways.

But even more than that, when this occurred it is said that God disinherited the nations, the different people groups now separated by language and land area.

And when it says that God disinherited these nations, what it means is that God at this point chose to give spiritual authority over these different people groups to other spiritual beings, demons who would rule these peoples in the spiritual sense.

But though God chose to disinherit the nations, He also eventually put in place a plan to draw to Him those whom He had chosen to save before the foundation of the world through a particular people group. And in doing this, God would effectually inherit for Himself a people from the four corners of the earth who He would claim for His very own.

God came to a man named Abraham and told him to leave his home and to go to a land that He would show him. Furthermore, God told Abraham that through his offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Thus, God sovereignly chose Abraham to be the one through him He would establish a people group as His own precious possession on earth. And God also sovereignly chose the land in which this people would dwell.

This people group as a whole was eventually given a collective name, that name being Israel. God declared that Israel was His people, His possession and inheritance on earth, and that through Israel would come the One Who would make atonement for God’s elect all over the world.

And God most certainly proved Himself to be faithful to Israel, never leaving them, never abandoning them. Even as they dwelt in Egypt, the land of slavery, God had not forgotten them, and in due time God led them out of the land of slavery and powerfully and lovingly sustained them as they trekked through the wilderness, eventually bringing them into the land that He swore their ancestor Abraham that He would give to them.

God had clearly marked the people of Israel out as His own people, His inheritance that He had made holy. He had powerfully worked through them, displaying one mighty act after another, sustaining them, blessing them, fighting for them.

But while God had remained consistently faithful to Israel, Israel had a problem staying faithful to their God.

In fact, Israel had quite often found themselves growing weary of their God to such an extent that they seemingly took every opportunity to disassociate themselves with their God and to reject their status as a people sanctified to the Lord so that they could just blend in with the surrounding idol-worshipping nations and associate themselves worth their worthless gods.

These were the very people whom God had driven out so that Israel could claim this land as her very own. These were the people whom God had warned Israel to have nothing to do with so that they would not entice her to worship their gods. Yet Israel consistently found herself more and more enamored with these nations that God had warned her to stay away from and have nothing to do with.

And because they were so enamored with these idolatrous nations, Israel quite often found herself following their practices.

We see an example of this in our reading for today, when the people of Israel had found themselves in a tough situation. As we said last week, the dilemma that Israel faced was that Samuel the prophet had grown old and was no longer fit to judge Israel. And while Samuel had installed his sons as judges in his place in hopes that they would lead the people in ways that were just and godly, they had actually done the opposite and consistently perverted justice for their own gain.

Now, as the people stood at yet another crossroads, they had to ask themselves whether they were going to turn to God to get them out of this mess? Or if they were going to look to the ways of man?

And we find the answer to that question in the first two verses of our reading, verses 4 and 5. Which read:

1 Samuel 8:4-5 ESV

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.”

The elders, the leaders of the various communities in Israel had come together and sought Samuel to rectify the situation that they had found themselves in.

And when they came to Samuel, they stated what the problem at hand was. They said, “Samuel, you have served us well. You have walked in ways that are just and that are godly. You have done exceptionally well. But now you are old, you’re past your prime. And while installing your sons as judges may have been a novel idea, they are not like you, they don’t walk in the ways of godliness and justice, so something needs to change, because they can’t lead us.”

And it was at this point that the people should have said to Samuel, “Now would you please inquire of the Lord as to what we should do from here because God, of course knows what is best for us.”

But that isn’t what they done. Instead, after they had told Samuel about the problem at hand, they essentially said, “We know how to fix it! We want you, Samuel, to go and appoint for us a king to judge us like all the other nations have.”

Now, let’s think for a moment about what exactly the people are asking of Samuel here. Israel had been a theocratic nation, which means that ultimately, their King was God. This obviously made Israel a peculiar people, unlike any other. But when they came to Samuel and said, “Give us a king!” what they were truly doing was rejecting God’s kingship.

And not only were they rejecting God’s kingship, but they were saying, “Give us a man to rule over us. After all, that is what all of the surrounding nations do, and we want to be like them!”

These were the people who God had separated Israel from. These were the people who God warned Israel to have nothing to do with. And now they were saying, “We don’t want God as our King, we want a man to rule over us just like all of the other nations!”

So much for standing out as a peculiar people. Rather, they wanted to blend in like all of the godless nations that God had disinherited and said, “Let’s just be like them!”.

But to make it even worse, they came to Samuel and said, “Do this for us! Appoint a king for us!”

In essence, what Israel was doing was telling God that they wanted to serve the gods of the other nations and follow the ways of the other nations, and they wanted the God of Israel to not only approve of them rejecting Him, but they also wanted Him to bless them for doing so.

That would be like me coveting your car to such an extent that I decide to steal it one day and then tell you that not only do you have to be ok with the fact that I stole your car, but I also want you to praise me and tell me that I done the right thing in stealing it!

That is a pretty disturbing prospect! Is it not?

Well, Samuel recognized this, and he was indeed disturbed by it. We this at the beginning of verse 6, where it reads:

1 Samuel 8:6a ESV

6a But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.”

Without legitimately consulting God, the people came to Samuel and said, “Dismiss everything that God has told us and give us what we want! And oh yeah, bless us while you’re at it.”

This understandably disturbed Samuel who legitimately did walk in the ways of the Lord and who desired to follow after the will of God alone.

This is who Samuel was, he was a man who truly followed the Lord and walked in the ways of godliness, but the people came to him and were demanding him to do the opposite of what God had called him to.

Therefore, unlike the elders who approached Samuel concerning this matter, Samuel did indeed consult the Lord, inquiring of Him what should be done in this situation.

We see this at the very end of our reading, the last half of verse 6, which reads:

1 Samuel 8:6b ESV

6b And Samuel prayed to the Lord.

Samuel was certainly in a tough spot here. And when we are in a tough spot, what should we do? Go off impulse? Well, that’s what it seems like we do quite a bit. We want an answer and we want it now! So, a lot of times we just go with whatever we think the best course of action is in that moment.

But our impulses are almost always emotion driven, and our emotions have the potential to be all over the place, being driven to and fro with the ever changing circumstances of life. So, because that is the case, our impulses really are not to be trusted.

Instead, when we find ourselves in a tough spot, unless God miraculously gives us an undeniable sign, the last thing we should do is make an immediate decision. Rather, we should do what Samuel done in his tough spot here, we should go to the Lord in prayer.

Prayer is a priceless gift that God has given to the one who is saved by Him. When prayer is genuinely offered in faith by those whom God has made faithful what it does is it causes the one who offers this prayer to God to lay his or her burdens at the very feet of God. And it causes that person to leave off from his or her prayer knowing and believing that God has heard the request and that God will make His will known in time.

And in the meantime, we wait. We wait because we know that the remedy of the tough situations that we face in life can only come from God. We wait because we know that if God has not made His will known, then we can’t possibly know where to go from here. We wait because we humbly recognize that if we don’t wait on Him, we are going to find ourselves somewhere we don’t want to be.

Therefore beloved, offer your prayer in faith, and humbly wait.

Amen?