Demands, Desires, and Rejection
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Have you ever been rejected?
Rejected from a job interview, being picked last on the playground, older siblings telling you to get lost…
Illustration: asking Sharon on a date for the first time. “You have to talk to my father.” I can still remember the feeling that washed through my body. There was a flush of red and heat that started at my head and raced through the tips of my toes. Do you know what that is like?
In our text this morning, Israel rejects God from being king over them.
Narrative Review:
I. The Lord Raises Up Samuel (1-7) Samuel’s Narrative Arch.
God used the barrenness of Hannah to raise up Samuel to minister and serve the nation.
God judged Eli and his sons for their sin and rebellion.
The Lord spoke to Samuel and established him as a national prophet.
The House of Eli is devastated and the Ark of God is captured by the Philistines, 30,000 soldiers die.
God overwhelmed the Philistines in judgement.
God judges the men of Beth-Shemish.
20 years later the nation of Israel returns to the Lord with all their heart.
1 Samuel 7:3–4 “3 And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” 4 So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and they served the Lord only.”
It took twenty years, but Israel finally turned away from their idols. They finally moved their hearts back to the Lord alone.
And what did God do for them?
God supernaturally delivered the nation of Israel from the Philistines.
1 Samuel 7:10–11 “10 As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel. 11 And the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them, as far as below Beth-car.”
Samuel functioned as Israel’s judge for decades.
1 Samuel 7:15 “15 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.”
II. The Lord Gives Israel a King “Like All the Nations” (8-14) Saul’s Narrative Arch.
A long time has passed since the nation of Israel underwent spiritual revival. Decades have passed and once again Israel’s heart is wandering away from the Lord.
This is not a small thing. This is not a subtle kind of withdrawal. Israel outright rejects her God, like a guy getting shut down when he asks a girl out on a date. In fact it is a far greater rejection than even that.
How can this be?
How can Israel so heartlessly reject God as their king?
Samuel wanted the nation of Israel to remember that uncontrolled desires result in a rejection of God.
Uncontrolled desires cause people to reject God.
How do you know if your uncontrolled desires have reached the point where they cause you to reject God?
Three warning signs:
I. You create pretexts for getting what you want (1-8)
I. You create pretexts for getting what you want (1-8)
What should be the greatest desire of our heart? To love God! My greatest need is to know and love God. Thus my greatest desire should be to love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength.
How do I know when another desire has supplanted God?
Do you create pretexts for getting what you really want? What do I mean?
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, Abijah; 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.
Here we run into the occasioning incident for the narrative. Samuel is getting old. His sons, Joel and Abijah, are not good guys. They did not follow in their father’s footsteps. They had greedy hearts for earthly gain. They took bribes and they perverted justice. Not a great resume when you are a judge of a nation.
Does this scenario sound familiar?
1 Samuel 2:12 “12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.”
This is not a great situation. What will Israel do about it?
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.”
Is their concern legitimate? Yes! Look Samuel you are getting old, your not going to be able to function as judge of the nation much longer. And your sons are not great. They do not walk in your ways. We need to do something about this.
What is their solution?
“Appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
What is the problem with this solution?
1). They come up with their own solution, instead of seeking God’s solution for the problem.
Compare: I Sam. 7:8
8 And the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.”
Did they do the same thing here? No, we know what to do. Appoint for us a king.
This has never been done before. They are not simply requesting a new judge, they want to institute a whole new monarchial system. All of this is just pretext by the way.
Think about what they are asking Samuel to do.
Samuel all of our problems will be solved if you just appoint for us a king. Appoint for us a man to rule over us. What’s the problem?
Samuel had already appointed two men to function as judges, as rulers over them.
1 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel.
No, Samuel the first time you appointed rulers over us that was a terrible idea. I know, why don’t you appoint someone else to rule over us. That will solve all our problems. And instead of appointed a judge, let’s establish a monarchy because that will surely solve all of the moral looseness like bribery and perverted justice.
None of this makes any sense. What is going on? They are simply giving a pretext to get what they really want.
And what do they really want?
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.”
This is the real desire of their heart. They want to be just like the rest of the nations around them.
What’s the problem with this desire?
26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
Why did Israel want to be like all the nations? That is the real question. There are deeper desires that lie hidden under the surface of their heart. We will expose those in a minute.
Notice how Samuel responds to this.
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.
This is such a significant statement. We need to feel the weight of these words that the Lord spoke to Samuel.
They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me.
Reject- to refuse, to spurn, to despise, to discard with contempt.
Dictionary definitions do not do justice to the message that God wants to communicate in this text.
What kind of rejection would this have been like?
We don’t have to wonder. God does an amazing job of describing what this kind of rejection was like. In fact there is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to this idea.
There was a man, a prophet, named Hosea. And in the book of Hosea we see an astonishing story. In the book of Hosea God tells the prophet to marry a prostitute. Oh, and by the way, this woman, this prostitute, that you take to be your wife, she is going to be unfaithful. You will have to live with an adulterous woman. And she will have kids that aren’t yours. You are going to have to be a father to kids that are not your own.
Why would God tell Hosea to do that? It was a vivid picture of the spiritual idolatry that Israel was committing against the Lord. God wanted his people to know what it feels like when they reject him. Here is how it felt.
2 “Plead with your mother, plead— for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;
3 lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.
4 Upon her children also I will have no mercy, because they are children of whoredom.
5 For their mother has played the whore; she who conceived them has acted shamefully. For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them, and she shall seek them but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now.’
8 And she did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her appointed feasts.
12 And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them.
13 And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me, declares the Lord.
This is what it feels like when we reject the Lord.
By the way- if you are thinking, “I am not as bad as all that.”
James 4:4 “4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
This is what it feels like when we reject the Lord.
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.
So they are doing to you, they have not rejected you…
I want to highlight the fact that Samuel felt this rejection. They were ultimately rejecting the Lord, but it felt like they were rejecting Samuel himself.
Pastors feel this when people reject the Lord.
If you disciple someone you may feel this.
If you share the gospel with someone you may feel this.
Ultimately, they are rejecting the Lord, but it feels like they are rejecting you personally.
John 15:20 “20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”
Samuel felt it. Israel had uncontrolled desires and those desires led them to reject the Lord.
Friend, have the desires of your heart led you to reject the Lord?
One of the ways you know if your uncontrolled desires have reached the point where they cause you to reject God is that you create pretexts for getting what you want.
13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
Example: media / entertainment choices. I have liberty in Christ therefore, I can do this thing. That is nothing but a pretext. Your liberty in Christ is merely a cover-up for evil. What is really going on is you have an uncontrolled desire, a desire for your own comfort or your own pleasure, that is ruling your heart. Your heart is not controlled by a desire to love God. And you will give your allegiance to anything so long as it gets you what your heart desires. We use “Christian liberty” as a pretext or a cover-up for our sin.
When that happens we are no better than the nation of Israel- we reject God. We are like the adulterous wife in the book of Hosea.
Friend, is that you this morning? Have you reached the point where your uncontrolled desires have caused you to reject God.
The first warning sign is creating pretexts to get what we want.
The second warning sign:
II. You ignore clear warnings of danger (9-18)
II. You ignore clear warnings of danger (9-18)
How do you know if your uncontrolled desires have reached the point where they cause you to reject God?
You pay little to no attention to the clear and present warnings of sin.
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.”
God gave his people a clear and upfront warning of the consequences of having a king rule over them. And they didn’t care one bit.
Does God give us clear and upfront warnings about the harmfulness of sin?
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.
Do we ever ignore clear warning signs of danger?
Unbeliever:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Believer:
Preached a sermon on forgiveness at family camp. Are there clear warning of danger to the one who will not forgive?
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;
Yet, how many of us struggle to forgive one another from the heart?
An uncontrolled desire is ruling our hearts- it has caused us to reject God.
If your heart was truly ruled by the desire to love God how would that effect your forgiveness?
If you are unwilling to forgive even though we have clear warnings of danger in the Scriptures, that is a warning sign that you have another, uncontrolled desire ruling your heart. You need to repent and heed God’s warnings!
How do you know if your uncontrolled desires have reached the point where they cause you to reject God?
The first warning sign is creating pretexts to get what we want.
The second warning sign is ignoring clear warnings of danger.
III. You stubbornly dig in your heels (19-22)
III. You stubbornly dig in your heels (19-22)
You would think that with such a clear warning from the Lord, the people of Israel would reverse course. Right?
19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us,
They dug in their heels!
Why is the world did they want a king do badly? We find out in the next verse:
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.”
Here we see the underlying desires of their hearts. Why did they want a king?
Desire 1): they wanted to be like the other nations.
A desire for status.
Desire 2): they wanted a king to judge them.
A desire for order.
Desire 3): they wanted a king to go out before them and fight there battles.
A desire for security.
Is a desire for status, order, and security necessarily evil? No. The problem came when they elevated their desires above the desire to love God.
Could God have given them these desires? Status, order, and security? But, they didn’t want to do things God’s way. They wanted to do things their own way.
“My kingdom come, my will be done” instead of “Your kingdom come, your will be done.”
These things made up the desires of their heart. So they were willing to do whatever was necessary so that they could get their own desires.
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.”
Friends, do we every dig in our heels?
“The Lord can have every area of my life, except this...” Evangelists using this illustration. That illustration simply reveals idolatrous desires that are ruling over your heart.
Example: video games. Not wrong in themselves, but I played an excessive amount of them. I dug in my heels. It took me a long time to “give them up.” Video games were never the problem. Actually, I simply replaced them with YouTube videos, or fantasy books. Video games were simply the thing that gave me the desires of my heart. I desire excessive comfort and ease. Until I repent of those, and desire God above all else I fill continue to find the next idol to satisfy my heart.
Friends, where have you dug in your heels?
Is there an area of your marriage where you say, “I’m not going to budge.” Why? What desires are ruling your heart?
Is there a certain hobby that you could never live without even though it is dominating your time and stealing your life?
Is it a relationship with a boy or a girl?
Where have you dug in your heels?
Why have you done so? What desires are ruling your heart in those areas? Have those desires caused you to reject God?
Uncontrolled desires cause people to reject God.
How do you know if your uncontrolled desires have reached the point where they cause you to reject God?
Three warning signs:
The first warning sign is creating pretexts to get what we want.
The second warning sign is ignoring clear warnings of danger.
The third warning signs is digging in your heels.
Pastor, what do I do if this morning I realized that I have been rejecting God. What do I do if I realize I have been treating God like an unfaithful spouse? Like an adulterer?
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
16 “And in that day, declares the Lord, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’
17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more.
18 And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety.
19 And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.
No matter how many times you have rejected the Lord He is always waiting with open arms for you to return to him.
