1 Samuel 8 - Talk 7
'Kings and Other Things' (1 Samuel 8)
foolish requests
My boys just can’t help themselves. We drive past a McDonalds and they go berserk. ‘Can we stop, can we stop’. There’s something about junk food that draws them in. We go past Donut King, ‘Can we stop, can we stop’. We go to the supermarket checkout and they say, ‘Can I have a Mars Bar, fruit tingles, chocolate bar’. And it goes on. Go past a toy store and Janette and I duck for cover. In their boyish enthusiasm they don’t always know what to ask for. Their immaturity means they often fail to see the folly of their requests.
Today we move into 1 Samuel 8 and the second section of this book. The first seven chapters lay the foundation for the remainder of the book which traces Israel’s history under the newly instituted office of kingship. And as we move into this new phase of Israel’s life, we do so with the memories of chapters 1-7: the memory that God cares for his people and that he knows what he is doing and that he is in control of everything. The memory that God is merciful and that he capable of looking after those who are his people.
Chapters 1 to 7 are the memory of God’s persistent faithfulness and Israel’s persistent unfaithfulness. At the end of chapter 7 Israel apparently their senses when they ‘mourn and seek after the Lord’. Their repentance seems real and under the godly leadership of Samuel the people defeat the Philistines, land is restored and peace and justice return to the people.
It’s short-lived.
Samuel’s experiment (1-3)
Look at 8:1, ‘When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice’.
The security and peace that we saw at the end of chapter 7 under Samuel’s leadership is eroded by Samuel’s sons. His sons are dishonest and they pervert justice. Samuel has grown old and his advancing age raises the leadership problem. Who will lead Israel after Samuel?
We don’t know why Samuel decided to appoint his sons as judges over Israel. Perhaps with the onset of years Samuel’s thinking wasn’t what it once was. Some of you will know what I mean! We don’t know why Samuel appoints his sons as judges for Israel, but it’s a bad error. Never in the history of Israel has a judge appointed his successor. In the Book of Judges it is God who raises up the next judge – the people have nothing to do with it. And think about Eli’s sons – they were worse than hopeless. And Samuel’s sons are a disaster. Leadership on the basis of genes brings with it all types of problems.
the elders’ unfaithfulness (4-9)
And so Samuel appoints his sons as leaders of Israel. The response of Israel’s elders is an interesting one. What will the elders do to secure the future? In verse 4 they meet with Samuel and they say to him, ‘You are old (elders are always perceptive), and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have’.
From one point of view this seems like a reasonable request to secure Israel’s future. A king could organise armies and impose stable political authority and bring the nation out of the stone age into the iron age. A big leap forward. A king is a visible, tangible expression of unity and organisation. And the elders looked out over the surrounding nations and saw their success and strength under the leadership of a king. And Israel was small and insecure and the elders wanted Israel to hold their position on the world stage. ‘Now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have’.
the problem of insecurity
It’s an interesting way of God’s people looking at the world. Maybe if we organised ourselves like the successful companies around us then we would experience security and success? Indeed some churches have done so and they are well known and by worldly standards they are experiencing enormous success with ministers who seem to be more like Chief Executive Officers. I know a church that called in financial consultants because people in the church weren’t putting enough money in the plate. And these consultants worked on individuals so they’d cough up a little bit more. And the elders agreed with this strategy.
How often do we ponder the future of this church? Do we feel insecure about the future? It seems harder and harder to find people to do more things. We often hear that the young people aren’t coming through the ranks anymore. Maybe our future would be assured if we called in management consultants and re-organised ourselves in such away that mimics successful companies such as BHP and Macquarie Bank? Give us leaders like the world around us and the church will find her security. Give us a king like the other nations. Give us another rabbit’s foot and everything will be OK. Last time it was the wooden box of the ark – this time it is a king – each a mechanical substitute for God himself.
the problem of substitution
How easy it is to try and fix our spiritual problems by substitution. It might work in a football game but it won’t work in our Christian lives. When our lives go off the rails our first impulse is often to say, ‘what did I do wrong?’ I should not have done this or I should have said that. I missed church last Sunday. I’m spiritually depressed because I’m organising my life wrongly. I need to fine-tune. I’m sinning and I can fix it myself. The problem becomes one of adjustment. If I adjust my sleeping hours – or my Bible reading hours – the length of time I pray - then things will come right themselves. My sin can be dealt with by using different techniques. I can substitute God for a change in method – a new strategy that will gets things off the ground floor.
But the solution to our spiritual problems is repentance before adjustment. The solution is coming before the throne of grace, ‘I have sinned against the Lord’. Repentance. And this may bring adjustment in life – it probably will. But it’s easier to try and change the scenery than change the condition of the heart.
the problem of dictation
We can also be tempted to dictate the sought of help that God should give us. Israel have a problem and they go to the Lord with the solution, ‘Give us a king’. More times than I’d care to admit I’ve said to God, ‘I need your help and this is how you should help me’. Isn’t God fortunate that he has me to tell him how he can fix my problems. We sin – and so often we think we have the answers. It’s far easier to ask God to correct my circumstances than it is to correct my heart.
the problem of stupidity
‘Appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have’. The proposal is profoundly stupid. It’s illogical. ‘Samuel, your old, your sons don’t walk in your ways, so set up for us a system where sons succeed their fathers’. The elders are confident that the certainty of future leadership will solve all their problems. This flies in the face of all the evidence. Eli – the best of leaders can have the worst of sons. The failure of Samuel’s sons.
And it only gets worse. Have a look at verses 6-8, ‘But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.
The proposal to have a king amounts to rejection of God as king. Of course the elders ask with all the sincerity they can muster, but it’s a flawed and sinful proposal. Sincerity never mitigates the seriousness of sin. Sincerity alone is not enough to gain the righteousness of God. Sincerely asking God for something that displeases him is an exercise in futility. The problem of stupidity.
the faithfulness of God
the consequences of kingship (10-18)
But God remains committed to his people. In love, he warns them about the consequences of kingship. These problems were experienced by the nations around them but for Israel the ‘grass is greener on the other side’. Look at what qualities a new king will bring: he will ‘take’ (v.11); he will ‘take your sons and make them serve’ (v.11); he will ‘take’ (v.13); he will ‘take’ (v.14); he will take (v.15); he will ‘take’ (v.17). This is the sort of justice a king will deliver – he will ‘take’ – he will not give. The foolishness of the proposal for a king. The justice the king will deliver is self-centred and detrimental to the people. And, verse 18, ‘When that day comes (not ‘if’ but ‘when’), you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day’.
Even so, the people choose to continue with the experiment of kingship. With hardened hearts they refuse to listen to Samuel. They say in verse 19, ‘We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles’.
What will become of this experiment in faithlessness and foolishness?
Jesus the king who gives (Rom 3:21-26)
Quite some years later a man stands before Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. He is asked, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ And he replies, ‘my kingdom is not of this world’. Jesus is saying that he is not a king like the nations around him. The gospel says that there is a king worth having but his kingship is so different from the nations of this world.
God’s king dispenses justice in an altogether different way from the justice that Samuel warned Israel they’d get from their king. For Jesus is not a king who ‘takes’ but he gives and gives and gives. And he leads his people into righteousness and truth. Rom 3:25, ‘God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. And he did this to demonstrate God’s justice’. Judges put things right with God. And look how Jesus put things right between us and God. Jesus ushers in a different security, a new peace and justice so unknown in this world.
This king gives himself as a sacrifice of atonement in order to put things right between us and God. And when we submit to the leadership of Jesus his death satisfies the justice of God on my behalf. Jesus is a king who gives his own life to put things right between us and God. A king who leads his people to repentance and faithfulness.
The contrast between Jesus and the leadership that attracts us is one worth pondering. Ought not leaders be strong and charismatic and charming and intelligent and handsome and tall and eloquently spoken and good at sport. Listen to the Apostle Paul’s description of himself, ‘I will not boast about myself, except of my weaknesses […] to keep me from coming conceited there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me. Three times pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”’ (2 Cor 12:5-10).
A few years earlier, John the Baptist was with two of his disciples. ‘When he saw Jesus passing by he said, “Look, the lamb of God”!’ (Jn 1:35). A leader likened to a lamb! A king unlike the nations around us. And this the Son of God went like a lamb to the slaughter, the servant-king laid down his life for he is the judge that leads his people into righteousness.
the people get a king (21-22)
Back in 1 Sam 7:21 the Lord gives the people what they want and rather anti-climatically they all go home. It’s interesting that the Lord gives the people what they want even though its filled with danger.
sometimes we get what we ask for
God will sometimes give us what we want to our own peril. And so an answer to our request may not be a sign of approval but a sign of our stubbornness and hardness of heart. The people refuse to listen to Samuel – they reject and God and his counsel – and yet God gives the people what they want. “Samuel, listen to the people and give them a king’. Sometimes God administers his justice by granting our requests.
We see this in Rom 1. ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness […] Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him’. And God’s response? Verse 24, ‘God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts’ – verse 26, ‘God gave them over to their shameful lusts’ – verse 28, ‘God gives them over to a depraved mind’.
Sometimes God administers his justice by granting the requests of our sinful hearts. God did this for Israel – and he did so with the hope his people would see the futility of pushing him into the margins of their lives. And he may do this for us – give us what we want in order to expose our sin and push us back to the ways of holiness and godly living.
sometimes we don’t get what we ask for
We must pray that our hearts never become so hardened that we ask God for things which lead us into or confirm our sinful ways. ‘Give us a king. Lord, give us a substitute for you. Give us an idol, we pray’.
Sometimes God’s kindness is seen when he doesn’t answer our prayers in the way we are hoping. For although our proposals and solutions for the future of this church can be completely reasonable, clearly logical and obviously plausible – with unfaithfulness they are godless and hollow prayers.
conclusion
Conclusion. Israel hears God’s wisdom on leadership but does not submit to it. God gives her instruction but she is not teachable because her hearts are hardened and stubborn. The lesson for us is clear: we ought to cry out to God for a soft heart, for a teachable spirit; we ought to pray that God will preserve us from the arrogance of own stupidity. 1 Samuel 8 is your mirror. It reveals Israel and you. How easily you misplace your trust, how ashamed you are to be different, how resistant to any word that does not agree with your opinion. Now look in the mirror, and the Lord strengthen you!