Sermon Tone Analysis
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*'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.
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