1 Samuel 8

First Samuel chapter number 8.

God's Word says, "And it came about when

Samuel was old that he appointed his son's

judges over Israel.

Now the name of his firstborn was Joel. In the

name of his second, Abijah, they were judging

in

Beersheba. His sons, however, did not walk in

his ways, but turned aside after dishonest

gain

and took bribes and perverted justice. Then

all the elders of Israel gathered together and

came

to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, 'Be

hold, you have grown old, and your sons do not

walk in

your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge

us like all the nations.' But the thing was

displeasing

in the sight of Samuel when they said, 'Give

us a king to judge us.' And Samuel prayed to

the Lord.

The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice

of the people in regard to all they say to you

, for

they have not rejected you, but they have

rejected me from being king over them. Like

all the deeds

which they have done since the day that I

brought them up from Egypt even to this day,

and that they

have forsaken me and served other gods, so

they are doing to you also. Now then, listen

to their

voice, however you shall solemnly warn them

and tell them of the procedure of the king who

will

reign over them.' So Samuel spoke all the

words of the Lord to the people who had asked

of him a

king. He said, 'This will be the procedure of

the king who will reign over you. He will take

your sons

and place them for himself in his chariots,

and among his horsemen and they will run

before his

chariots. He will appoint for himself

commanders of thousands and of fifties, and

some to do his

plowing, to reap his harvest, and to make his

weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

He will also take your daughters for perfumers

and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of

your

fields and your vineyards and your olive

gardens and give them to his servants. He will

take a

tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and

give to his officers and to his servants. He

will also

take your male servants and your female

servants and your best young men and your don

keys and use

them for his work. He will take a tenth of

your flocks and you yourselves will become his

servants.

Then you will cry out in the day because of

your king whom you have chosen for yourselves,

but the Lord will not answer you in that day.

Nevertheless, the people refuse to listen to

the voice of Samuel and they said, 'No, but

there shall be a king over us, that we also

may be like

all the nations, that our king may judge us

and go out before us and fight our battles.'

Now after Samuel had heard all the words of

the people, he repeated them in the Lord's

hearing.

The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to their

voice and appoint them a king.' So Samuel said

to the men

of Israel, 'Go every man to his city.' Let's

pray. Hey Father, we love you and thank you

for your word.

Just what a great time we've already had this

morning. We're just thinking about all that

you've

done and we get to see how you work out in

your word, your will for your people and we

praise you

for that. I pray that you bless the message

and inspire the messenger. Open our eyes and

our mind

to your truth and your word and may we turn

all of it into glory for you in Christ's name.

Amen.

So last month we were in the poetic books and

now as we go back through we're going to be in

the

historical section and the Old Testament is so

interesting. If you have any inkling of liking

history, it explains all kinds of historical

details and again it's an amazing story that

goes from Genesis all the way to the New

Testament building and building and building

and one of the main reasons that it does that

is so now we, looking back on the Old

Testament,

on God's people in the Old Testament, can

learn from them and it's not all learning

about what to

do. Sometimes when you learn from other people

's examples you learn what not to do. The best

thing

would be not to follow them and in many cases

God's people, the Jews, the Hebrew people,

the example, the lesson that we're supposed to

learn is what not to do, how not to live a

life

before God. And so this particular passage in

the history of the Jewish people is a

transitional

moment for the Hebrew people from the period

of the judges of Israel to the period of the

kings,

to the Jewish monarchy in Israel. And so we

have been steadily building as we go back and

forth through the Old Testament our

understanding of this history of God's people

and how it's

working out and building on itself through

time, even going back and forth as we look at

different things we can see that all this

stuff kind of works together and it really is

an amazing

thing. So we had gone back in the past in

Genesis 15 and learned how God called Abraham

this nobody

from the Ur of the Chaldeans to out and just

because of God's grace, because of God's will

and no

other reason picked Abraham to be the father

of many descendants and just this nation that

God

was going to create just through Abraham and

his family. And then after Abraham we have a

couple

generations. We have Isaac, we have Jacob and

Esau and then we have Jacob's children ending

up in

Egypt after a while. And so when they get to

Egypt they grow and grow in numbers. They

became a multitude where the Pharaoh gets

worried that the many Hebrew people that are

in his country

are going to kind of revolt and take over. So

he enslaves them in Egypt and then we get the

story

of Exodus how God chooses Moses to lead his

people out of this slavery. So Moses becomes

kind of

the government of Israel, the leader of the

people. And in that God gives Moses the laws.

And so he

writes the Pentateuch, the first five books.

And in those he gives them ten commandments.

He gives

them the ceremonial laws, how they're supposed

to worship God and the tabernacle and then in

the

temple and in their families. And then he

gives them the national law, the code of

Israel that

they're supposed to live by to have justice

with, to protect them from, just like we have

our

laws in our land. And so that law described

how the Jewish people were to govern

themselves.

And then after Moses they get into the land

and they start to conquer it and they become

under

the leadership of a man named Joshua, which we

looked at that as well when Joshua was at the

end

of his life after they had conquered the land

and how he made them to swear the covenant

again

before God and how quickly they were to break

that covenant with God anyway.

And so how they're governed up until this

point of Joshua and then the judges is what

many people

would call a theocracy, how God directly led

the people through his man in their nation.

All the laws were given by God, the system of

laws were given by him to lead this nation

and the prosperity to be the example to the

rest of the world of who God's people were.

But he didn't tell every single person

something to do and say, well, don't do that

and do this.

So this isn't right. He gave them the laws and

then he gave them a federated system there,

kind of like the United States is a nation of

individual states. The Hebrew nation,

the nation of Israel, was a federated system

of tribes. And so the Israel was a nation

consistent in 12 different tribes. And those

tribes were split up again into clans and then

those clans were split up into families and

all the way up and down, God gave rules for

how the

families were to be led, how the clans were to

be run, how the tribes were to be run. And

then

he would have this kind of supreme governor in

what was called a judge. And so the elders

would

make the general decisions for their tribes,

their clans and the families. But if there was

any

bigger issues, if there was any bigger

problems that they couldn't deal with or they

needed special

direction, they would go to the judge and the

judge would seek God's will through his

revealed law,

that Moses gave and then sometimes, like in

the case of Samuel, who was a prophet by

direct

conversation and revelation from God. And so

the judge would preside over these major

decisions.

And so now we come to the point where Samuel,

the prophet Samuel, is that judge for the

nation.

And if you look back in 1 Samuel 7 in verses

15 and there's 17, we see that this is exactly

the

case. Verse 15 says, "Now Samuel judged Israel

all the days of his life, and he used to go

annually

on circuit to Bethel and Gilgal and Mispah,

and he judged Israel in all these places. Then

his

return was to Ramah, for his house was there,

and there he judged Israel and he built there

an altar

to the Lord." So God called Samuel at an early

age, and if you haven't read that story at the

very

beginning of Samuel, how God called him is a

really a great story there. He worked through

Hannah,

who was barren, and gave her this son, and she

gave him back to the Lord. And God called

Samuel

from a very early age to be his prophet. He

heard the voice of God at a very early age.

And during

this time as a prophet, he would lead the

people as a judge, and he would lead them into

battle,

into success, and he would lead them through

several hard times. The Ark of the Covenant

got stolen and then came back, and he was

their leader during all of this. And he was a

great

leader. He not only loved God and God's Word

and listened to God, but he had a heart for

his people.

He loved the Hebrew people, and it broke his

heart when they turned from God, and he rejo

iced

when they did the right things and praised God

. So now, when they come to him in chapter 8,

they're going to break his heart again. They

're going to hurt him because they have

rejected

God as their king, and the system that he set

up, verse 5 of chapter 8, is now a point of

king for

us to judge us like all the nations. But the

thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel

when they

said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel

prayed to the Lord. And the reason that they

asked for

a king is kind of the basis for what we're

going to look at today. They asked for a king

because

they wanted to be like all of the nations.

They mentioned this twice when they came to

Samuel,

that this was the reasoning behind wanting a

king. Verse number 20 says that we also may be

like all the nations. They asked twice for a

king because they wanted to be like everyone

else

around them. They want to conform to the

standards of the world and the nations around

them. And

then look, if you've had children, you may

recognize the sentiment. Well, all my friends

are

doing it. We may not say it like that, but we

're very influenced by that same sentiment

ourselves.

And so that's that God gave us these stories

and these historical books from his people so

that we

can look at them and learn from them because

there's many times when we have that same

rebellious heart that they do. And we need to

learn from Samuel and from the story that the

best thing for us is that each of us, we

conform our wills, conform our desires, shape

what we want

in our lives, what we want and what we believe

to the will of God and not to the world around

us.

And so we're going to go through this story

and then apply it to our lives in the end. So

the

first part of the story and the first five

verses is that we don't conform. We learn from

this and

we don't conform ourselves to the world. We

conform ourselves to God's wisdom, first of

all,

because the wisdom of the world is foolish. I

wonder if it came about when Samuel was old,

that he appointed his son's judges over Israel

. Now, the name of the firstborn was Joel. In

the

name of the second, Abijah, they were judging

in Beersheba. His sons, however, did not walk

in his

ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain

and took bribes and perverted justice. Then

all the

elders of Israel gathered together and came to

Samuel at Rama. And they said to him, "Behold,

you have grown old and your sons do not walk

in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to

judge us

like all the nations." And as we saw when we

looked in chapter seven, what Samuel would do

is he would ride a circuit through different

cities in Israel and it would be closer to

some

of the tribes. And when they had issues, they

would come to the city at the appointed time

and he would hear the cases like a Supreme

Court justice and make decisions on those

cases.

And he was faithful to do this. He would go on

an annual report or annual circuit and do this

.

And he loved the people and he was known for

his wisdom and his righteousness and how he

made the

decisions, how they were blessed because of

his wisdom and his righteousness. But as the

way of

life is, the longer you live, the older you

get. And so Samuel started to get old and so

in part

of a succession plan and then part of him not

being up to the task anymore of making those

journeys,

he put his two sons into a Beersheba, which

was to the south. So the cities that he

visited

were to the north. So he let his two sons go

down to Beersheba and judge cases. And so they

would

stay there and the people would come to them

and then they would judge there. And so they

would get

experience for hearing the cases and making

the judgments. But they acted foolishly. They

didn't

take their position seriously. They used their

position to take bribes and to make money. And

the Bible says that they perverted justice. In

other words, that they were not seeking for

the

good of the people or the glory of God in

their judgment. And this was a major problem.

And this

was a direct violation to the law of God. Deut

eronomy 16-19 says, "You shall not distort

justice."

"You shall not be partial and you shall not

take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes, the

wise,

and perverts the words of the righteous.

Justice and only justice you shall pursue,

that you may live and possess the land which

the Lord your God is giving you." So the

people saw

that they were perverting justice, that they

didn't care about the truth. They didn't care

about the law of God. They cared about lining

their pockets at the expense of their own

countrymen. But when the people saw this, this

wasn't the first time that the people of

Israel

had seen their leaders' sons pervert justice

and screw up. When Samuel was a boy, he was

given to

the care of the high priest Eli. And Eli had

two sons who were priests, and they did the

same thing.

In 1 Samuel 2-12, it says, "Now the sons of

Eli were worthless men. They did not know the

Lord."

Now, I don't know if I had the opportunity to

be described in God's word. If the description

of me

would be worthless men, I wouldn't be too

pleased with that. I'd start to really think

about

myself and how I was acting. But that's what

the Bible calls the sons of Eli. And what they

would do

is they were priests, and so the people would

come with their offerings. And there was a

certain

process of what they were supposed to do. They

were supposed to trim this and trim that,

prepare

it, and put it on the altar to be burnt. And

then after that, as a way of providing for the

priests,

there were certain parts of it they were able

to take. And that was their food. That was how

they

ate. How they had their sustenance was through

the sacrifices that were brought. But the sons

of

Eli would take it. And when you cut off the

fat, well, that was the good part. And so they

would

take the meat from the people, bring the

sacrifices, and say, "Hey, I'll take it from

here.

Don't worry about cutting all that off." And

they would go and they would eat it themselves

.

And that really wasn't the worst of it,

although that was bad enough to be called

a worthless man. In the 22nd verse of chapter

2, it says, "Now Eli was very old, and he

heard all

that his sons were doing to all Israel, and

how they lay with the women who served at the

doorway

of the tent of meeting." Now we hear about

pastors and sexual sin and all kinds of stuff.

And I just

don't understand how you can think that you're

going to stand before God one day and be

guilty

of all that. And these men saw prophetic

miracles happen in the time of Israel. And yet

they still

treated the ministry that God had given them

as priests for their own gain and to burn in

their

desire. So the people of the time knew Eli's

sons, and now they see Samuel's sons acting

in a very similar worthless way. And they said

, "Oh, you know, Samuel, you're getting old. It

's

going to be soon. And now these guys are going

to take over as judges, and we don't want to

do that."

So they came to Samuel, but they didn't come

for him looking for a godly solution for him

to judge

in a way that would please God. That would

have been the proper way for them to come and

say,

"Here's our issue. What does the law of God

say? Go to God and see what he says." They

came to him

and said, "Look, we've got our own solution."

And really at the end of the day, them

complaining

about his sons was just an excuse for their

own rebellious hearts. They looked around them

at

the other nations. And then if you go into

your history books, not just Christian history

, but

all history, you can see that man progressed

with technology. So we had the Stone Age and

the Bronze

Age and then the Iron Age. We'd go through.

And one of the things that transitioned the

cultures

was they went from a nomadic kind of a tribal-

based government system to a monarchy. And then

also

they had the emperors and stuff like that. So

they're looking around and saying, "Hey,

we need to get with Europe. Look, Europe has

all this free stuff. They give all this free

stuff to

everybody. Everyone else has universal

healthcare. Same idea. Everyone else has a

king. So we need

to have a king as well." But this was an

outlet of their rebelliousness, an outlet of

their hard

and wicked hearts. Not just that they were

worried about Samuel's son. They were looking

at the lenses

through the lenses of their own rationale and

through the nations around them. We will never

forget the truth that Proverbs 14-12 says, "

There is a way which seems right to a man,

but its end is the way of death." And then

there's so many things that we have around us

that to the eyes and to the mind and to the

heart, the rebellious man or the rebellious

woman

seems right. But at the end of the day, it is

just foolishness in the eyes of the only one

who

matters, God. There's drugs. There's fornic

ation. There's theft. There's false religion.

There's

government worship on the left and on the

right side as well. There's idolization of

science.

I'm talking about things in our culture that I

see. There's the molecules, the man evolution,

the two weeks to flatten the curve. All things

that seemed like wisdom at the time,

but they weren't, they were just foolishness,

feminism and racism and communism. All these

ideas pervade our culture and pervade our

world, but they're all full of the foolishness

of the

fallen mind and really the Hebrew people, no

matter what they saw and they're coming out of

Egypt and the giving of the Word of God and

the Ten Commandments, they were no different

than we are

as a people. They were rebellious and their

mind fallen from sin. So over and over and

over again,

they were given the benefit of all these

things that God gave them, all these miracles

and yet

they were given the benefit of him as their

ultimate ruler, being able to go as a nation

directly to God and see what he wants them to

do. But they said, no, we don't want that. We

want to be

like everybody else. And so they use this

excuse about Samuel's age and about his two

sons being

wicked, but it wasn't really plausible because

if you think about it, they didn't have to be

judges. Samuel wasn't the son of the previous

judge, but if you get a king and his son is

defaulted to be on the throne, so this excuse

that they gave wasn't very plausible. It all

came

from their rebelliousness and their sinful

hearts. And that brings us to the second part,

that the

wisdom of the world is foolishness and we

shouldn't conform to it. And also in verses

six through nine,

we shouldn't conform to the way of the world

because sometimes God actually gives us

what we ask for. Verse number six, "But the

thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel

when they

said, 'Give us a king to judge us.' And Samuel

prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel,

'Listen to the voice of the people in regard

to all that they say to you, for they have not

rejected

you, but they have rejected me from being king

over them, like all the deeds which they have

done

since the day that I brought them up from

Egypt even to this day, in that they have fors

aken me

and served other gods, so they are doing to

you also. Now then, listen to their voice.

However, you shall solemnly warn them and tell

them of the procedure of the king who will

reign

over them." The procedure of the king, another

word that could be used to translate that

would be the

justice. And it's kind of like a little satire

. You're going to see what their justice is

like

if they don't like my justice. So what the

people were asking were breaking Samuel's

heart. He hated

it for them because he loved them and he knew

what the end would be. He knew what a king

would do.

And so he felt they were rejecting his

leadership that he had failed, but he did his

duty faithfully.

And so he prayed and God made it clear that no

, they're not rejecting you as king. They're

rejecting

me as king. And this has been the struggle

since the very beginning. This was the

original sin

that Adam and Eve committed in the garden. We

will not follow what God has told us to.

We're going to listen to the wisdom of this

serpent and we're going to eat the fruit and

sin

against God. And over and over and over again,

God's people or people in general reject the

wisdom of God and chase after their own fallen

wisdom. And the Hebrew people on their way

back

from Egypt did that. That's what he said in

verse number eight, "All the deeds which they

have done

since the day that I brought them up from

Egypt, even to this day." If you think back,

and if you

haven't read the book of Exodus, if you've

seen the movie with Charles and Hesse, and I

recommend

the book, the book's better than the movie,

but you know that they were a rebellious

people even

from the start. And again, they saw the

miracles of the plague. They walked through

the Red Sea

as on dry ground. And almost immediately after

that, they started whining and complaining

about

there being no water. They created a golden

calf to worship in place of God because Moses

was taking

too long. They complained about no water. God

gave him water out of the rock. They

complained

about no food. He gave them manna. They

complained about the manna. It was the same

thing every day.

Can't we have a little variety? We had variety

in Egypt. They cried and whined and complained

and rebelled all the way from God's rescue in

them, from slavery in Egypt, all the way

through the

judges, all the way through Samuel's time. And

this time was no different. But the thing to

remember

is that this is hundreds of years of God

putting up with their stuff. How patient is

God with his

people? How patient is he with me? How patient

is he with you? It really is an amazing thing,

and that's why it's written down for us to

learn. So they complain and whine on their way

back from

Egypt, and then God brings them Joshua. So if

Moses dies and now they're going to conquer

the land that God had promised them, and they

rebelled against God from the very beginning

of

that, and then after Joshua had completely

conquered the land, and they go and live in

the

promised land, then we have the Book of Judges

. And if you've ever read the Book of Judges,

they continue to be rebellious all the way to

the end to where they send in very similar

manners to the men of Sodom and Gomorrah that

God destroyed with Hellfire and Bremstone from

the

sky. But God was patient with his people. He

knew what the end would be like, and he was

working

through all of their rebellion. So now when

they rebel against him, God is not surprised.

Samuel

is taken back, but God isn't taken back. He's

going to let them have their way, but they're

not going

to like it. And another sign of the patience

and grace of God is that he does let us know.

Like he tells us the end of our rebellion. It

shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that if they

live a life of rebellion against God, what the

outcomes will be. We have the temporal,

present problems that God explains through the

wisdom literature, through Proverbs and Eccles

iastes,

and a lot of the epistles that God tells us, "

Hey, if you do this, and generally this is

going to be the outcome. If you don't follow

me, then you're not going to be happy in this

way and

that way. If you do follow me and you go

through suffering, you have hope and you have

me to sit

in." And then he also tells every single one

of us that if we don't bow the knee to God in

saving

faith and in biblical repentance, as described

in Scripture, as we went over this morning in

very great detail, there is no reason for

anyone to be surprised at the outcome at the

end of their

life when they have not bent the knee to the

Lord and Savior of all of the earth. He is

gracious to

us and he tells us the outcome and he tells

the Hebrew people, "Here, you want a king? You

can

have it, but here's what's going to happen."

God has revealed his warnings to us. That's

what he

does in the next part of our passage in verses

10 through 18. So Samuel spoke all the words

of the

Lord to the people who had asked of him a king

. He said, "This will be the procedure, the

justice

of the king who will reign over you. He will

take your sons and place them for himself."

Verse 12,

"He will appoint for himself commanders of the

thousands and some to do his plowing and to

reap

his harvest." Verse 13, "He will also take

your daughters." Verse 14, "He will take the

best of

your fields and your vineyards and your olive

groves and give them to his servants." Verse

15,

"He will take a tenth of your seed." Verse 16,

"He will also take your male servants and your

female

servants and your best young men and your don

keys and use them for his work." Verse 17, "He

will

take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves

will become his servants. Then you will cry

out in

that day because of your king whom you have

chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not

answer you

in that day." Is this what you really want?

Well, now you're going to get it. Lock, stock,

and barrel, the whole shebang. Here's what's

going to happen. You look around at these

nations and

say, "Hey man, that modern monarchy, they're

really with it. Their philosophy is really

high. They've

got a leader. He leads them into battles and

he judges them and tells them what to do. Then

they're

great. But what's going to happen is now when

he leads you into battles, he's going to cons

cript.

He's going to draft your sons into battle on

his own whims. Maybe he didn't have a personal

grudge

against this guy's prince or whatever. He's

going to take your sons. He's going to take

your land

and use them for his own servants. He's going

to add taxes to you. But at this time, there

was a very

big level of freedom. I mean, you live with

your family and you lived under your clan. You

lived

under your tribe. You barely had to do

anything with the federal government of Israel

unless

there was a big deal. And there was no taxes.

You gave 10% to the temple in the form of

sacrifices

and grains for the support of the worship of

God, but they had no taxes. Well, God told

Santa

to say, "Hey, look, he's going to take 10% of

your produce and 10% of your money. You're

going to

have taxes for the first time." And I've never

voted for taxes. Who votes for their own taxes

?

Besides the people in Livingston. But it

turned out exactly as God had warned them. You

can also

look in the future history as you keep going

through the Old Testament and look at Saul as

king

and look even at David as king and then

Solomon and Rehoboam. You can see these

promises, these

warnings that God had given his people work

out in real time in their lives. Solomon put

the people under a heavy burden. He made the

kingdom great. It was the envy of all the

nations

around them. He was the wisest king ever, but

he had some building projects and he put them

under

his thumb to get those building projects done.

So when he passed away, his son named Rehoboam

became king. And so Rehoboam gathered all the

people and said, "Look, I'm going to be the

king.

You know, will you accept me as the king?" And

the people in First Kings 12.4 said, "Your

father

made our yoke hard. Now therefore, lighten the

hard service of your father and his heavy yoke

,

which he put on us, and we will serve you." So

Rehoboam takes this in and he goes to Solomon

's

old counselors and they say, "Yes, lighten the

load and then they'll accept you. Then they'll

follow you into battle and do what you need to

be done." But then he goes to his young,

unwise, foolish friends and they said, "No."

This is what they tell him to say in verse

number 10

of First Kings 12. "My little finger is

thicker than my father's loins. Whereas my

father loaded

you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke

. My father disciplined you with whips,

but I will discipline you with scorpions." And

so to what God had warned them about having

this

type of king is exactly coming to fruition.

And so after this, the people rebelled against

Rehoboam

and the kingdoms fled into two. And then they

would eventually lead them into exile, into

foreign

lands, into slavery, into the destruction of

the nation of Israel. So God has given us so

much wisdom

in His Word and is there for us to see, to

heed the things that were to do with our lives

that lead

to His glory and our ultimate happiness and

the things that we can do in our lives that

lead to

our misery and our sin. He's given us those

warnings. So God gave them this warnings and

then

He would give them the king in Saul. Saul

would become the first king. And Saul looked

like everything

was going to be great. He was a man that

looked like a king. He stood head and

shoulders above

everyone else. He was a big, strong, mighty

man. And so he would go and right at the

beginning,

he starts to prophesy with the prophets.

Everything's working out great. He starts to

lead them in battle and they start to win

battles. But eventually in his kingdom and his

time as king,

he becomes a proud man and God would take him

off the throne and God would kill Saul and his

sons

in battle so that his heirs wouldn't be able

to take the throne. So after Saul and his he

irs are

killed, then God gives us David, the new king.

And then we have that history, which we'll get

to

in a second. But God warns all these people,

these Hebrew people, about what kings would do

when they

took the throne and it happened. This led to

much pain and heartache for the people. So all

of us,

we should seek to adjust our hearts and our

minds and the things that we think, the things

that we

believe in to line up with what God has showed

us in his scripture. He's revealed his truth

to us and

we conform our minds and our hearts to that

truth, not to the truth that we see in the

world around

us, not to the thinking that we see. To the

last part of this passage, we're going to see

how the

people respond to these warnings that Samuel

gives them about a king. Verse 19 says, "Never

theless,

the people refuse to listen to the voice of

Samuel and they said, 'No, but there shall be

a king

over us, that we also may be like all the

nations, that our king may judge us and go out

before us

and fight our battles.'" Now after Samuel had

heard all the words of the people, he repeated

them in

the Lord's hearing. The Lord said to Samuel, "

Listen to their voice and appoint them a king."

So Samuel

said to the men of Israel, "Go every man to

his city." God instructs him to listen to the

foolishness

and to the rebelliousness of the people, the

will of the people, even though it comes from

this place

of rebelliousness in their hearts. He is very

patient, but the amazing thing is this is

actually

showing another way that God is gracious, that

God is patient, and that he is sovereign and

works

through his providence even in the rebellious

ness and sinfulness of his people. He's going

to take

this wicked, evil decision from the Israelites

, the Hebrew people, for a king against the

will of

God and turn it into their own salvation. So

they're going to transition from this this

theocracy where God leads into this monarchy.

And even though it was done for the wrong

reasons,

God is going to take this monarchy. And when

he gets a king in David, he's going to make a

promise

to David that through this monarchy one day,

one of David's sons will sit on the throne

forever.

And we know who that son is. That son is Jesus

Christ, our Lord and our king.

God used that rebelliousness in his providence

to work out the greatest act of his grace and

the

greatest act of his mercy for his own glory

and for our good. And look, he can do that in

in our

lives. Look how Paul describes it in Ephesians

119. He says, "And what is the surpassing

greatness of

his power toward us who believe? These are in

accordance with the working of the strength of

his might, what he brought about in Christ

when he raised him from the dead and seated

him at his

right hand in the heavenly places, far above

all rule and authority and power and dominion

and every name that is named, not only in this

age, but also in the one to come. And he put

all

things in subjection under his feet and gave

him his head over all things to the church,

which is his body, the fullness of him who

fills all in all." So he took this this act of

rebellion

and turned it into the way that he would bring

this king where Christ would now

subject everything under his rule once and for

all as king of the whole universe.

So what does this have to do with us now? So

we know that as we look at these examples of

the

Hebrew people, we can find our rebelliousness

in our hearts, the things that we've done in

our

lives and we can use that as our example. Now

we're not looking for a king, we would fight

that,

but there's other ways, other things that we

were rebellious against and also we also look

at those around us. We look at the the culture

that we have and we're influenced greatly by

our

culture. Do we cringe sometimes when we hear

how some of the theology that Paul gives? Does

that

... oh man, I don't know if I can get on the

end of 1st Timothy 2 or Romans 13 when Paul

tells us

to pay taxes even to the wicked emperor of

Rome or Ephesians 5 when Paul describes the

biblical

role of men as husbands and the biblical role

of women as wives and then as children and

slaves

and masters or employees and employers. So we

have all these ideas that we're just

surrounded by.

It's in the air that we breathe in our culture

and we see these things in Scripture and what

we

need to do is to not be rebellious, to conform

ourselves to these truths and not conform

ourselves

to those around us. The second thing that we

can learn is that God works even in rebellious

people.

How many of us have someone that we know has a

rebellious heart that hasn't bent the knee

to Christ as king, as savior? Well, the fact

is that God can take the rebelliousness and we

can

all relate to this and turn it into a heart

that seeks him, a heart that bends the knee to

him.

He can at last use all that for his glory and

our goodness in some way. There's always a

reason to

hope while our loved ones or our friends or

family are still alive and we can pray that

they would bow the knee to God as king. So let

us all have willing hearts to follow God and

his

wisdom, ready to change our minds and our

hearts to conform ourselves to his ideas that

he's revealed

in Scripture for us, not like the Hebrews that

came before us, but like those Paul

are talking to in Romans 12 verse 2. "Do not

be conformed to this world, but be transformed

by the renewing of your mind, so that you may

prove what the will of God is, that which is

good

and acceptable and perfect." Let that be our

desire and our heart. And let's take these

old rebellious Hebrews as our example of what

not to do and how not to be. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your

word. Lord, it is a blessing to have the

revelation

that you have given us in Christ expounded it

to us all throughout history in your word. And

I pray

that I have somewhat been helpful. I pray that

your word goes forth and blesses your people

for your glory in Christ's name. Amen.

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