Introduction
We are in the midst of a very quick overview of the first half of 1 Samuel preparing ourselves for an in-depth study of the life of David. We left off last week at the end of chapter seven, where the Israelites have about the sweetest deal they ever had going. They came to God in as wonderful and genuine an expression of repentance as you will see anywhere in Jewish history, and God responded by giving them total deliverance from their enemies on all sides. But before long they took their eyes off the LORD.
That is often the way it goes when God blesses us. We have some massive trial, we beg God to deliver us from it, and He does, and before long we find that the small trials in our lives have become intolerable. It is like a guy who is in agony because of a broken foot, and God does surgery and restores him to perfect health, and not long after that the man is suicidal because he has some pebbles in his shoe. No matter how many trials and troubles God takes away from our lives, until we learn how to derive all our joy from God alone, the level of misery stays the same. As soon as God takes away the huge trial, your soul just readjusts its perspective until the small trial is just as big. No matter how many trials and troubles and headaches God removes from your life, and no matter how many of your prayers He answers, if you do not learn how to find joy in God alone you will not find joy at all. And whatever remaining trials there are, no matter how tiny, will start to seem intolerable after a while.
And that is what happened to Israel. They have it made. God gave them everything they ever asked for and more. But they soon get restless and start wanting something different. Bottom line, they got tired of God and wanted a different king. And so in chapter eight they reject God.
I. The people reject God as king (chapter 8)
Having a king was in God’s plan, so what is wrong with their request?
1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, "You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have."
Now, if you stop right there the request sounds reasonable enough, doesn’t it? God hated rulers who took bribes and perverted justice. So what is so bad about not wanting that? And what is so bad about desiring a king?
The answer is nothing is wrong with either one of those. In fact, God had made it clear that it was His plan to eventually have a king. Way back in Genesis 49:10 Jacob prophesied that the kings over Israel would come from the tribe of Judah. We see it again in Numbers 24:7,17. There was even a section in the Law of Moses that regulated the way the Israelites were to ask for a king when the time came, and some things that king was to avoid. (Dt.17:14-20) Hannah even mentioned a coming king in her prayer back in chapter two – a whole generation before anyone was even asking for a king.
This is the very last line in her prayer:
1 Sam.2:10 He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed.
So it was clearly God’s plan for Israel to eventually have a king. There was nothing wrong with asking for a king per se. And there is certainly nothing wrong with them objecting to dishonest judges who took bribes. But if you look closely at the context you see pretty quickly that the corruption of Samuel’s sons was not the real reason. If their concern were really just about having unrighteous judges, why not just ask God for righteous judges? Or a righteous king? They don’t say anything about a righteous king. So what is really going on here?
They were rejecting God as king
6 But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 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. 8 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 real reason for all this is they are tired of God as their king and they want a different king. All through the period of the Judges, whenever they were overrun by enemies, they would finally be driven to repent of their sin and return to God with all their heart, and God would deliver them. What they want now is to get the deliverance without having to go through the repentance. Look down at verse 19.
"We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."
When Israel was fully repentant they never lost. But they wanted a way to win without needing to rely on wholehearted commitment to the LORD. The real reason they wanted a king was not because of Samuel’s sons. It was because they were afraid of Nahash. Nahash was the king of the Ammonites. The Philistines were the big threat from the west, and the Ammonites were the big threat from the east. And in chapter 12 we find out that the real impetus behind the call for a king was the fact that the Ammonites were threatening to attack Israel. (12:12) Israel wanted a way to be safe from attack without having to go through the ordeal of repentance and returning to God.
Having a king would be a hardship – high taxes, the draft, oppressive laws, but all that is a lot easier than giving God your whole heart. External things are so much easier than internal. That is why legalism is so popular everywhere in the world.
And it even tends to creep into our lives as Christians. If I want to find joy in the Lord, seeking Him earnestly with my whole heart day after day, all day long requires so much effort, and it is hard to believe it is really going to work, and it is just so much easier to just buy a condo somewhere really fun. Or to cough up $10,000 and get some really cool thing. Even if it costs $100,000 that is still a lot cheaper and easier than giving my whole heart. For Israel it was military victory and international respect that they wanted to get some way besides through faithfulness to God. For us it is financial security or fun or happiness or rest or whatever. And when we do that we are doing exactly the same thing Israel did in 1 Samuel eight – rejecting God as our security/joy/rest, etc.
So often we have so little trust in God’s promises to protect us and to provide all we need. So we appoint some king Saul to take care of us – some savior that we can see and control. We set up our career, or family, we get a great education, some really marketable skills, we do some shrewd investing, buy some great insurance policies, all these little king Saul’s in our lives so that we are protected in front and in back and from every side. We think these little king Sauls – these little human efforts to protect us and provide happiness - will hold against any invasion or attack. And often we don’t wake up from the folly of that until some massive disaster comes crashing through all our defenses. The phone rings and it’s news you never dreamed you would ever hear. The doctor tells you, “It’s inoperable. I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.” Or you lose a child or a loved one. Or you come home one day and your wife has her bags packed and nothing will change her mind – she’s taking the kids and leaving. Or some addiction takes over and destroys your life and none of your little saviors you have in place can do anything to help you. Your career, your skills, your education, your plans, your savings, your insurance – suddenly you can see how absolutely powerless all of those are to really take care of you. Only then do you realize that cardboard fortresses don’t hold up against hurricanes.
1 Samuel 12:21 Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.
It is true that it was God’s desire all along to establish a kingship in Israel. But God’s plan was for that king to be a vice-regent for God. He was to serve only as the human instrument of God’s kingship. God is the only real deliverer and the only real authority.
God’s merciful warning
So Samuel comes to God with this request from the people. And God tells Samuel, “If I grant their request, it will mean a lot of hardship for them.”
9 …warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."
11 Samuel said, "This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for 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 groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."
Not only are all our little king Sauls that we put in place not able to really protect us or rescue us – but very often we end up needing to be rescued from them! The very job or spouse or career you were trusting in to make you happy ends up being a disaster that you need to be rescued from!
So God says to the people, “If I grant your request it is going to be miserable for you.” In fact, when you read chapter 12 it is kind of comical. Because in chapter 12 Samuel says, “okay, now that you have a king, here’s the deal: and he gives them all the requirements for God’s blessing. And it is all the same requirements as before they had a king. Now that they have a king, they have all the taxes and draft and hardship and oppression that will come from the king, and still, if they want to win any battles or have any prosperity or wellbeing, they will have to be faithful to God – just like before! And if they are not completely faithful to God they and their king will be swept away. So if God grants their request they will be taking on a whole lot of new headaches, and they will gain exactly nothing. And so God warns them and explains all this to them. And we get their response in verse 19.
The people’s answer: NO! (Watch out for evil desire)
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us.
God told them something and they just flat out said “No!” They refused to believe the warning. They wanted a king so bad, they did not want to be confused with the facts. That is what desire can do in the human heart. When your soul fixes its attention on something – some state of affairs that it really wants, and your soul is convinced that this thing will satisfy its longings and cravings, almost nothing can derail it from pursuing that desire. Even if you provide irrefutable proof that this thing will not make you happy and will not be what the soul expects it to be, it will not matter. Once covetousness and greed take over the heart, they commandeer the mind and refuse to allow any deviation from the quest to obtain the object of their desire.
Most people think their mind is in full control of all their reasoning. But your mind is mostly a slave to your affections. When your soul really, really likes something or someone, it will bend the facts enough to allow your mind to decide that that someone or something is good. And when your soul really, really dislikes something or someone, it will manipulate the truth enough to make that thing always appear bad. We are baffled at the Israelites, and wonder, “Why would you want a king when the king will bring you only trouble and no benefit?” And yet we do exactly the same thing every time we sin – any time we prefer anything over God.
This should make us realize how incredibly dangerous evil desires are! Once they take over not even the mind can overcome them. They can only be overcome by faith – truly, genuinely believing God’s warnings and promises. But the more an evil desire is nursed and cultivated, the more impossible faith becomes. Oh how important it is that we guard our hearts from evil desires and covetousness! Be very careful before you let your heart to set itself on a desire. Take some time to carefully and honestly examine which desires you have right now that are in that category, or that are moving in that direction. Is there some covetous desire that is driving me so much that it is hindering you from wholeheartedly embracing some principle in God’s Word? Are there truths that God has revealed that you are not understanding because your heart does not want to give up its belief that some object of its desire will really satisfy? Any time you find yourself having a powerful, strong desire for some earthly thing, let that set off warning signals in your heart.
Not being convinced by God’s warnings (or promises) is a rejection of God
So Israel got carried away with a desire for something that would not give them what they thought it would give them. And they wanted it so bad they actually rejected God in favor of that thing.
8:18-19 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."
19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us.
10:19 But you have now rejected your God, who saves you out of all your calamities and distresses. And you have said, 'No, set a king over us.'
So in 8:19 the people say, “No!” And in 10:19 Samuel tells them that when they said that they rejected God. Now keep in mind what it was they said no to. It was not in response to a command. They said no to a warning. God told them that if they went ahead with pursuing a king there would be some negative consequences, and they said, “No!” They did not believe God. They thought that either those consequences wouldn’t really happen, or if they did happen they would be worth it. When God warns us not to do something in the Bible lest we suffer some consequence, and we think, “That’s okay, I will just suffer the consequence,” or we think, “I doubt that consequence will really happen,” we are rejecting God. Consider one example of a warning in Scripture.
Heb.3:12 See to it that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you will be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Do you read a warning like that and truly believe that for you, developing a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away form the living God is a real possibility? And that unless you have daily encouragement from other believers you will likely become hardened by sin’s deceitfulness and fall into apostasy? Are there any warnings in Scripture that do not have much effect on your heart? In the moment of temptation do you find yourself thinking, “I know there will be consequences to this, but I am willing to suffer those consequences”? When we think that way we are saying “no” to God’s warning. It is obvious to us that saying “no” to a command is serious, but it is also important to realize that saying “no” to a warning is also a very serious rejection of God.
God is not an inept parent who doesn’t know how to come up with a punishment that is really painful enough to make it so the pleasure of the sin really isn’t worth it. There is no sin, no matter how pleasurable and no matter how seemingly innocent – no sin that is worth the consequence. The price tag of loss of fellowship with God is so high that not even the most pleasurable sin in the world is worth it – even if it is the most minor of all sins and it is only the slightest loss of fellowship. It may seem worth it in the short run, but in the long term it will never be worth it.
And the same principle applies to God’s promises. When God promises some reward, and that promise of reward is not adequate to motivate my heart, I am rejecting God through unbelief. I am saying “no” to His promise.
And the only way to really convince your soul that the loss of fellowship is never worth it, and that forfeiting of what is promised is never worth the pleasure of any sin, is to have greater and greater experiences of fellowship with God. God is so incredibly good and pleasing and delightful and satisfying to the human soul, that the slightest bit of fellowship with Him is better and more desirable and pleasing and satisfying than the most pleasurable sin in the world. What a wonderful life He has given us! To be the son or daughter of a God like that – to walk through life with constant access to the presence of a God whose grace, even if you experience only the tiniest measure of it, is worth far more than 1000 repetitions of the most intense pleasure sin or anything in this world is capable of delivering – to walk through life with constant, 24/7 access to a God like that – what an amazing joy this life is!
II. The punishment: answered prayer
So they say no to God’s face and rejecting Him as their king in chapter eight, and in chapter nine God punishes them. God was willing to be their king. He was willing to graciously rule over them, and they refused. Just like centuries later when God came down in human flesh and the people said, “We do not want this man to be king over us” (Lk.19:14) When given a choice they shouted “Give us Barabbas!” (Jn.18:40) And “We have no king but Caesar.” (Jn.19:15) Give us Ceasar, give us Barabbas, give us Saul – anyone but God.
And so for this treason God punishes them. And He punishes them by answering their prayer and granting their deepest desire. The punishment is the granting of the thing they wanted more than anything in the world. They wanted a king just like that nations around them had, so God gives them Saul.
From Benjamin
We find out in verse one of chapter nine that Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. That tribe was not known for its godliness. The book of Judges ends with the most sickening, disgusting description of the depths of depravity to which Israel had descended at that time; And the tribe of Benjamin as at the very bottom of it. They were almost completely exterminated by the rest of the tribes for an incredibly wicked incident, in which men from Benjamin surrounded a house so they could rape a man who was traveling through with his concubine. Instead he sent his concubine out and they raped her all night until she died from her injuries. So then the guy chops her body into pieces and mails the pieces to all the other tribes. And when the other tribes want to carry out some justice on the murders the rest of the tribe of Benjamin would rather go to war against the rest of the tribes than give those men over. And so war ensues and Benjamin is almost completely exterminated. All that to say that Benjamin is not exactly known for turning out Israel’s most godly, righteous men.
The desire to be like the world
That is the bad news. But the good news is in verse two
.
2 He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites-- a head taller than any of the others.
He may not be godly, but at least he is tall. And for the people of Israel that is the kind of thing that really mattered. God was giving them just what they asked for. Usually when height is mentioned it is a description of Israel’s enemies. The reason the first generation of Israel was so afraid to take the Promised Land was because the people were so big. They wanted a king just like the nations around them, and God granted their request. They looked at the wicked, vicious, selfish, greedy, despotic, fascist dictators in the Gentile nations, and they looked at humble, godly, righteous, selfless, holy Samuel, and they said, “We want what they have.”
The most glorious thing about Israel was the fact that they were set apart from the nations for God. They were a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people of God’s own possession. That was their glory. And they said, “We want to be just like the nations.” The only thing that was good about them they wanted to get rid of.
Keep that in mind, because now God has made the Church a holy nation, royal priesthood and people of God’s own possession. That is important to remember because the trend today is to go so far in becoming all things to all men that we sacrifice holiness in order to reach the lost. We are not doing the lost any favors with that kind of compromise.
There is a lust for acceptance that lurks in the heart of much of the Church. We want to be taken seriously by the world. We want their scholars to respect our scholars, so now the conservatives are buying into more and more of the liberal perspectives. Meanwhile the liberals are not budging at all in our direction. We do not want to be thought of as uneducated or superstitious, so we try to mix evolutionist dogmas into our interpretations of Genesis. Many pastors these days are so afraid someone will think they are not cool, and so they use profanity and obscenity in their sermons. We are afraid people at work might think we are “holier than thou,” and so we eliminate holiness from our conversation altogether. There is this bizarre lust in the heart of God’s fine china to be like the paper plates. The holy nation of Israel wanted to be like all the nations and have a human king they could rely on instead of God. And so God finally says, “okay,” and gives them a big, tall paper plate named Saul.
Ignorance of who Samuel was
When we first meet Saul in chapter nine he is chasing some donkeys. It is kind of funny. The great leaders of God’s people in the OT are usually skilled shepherds. Saul appears to be a not-so-skilled donkey wrangler. He chases around looking for them for miles and miles and never does find them. And just as David’s skill with the sheep was a picture of His ability to lead God’s people, so Saul’s debacle with the donkeys was also a preview of coming attractions.
When the servant suggests that they go ask Samuel for guidance, amazingly, Saul had never even heard of Samuel! Samuel was the greatest prophet/priest/judge since Moses. He had been leading the nation of Israel Saul’s entire life. Samuel lived about five miles from Saul’s home. And Saul had never heard of him. Saul must have been an incredibly secular person with absolutely zero spiritual interest.
But the servant suggests that they ask the prophet where the donkeys are. (Don’t worry about righteousness or salvation or the kingdom of God or eternal life or forgiveness of sins. Just use a prophet of the living God to find out where your lost donkeys are. It is amazing sometimes how we will bypass eternal riches and glory so we can use God to get some worthless, temporal thing.)
The calamity of answered prayer
So this is what God gives the people – the answer to all their prayers. There are a lot of threats in life; a lot of dangerous things that can do you great harm. But one of the most dangerous of all is answered prayer. One of the most disastrous things that can happen to you is for God to answer your prayers and grant you what you most desire - if you pray like the Israelites prayed. You see, there are two very different kinds of praying. One is the Mark 14 type and the other is the James 4 type.
Mark 14:34-36 "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," … 35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."
Jesus sincerely desired God’s plan more than He desired the strongest compulsion of His flesh. Contrast that with the James 4 kind.
Jas.4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?
Mark 14 praying desires the plan of God above any impulse in my own flesh. James four praying is oblivious to God’s plan and only wants to use prayer to get the immediate impulses of the flesh satisfied. And one of the most horrific, disastrous things that could ever happen to you is for God to become so angry over your James four type praying that He starts granting your requests. We are like the Israelites – we want something so bad, and it seems like it would make us so happy, and we have no idea that what we are praying for is a Saul; A big, tall, beautiful, good-looking, impressive, curse that we will someday beg God to deliver us from. How can you possibly know if something you want that seems so good and so wonderful would eventually turn out to be a horrible curse on your life? You can’t. No one knows that but God. Which is why Jesus so preferred God’s plan even to His strongest contrary desires.
One really great thing about being a child of God is that if you use the Mark 14 type praying instead of the James 4 type, and you really do desire God’s plan more than your immediate impulses, you can be assured with 100% certainty that God will never, ever grant you what you are asking for when what you are asking for will turn out to be a curse. What a blessing that we can trust God to say no to all our bad prayers when we pray with Mark 14 type praying! But if we pray with the Israelites’ 1 Samuel 8, James four kind of attitude, God may very well punish us by granting our request for poison. Sometimes when we put our trust in something besides God, God will punish us by allowing that very thing we put our trust in to bring disaster into our lives so we can learn that He is the only Savior and that every substitute is worthless.
III. Second chance (Ch.12)
So this is pretty bad for Israel. What do you do when you are in a fix like this – where you have made a really bad decision, and now there are some lifelong consequences? God showed you His will, and you rejected it and took another way, and there are permanent aspects to this wrong path you chose. For example, suppose a Christian gets a sinful divorce. Or suppose a believing girl falls in love with a guy who claims to be a Christian, but deep down she knows he really is not, and now she is looking at a whole lifetime of pain with an unbelieving spouse that is not anything like what he was when they were dating. What do you do when God warns you and warns you and you do not listen and do not listen, and you end up making a choice that is the opposite of God’s desire for your life, and now there is no way out? Does that mean you are permanently outside of God’s will? You cannot undo the sinful divorce. You cannot leave your unbelieving husband and find the Christian guy that you were supposed to marry. You cannot turn back the clock. So does that mean there is no way back into God’s favor?
Israel had made their bed, and now they had to lie in it, and it wasn’t going to be any fun. So there was going to be some pain that would be ongoing – but does that mean they were forever separated from God’s blessing? No! God is merciful! Let’s peek ahead to Samuel’s speech in chapter 12.
12 …you said to me, 'No, we want a king to rule over us'-- even though the LORD your God was your king. 13 Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the LORD has set a king over you.
And there stood Saul as a big, tall monument to their disobedience and rejection of God. Now, listen to the mercy of God:
14 If you fear the LORD and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the LORD your God-- good! 15 But if you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.
24 But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. 25 Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will be swept away."
God says, “You rejected me and would not listen to my warnings and chose another savior besides Me to rescue you. However, if you and your little savior fear and serve and obey Me, I will still take care of you.” God gives them another chance! Even though they rejected Him, He tells them that if they turn back to Him He will bless them and their king. It will not be as pleasant as it would have been had they not sought another king instead of God, because now they have to live with the hardship of having a king, but God is willing to bless them nonetheless if they will turn back to Him.
Now, He does require a wholehearted return. It would have to be like the one back in chapter seven – not just some kind of partial repentance. He speaks of fear, service, obedience, and loyalty – addressing their actions, attitudes, motives, emotions – their whole heart. But if they do return to Him wholeheartedly, He will bless them again. God is so incredibly merciful!
No matter what bad decisions you have made in your past – no matter how horribly you have messed things up, there is never a time when you are irretrievably separated from the blessing of God if you repent with all your heart. Why? Why does He keep taking us back after we rebel against Him again and again? The answer is in verse 22.
22 For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own.
Some of you probably have the next verse underlined in your Bible.
23 As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.
It would have been a sin for Samuel not to pray for these people. Why? Because of verse 22. The reason it would be such a horrendous evil for Samuel not to pray for those people was because God’s mercy and kindness to those people was for the sake of His great name. So however much Samuel cares about God’s great name, that is how earnestly he should pray for mercy for them. And however zealous God is for His own great name, that is how sure it is that He will bless His people.
None of your past sins can prevent God from blessing your life again, because the reason He blesses you is for the sake of His great name.
24 But be sure to fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. 25 [because] if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king (or your house, or husband, or money, or job, or whatever it is you have looked to for your security and joy and satisfaction and wellbeing – both you and your Saul) will be swept away."
The people needed to learn that the real threat was not the Philistines or the Ammonites, it was their own hearts. The things you are afraid of – the things for which you are tempted to look to other means besides God to save you - those are not any real threat. The only threat in your life is your own heart and its tendency to fail to seek God. But God is merciful.
Hosea 6:1-3 "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us know the LORD; let us press on to know him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Benediction: 1 Ti.6:15,16 God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.
