Let's just start at verse 1 and
we'll get as far as we can. 1 Samuel 8. It came to pass when Samuel was
old that he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his
firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abiah. They were
judges in Beersheba, and his sons walked not in his ways,
but turned aside after Lucre, and took bribes. and perverted
judgment. You'll recall that when the sons
of Eli were wicked priests and they also perverted judgment,
they defiled the sacrifice as God had ordained it back in the
beginning of this book, this study. God's solution to that
was to raise up Samuel. The word of God was rare in those
days and what What religion there was was corrupt. And God raised
up Samuel and Samuel was faithful. But now he's old and now Samuel's
sons. End up being pretty much about
like Eli's sons were. It doesn't say they committed
the same horrible acts that Eli's sons had, but they were corrupt
and they perverted the judgment of God and That had to be a dagger
in Samuel's heart. We'll talk a little bit about
that. It's interesting how it says that they turned aside after
Lucre. And I believe there's something
there. This is a turning aside from
the ways of God. If you turn aside to something,
you have to turn from something or somebody. In this case, of
course, the God that they presumed to serve, that they pretended
to serve. And I believe this means that
Samuel had brought them up in the ways of God, as you might
expect that he would, being a man of God, that he would have taught
them. You can't turn aside from a way
that you've never been in. And so I believe that they turned
aside and Samuel made them judges. It's hard to imagine Samuel making
them judges unless there was some expectation that they would
be faithful in the work and be honest about it. But this teaches
us what a rare thing it is for anyone to be faithful and true
in the things of God. You think about this world and
how many men do you know? And not just preachers, I'm talking
about just men, real men that are faithful to God and raising
their family, including the preachers and preaching the gospel, teachers
that teach the gospel. It's rare, isn't it? Very rare. Even in this country, what a
rare thing for anybody to be faithful in the things of God. And that's his doing. We know
that. In any business, for that matter, for anybody to really
be faithful in what they do at all is rare anymore. And I suppose
it's always been that way. People are naturally religious.
Think about this. Especially in the worship, in
the business of God, it's easy. And people are prone to turn
aside from the truth, from Christ. Because people, everybody's naturally
religious. It's big business, isn't it?
Everybody wants to have some kind of worship. I won't even Billy Graham died, I guess, today. I saw it today. And everybody
talking about what a great man he was. He didn't know the gospel.
He did not know God. People that know God aren't popular.
You might have noticed that in the Bible and in life. People are naturally religious,
but they're also naturally corrupt, and sinful, and wretched, and
selfish, and blasphemous in their religion. And people will pay
very well for somebody to tell them what they want to hear.
And for someone to pervert judgment in their favor. And Lord willing we'll talk about
that a little bit in a minute too. So they love money. These
men love money more than God. They turned aside to lucre, to
ill-gotten gains is what that basically is. That's kind of
where the phrase ill-gotten gains came from I suspect because that's
the actual definition of lucre. They love money and not God,
as all sinners, apart from His grace, do. The rich young ruler,
Judas, and the Pharisees are examples of this. All through
the Word of God we see it. All through our lives we've seen
it. The rich young ruler walked away from eternal life in order
to hold on to his earthly possessions. What a fool. What a wretched
fool. Judas sold the Son of God for
30 pieces of silver. The Pharisees made merchandise
of men's souls and devoured widows' houses in the name of God. On the other hand, when God gives
faith in Christ, When He does bless and send someone and preserve
them and keep them and uphold them in the truth, we have some
good examples of that in the Word of God, too, don't we? Listen
to Hebrews 11, 24, just to name one. By faith, Moses, when he
was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. esteeming
the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt." Not the treasures of Christ as being greater treasures. The reproach of Christ was greater
treasure. For he had respect unto the recompense
of the reward. He knew that God's reward is
his son. And if you have him, you have
everything. You don't need anything from anybody, from any man. Abraham
said, I've held up my hand to God. I don't need anything from
you. Our Lord taught us that there
are two paths. There are two ways. You can't
serve God and mammon, he said. And the reason he said that is
because you're going to serve one of them. Only one. But you will serve one of them.
Samuel's sons, what a grief it must have been to him. They chose
Mammon. Well, you read there, Chris,
that Moses chose Christ and they chose Mammon. So salvation is
by choice. No, it's not. Because you see, unless God saves
you freely by his grace, you're going to choose Mammon every
time. Blessed is the man whom he chooses
and causes to choose him. Is that what the Bible said? Our Lord And because they loved themselves
and not God, and they knew not God, they perverted judgment.
Of course they did. When judges pervert judgment,
you've got a problem, don't you? When those whose job it is to
decide things do so based on who's willing to pay them the
most, and not on the basis of justice and the wisdom of God,
you've got a problem. especially when those who make
judgments with regards to the things of God and the worship
of God, when they make those judgments based upon selfish
greed and not the glory of God and the good of men's souls,
that's a real problem. That's the most tragic of scenarios. In verse four it says, Then all
the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came
to Samuel unto Ramah and said unto him, Behold thou art old
and thy sons walk not in thy ways. Now make us a king to judge
us like all the nations. Now this is a terrible mistake
as we know from what God said about it. We can talk about what
Samuel thought and what the people of Israel thought all day, but
it's what God said about it that matters And he said it's a mistake,
but he told him he told Samuel to go ahead and give it to him
Go ahead and give it to him But think about this now before we
judge them too harshly think about what they had been through
many of these people Had been through the disaster that Hophni
and Phinehas Had perpetrated upon the people Eli's sons who
were wicked, corrupt, vile. But took upon them the priesthood
of God. And these folks here basically
are saying not again, never again. Your sons are just like them
and we're not having it. We're not having it. The worship
of God, if the worship of God is going to be that corrupt and
that terrible and horrible, then let's just end it. Let's just
be like everybody else. That's what they're saying. Not
a good thing to say, but understand why they said it. And let's not
be too harsh and judge it now. And they made a mistake, no question
about that. But we can understand why they
made it and see that ourselves would be susceptible to this
also. You remember how we saw that in chapter two, how these
people, many of the people, were willing to be defrauded themselves,
to be cheated out of their very livelihood, as long as the priest
would honor God in the sacrifice. In chapter 2 we read that and
we studied that. And remember this verse in 1
Samuel 2, verse 17. It says, wherefore the sin of
the young men, that's Hophni and Phinehas, the priests, Eli's sons, the sin of them was
very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the offering of
the Lord. They had perverted things so badly and were cheating
people so badly and were so corrupt and vile in the way that they
administered the things of God that people couldn't even stand
to come with an offering anymore. How horrible is that? We talked
about what a terrible thing. They took that which is most
precious, the worship of God, in the blood of His Son, And
they turned it into a vile thing that people couldn't even stomach.
And so here these people, you see what they're thinking. Here
we go again. No, we're not going to have it. Let me ask you a question. If
the Catholic Church was all we had, how much of that could you
put up with? How much of that nonsense could you put up with?
If Joel Osteen was all there was, could you stomach that?
They didn't have a lot of choices. We talked about this before,
so let's don't judge these men too harshly here. But let's also
not miss something that they've missed. They had a faithful man
of God still before them. Samuel was old, and that was
their concern. They didn't have a problem with
Samuel, although God said that they have a problem with you
in this sense. They're not going to listen to you, because they're
not going to listen to me. You're just telling them what
I said and they're not going to listen. But they didn't have a problem
before with Samuel. Their concern though was that,
you're old, you're not going to be here long. And then your
sons are going to take over and we're going to be right back
where we were before. And we're not going through that
again. But why didn't they say, and it's easy to second guess,
but I think we ought to second guess ourselves sometimes in
things like this. And so maybe we can learn something
here. Love it when I can learn from
somebody else messing up instead of me. Isn't that better? That's
a whole lot better Why didn't they in chapter 7 they lamented
after the Lord? remember that And they asked
Samuel to intercede for them. They said to Samuel ask God Intercede
for us with God and ask God what to do. We've sinned We need to
hear from God Why didn't they ask Samuel to pray that God would
raise up a faithful prophet after Samuel was gone? That didn't
sound that complicated, does it? That was what they needed,
not a king. They needed to hear from God.
They needed the worship of God. They needed communion with God
in the favor of God. And they forfeited that because
they got frustrated. And they overlooked something
very precious. They leaned upon their own understanding. You know, it's hard to wait on
God, isn't it? It's hard to wait on God. We can come up with a
solution, can't we? Just like that. We can fix this
thing. No, we can't. We're going to
have to wait on God. And when I say it's hard, you
know I mean it's impossible. Without His grace. We're guilty of this. All of
us are guilty of this in our lives. And this is an important
lesson here. We try to solve too many problems
without consulting God. Don't we? Am I the only one? I could give you ten examples
of this going on right now with people that I know off the top
of my head. And the problem with me is though
I can see it easier in them than I can in myself. Sometimes I can see it in myself,
but it's harder. I can see it easier in other
people, but then the Lord is gracious usually. Praise His
name. He's gracious usually to say,
wait a minute, Chris. What about you? We all have the same problem.
May God give us grace to examine ourselves and to wait on Him.
And you know when I say wait on Him, that's not just biding
time. That's hanging upon Him. We depend upon His mercy. We
need Him every hour, every moment. Let's not lean on our own understanding.
Let's don't resolve things in the flesh. We're not resolving
anything. We just think we are. All we
need is Him anyway. We think we need this to happen
and that to happen and these things to go our way. All we
really need is Him. And we forsake our own mercy. Look at verse 6, but the thing
displeased Samuel. When they said, give us a king
to judge us and Samuel prayed unto the Lord. Samuel knew what
to do by God's grace. He prayed unto the Lord and the
Lord said unto Samuel, hearken unto the voice of the people
and all that they say unto thee. For they have not rejected thee,
but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them.
How sad. What a sad, sad thing. All of the ways that God had
shown his faithfulness to this nation. All of the ways he had
saved them. He'd saved them in every way
you can be saved. His people, anyway. And every
one of them had witnessed that. They rejected God as being their
king. According to all the works they
have done, listen to this, they always have. Since the day that
I brought them up out of Egypt, until this day, they're just
acting like they always have. You just caught up in it now,
Samuel. Welcome to the show. This has been going on since
the start. And served other gods, and that's
what they're doing to you. They're rejecting you because
they reject me, and now you're in on it. It was Moses, and everybody
sent to him, and now it's Samuel. Long before Samuel was born,
these people have been rejected, may God say it. But now Samuel,
and this is what's happening. They could have just said, God,
in your good time, give us a prophet, give us a priest. You're our
king, and you're our true prophet and priest, but give us somebody
that'll that'll tell us the truth. Give us a man that'll teach us
and honor you in the sacrifice of your worship. And if you do,
we'll worship you according to your purpose of grace in Christ
the Lamb. We'll worship you as you've ordained. Do you reckon God would have
withheld that from them if they'd said that? But you see God's got to give
that heart you got to give that desire You got to give that hunger
like in verse 7 chapter 7 when they lamented after the Lord
they hungered Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
him? Blessed are they not better than everybody else blessed are
they blessed of God? But in not leaving this matter
to God Think about this what they actually did they said we're
not going we're not going to beg God anymore. We're just going
to take matters into our own hands. We just want to be like
everybody else. God, you know what God called
it? I'm sure that sounded good to them. Let's get a king. Everybody
else has a king. I'm sure they had all kinds of
good reasons for it. If we had a king, this could
happen and that could happen. We could build these roads. All
kinds of good things. It's going to be good for us.
You know what God called it? Rejecting God as King. The fool hath said in his heart,
no God for me. Listen to me carefully now. It's relatively easy to agree
with doctrine. I know most people don't. But
it's relatively easy, relatively. And to kind of fit in, at least
tolerate the doctrine and fit in in God's church. But
to have God reign over you, to bow at the foot of his throne
and say, Lord, I am yours. What would you have me do? Everything
I am, you made me. Everything I have, you gave me.
Everything I can do, it's you doing it for me. Take me, use
me. Get glory out of me. If you possibly
can. That's another matter. That's
a rare, rare thing. For somebody to sell out and bow at the feet of Christ. I haven't seen a lot of that
and I don't expect to. And you shouldn't either. But
I pray I'm one of them. I pray you're one of them. By
God's grace, I pray he'll knock the stuffing out of us and bring
us to his feet. There is no better place to be
than hanging upon his mercy every second. Because whether you know it or
not, you're nothing, you have nothing, you can do nothing.
Might as well confess it. And come and cast yourself upon
Him. What do you suppose is the issue
here? In all the scriptures, it's the
issue isn't it? What's the issue tonight? It's always been who's going
to be God. It's always been. Read 1 Corinthians
13 again sometime and ask yourself, is the issue agreeing with doctrine?
Or is it, who is God? Who is God? Think about that.
Read 1 Corinthians 13 where it says, though I understand all
doctrine and all mysteries and have all faith, but I don't have the love of
God in my heart. If God don't love me and I don't
love him, I am nothing. Think of the case of the rich
young ruler. Where the Lord said, go and sell
everything you have, give it to the poor, and come follow
me, and you'll have treasures in heaven that you can't even
imagine. And he could not do it. Tell
me what the issue is there. Believing some points? Taking
stances on things? Taking positions on things. Let
me tell you, it's real simple. Here's the issue. It's Christ
or not Christ. He that hath the Son of God hath
life. Now if you have Him, if you know
Him, you're going to believe everything He says. And by the
way, the doctrine is what He says, not what men say. It's
what He said. Sometimes what men say agree
with what He said. Sometimes it don't. What He says
is the doctrine of God. And the issue though has always
been who's going to be God? You're not going to bow to his
doctrine until you bow to him! And I'm not either. Was the issue with the rich young
ruler him agreeing with something? Or just giving himself and everything
he is and has and saying, I just need Him. All I need is Him. And He's God. What He says goes. I may not enjoy giving away everything
I have, but I'm going to have to do it because God said so.
I've got no choice. As long as you have a choice,
you're going to choose yourself. When God takes that choice away
from you and gives you faith in His Son, then it's going to be Christ
is all. And not until. Think of your life now. Does
your life characterize submission to the Lord Jesus Christ? Or
are you just pretending and living for yourself? You just come to
church every once in a while. You got baptized because that's
what, you know, Christians do. But now it's just you just going
to do what you want to do. Does your life characterize submission
to the will of God? Is God your King? That's just
that simple isn't it? That's what this whole chapter
is about. That's pretty much what this book is about. Who's
going to be God now? Is it Him or you? His will, your
will. His way, your way. Your works,
His works. It's not complicated. Now I'm
not asking you, do you please God with your life? I'm not asking
you that, I can answer that for you. I'm not asking, are you
living for God? I already know the answer to
that, you're not, I'm not either. We're not gonna be able to please
God, we never can, but the issue here is Christ and what he means,
what he is to you, not your works. If Christ is your righteousness,
then he is your God. If He is your Savior, if He is
your Redeemer, if He is your perpetuation for sin, then He
is your God. My Lord and my God. To come to
Christ is to abandon self and to surrender to Him, to love
Him and not yourself. To trust Him and not yourself.
To desire His will and not your own. To renounce your own works
and your own way and follow him To see all that you are and have
done to be the problem and not the answer To see all that he
is and has done to be the answer That's what it is to come to
christ. No wonder he said with men. It's impossible It's going
to take powerful creating grace in your heart Your natural heart ain't ever
going to do that. He's going to have to give you a new one. Verse 9. That was the issue,
by the way, when 1 Samuel chapter 8 was written. And it's the issue
now. It was the issue when our Savior
was nailed to the cross. Was it not? Who did they nail
to the cross? This is Jesus the King. They
wrote his accusation over his head. If he'd have been a thief, they'd
have wrote thief. If he'd have been a murderer, they'd have
wrote murderer. What'd they write? King. That's who we killed. Now therefore hearken, verse
9, unto their voice, albeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and
show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. Now
all of that that our brother read there, about how he's going
to take you men to serve him, and he's going to have hundreds
of people just growing his crops for him. All that's saying is
that Saul, he's just going to want to be a big shot. That's
all it's going to be about. And that was his downfall, wasn't
it? He overstepped his bounds and offered sacrifice that didn't
pertain to him. And we'll see that before long. But it says here, protest solemnly
unto them, but go ahead and do what they say. Now the Lord,
for purposes of his own, he allows them to have what they wanted,
though it was not his revealed will. And I don't know why all
the reasons God did that, and you don't either. I'll tell you
why, what wasn't the reason. Religion says that God's too
much of a gentleman to to cross people in what they want. They
say the reason that God has abandoned our nation, for example, is because
nobody wants him and he's too much of a gentleman to intrude
where he's not wanted. Let me tell you something. That's
the biggest bunch of foolishness I've ever heard. Thank God he
intrudes on you whenever he wants to. He intruded on Saul of Tarsus,
didn't he? And Saul is praising his name
tonight because he did. He wasn't much of a gentleman
with Saul, was he? Now his name's Paul, and he's
praising the name of the Savior tonight for that, that God wasn't
a gentleman with him, in our definition of that. So we don't
know really why God did this, but I'm glad that he could have
overruled this in a heartbeat, and he has for us so many times.
Has he not? Thank God he does that. He crosses
my will every hour or more. I'm so glad he does. But God has refused this request
before. I'm going to read it to you because
we're going to run out of time tonight. But if you're wondering what
this solemn protest was, listen to this in Judges chapter 8.
Gideon, you remember Gideon, he had led the people of Israel
in a great victory over the Midianites. And it says in Judges 8.22 that
the men of Israel said unto Gideon, rule thou over us. We want you
to be our king. You just let us in this great
battle and we want a great victory. You're a great man. We want you
to be our king. Both thou and thy son and thy
son's son also. We'll just make a dynasty out
of this thing. For thou has delivered us from
the hand of Midian. Wait a minute, who delivered
him from Midian? And Gideon said unto them, I
will not rule over you. Neither shall my son rule over
you. The Lord shall rule over you. Now we're talking. Now we're
talking. So the Lord tells Samuel here
to issue them a solemn protest. And he does. And I want us to
think about this for a little while tonight. The scriptures
are full of solemn protests to our natural tendency to trust
in our flesh. to lean to our own understanding,
to go our own way, to reject God and forget Him and do what
we want. To put their trust in men, to
lean to their own understanding, to reject the authority and the
sovereignty and the reign of God and His King. Look at Psalm, I want us to read
Psalm 146 in regard to this. Psalm 146, praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul.
While I live, while I praise the Lord, I will sing praises
unto my God while I have any being. And listen to this, this
is a solemn protest against our very nature. Put not your trust
in princes. Don't trust man. Don't trust,
nor in the son of man in whom there's no help. Man can't do
anything. God's pulling the strings. You're
gonna have to go to him sooner or later. His breath goeth forth
and he returneth to his earth. In that very day his thoughts
perish. Don't do that. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help. Now there's somebody that can
help you. Whose hope is in the Lord his
God. which made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth truth forever,
which executes judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food
to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners. The Lord opened
the eyes of the blind. The Lord won the victory over
the Midianites. And your Midianites too. Don't
trust him, man. Thank God that he sends men.
Thank God for one another, for his people. But we have to trust
in one another, not one bit. Not one bit, not in these things.
The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind, the Lord raiseth them
that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous,
the Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and
widow, but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord
shall reign forever. Might as well get to bowing.
He's king tonight and he ain't fixing to not be. He's going to reign forever.
I kind of like it that way, don't
you? With Him on the throne, by His grace. I know I wouldn't
if it wasn't for His grace. Paul, all through his epistles,
you know, people, the religion takes what he teaches about,
they call it the practical things, and talk about how he preached
against sin and against fornication and all that in his epistles,
and he did. But you know why he did that?
Not so you could work your way to heaven, not so you could please
God with your own works and turn over a new leaf and impress God. You know why he said do that?
Because you belong to him, not yourself. Your body is his, not
yours. It's the same issue in our text
tonight. The Lord God shall reign forever. Even thy God, O Zion, unto all
generations. Praise ye the Lord. Can you praise
the one that sits on the throne? Can you praise the one whose
sovereign rights over you are absolute? Who does what he will with his
own. Can you praise the one who'll
save your children or not as it pleases him? Listen to Matthew 23, 8, but
be not ye called rabbi, for one is your master, even Christ. That's pretty clear, isn't it?
You got one master. And all you are brothers. And call no man your father upon
earth, For one is your father, which
is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters.
Now, didn't he just say that? No. He said, don't you call anybody
master. Now he's saying, don't let anybody
call you master either. Don't you dare do that. Somebody
called me reverend one time. You gotta say, no sir. No sir. Don't you be called masters either.
For one is your master, even Christ. One, that he that is
greatest among you shall be your servant, and whosoever shall
exalt himself shall be abased, and he that shall humble himself
shall be exalted. There's one master, there's one God, there's
one Lord, there's one who calls the shots, what he says goes,
period. And you're either okay with that
or you're not. And I tell you this, You tell me whether you're
okay with it or not, and I'll tell you whether God has saved
you or not. That's the issue, isn't it? Who's
God? Samuel prayed unto the Lord,
but the people didn't. They didn't ask Samuel to intercede
for them. They didn't ask God to give them
what they needed. And God didn't bless them in
this. And I said, we don't really know why. We don't know all the
reasons. God could have overruled this if he wanted to. We know
that. No question about that. He did in the case of Gideon.
He gave Gideon the heart to say, no, God's going to be your king. But we know a couple of reasons
why, don't we? One reason for sure is this, they deserved it.
They deserved it. They deserved to get what they
wanted, didn't they? So do we. Didn't our brother just pray
tonight, don't give us what we want? That just popped into my
head. Don't give us what we want, give
us what we need. And all we need is you. But he gave them what they wanted,
didn't he? That was judgment. And I'll tell
you one other reason he did it. He did it to teach us, didn't
he? Can we be taught to that? God, open our hearts. This will
be in one ear and out the other, Lord, unless you hide it in our
hearts. And look at the very thing now.
Let's just consider one final thing. I don't want to wear you
tonight, but in verse 19, this is the result now of God giving
them over to what they wanted. And what a horrible thing. But one
thing about them that was special was that God had singled them
out and made them not like any other nation. And what did they
want to be? Like every other nation. They wanted to be like everybody
else. I don't want to be like the mega-churches, do you? I
don't want to be like that. Thank God I don't. Because I
sure enough would, the flesh does, don't it? The flesh wants
the numbers and the notoriety and the money and all that. Thank
God, I don't want to be like them. I don't want to be like
them. Verse 19, Nevertheless the people
refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, that
we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all
the nations. The very thing that they saw
as a problem was their greatest blessing, that God had made a
difference between them and everybody else. You know what the difference
was? He was their king. They all had
kings of various names and notoriety. Only they had God as their king. Look at what they are willingly
rejecting in Exodus 11 6 God said there should be a great
cry. This is Moses speaking to Pharaoh. I believe there should
be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt such as there
was none like it nor shall be like it anymore. But against
any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue
against man or beast that you may know how that the Lord doth
put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. And what
they want they want to be just like everybody else. I want God
to put a difference between us and everybody else, don't you?
And what does that have to do with our text, though? Think
about this. What was the issue with all of God's dealings with
Pharaoh? What was Pharaoh's reaction to
the word of God coming to him? And what was God doing here?
The whole issue with Pharaoh was, again, who's going to be
God? Is a man gonna call the shots
or God? That's the issue in our text
as well. It always has been. What was the issue at Calvary?
Let me say this one more time and quote some scripture and
we'll be through. The issue on the cross. John 19, 13, when
Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat
down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement.
But in the Hebrew, Gabbatha, and it was the preparation of
the Passover and about the sixth hour. And he saith unto the Jews,
behold, your king. But they cried out away with
him, away with him. This is what happened in our
text. Away with him, crucify him. And Pilate saith unto them, shall
I crucify your king? And the chief priests answered,
we have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore
unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led him
away. That's the will of man. That's
the will of man. And God, according to his purpose,
allows man's will to just to accomplish his purposes of grace
And that was his reason in our text, too. We don't understand
all the ins and outs of that, but we know this. God does everything
he does for his glory and for the good of his sheep. Not for
the good of the nation of Israel, for the good of his sheep, his
spiritual Israel. This world rejected the Lord
Jesus Christ as king, and this is what characterizes his people.
This is the difference, isn't it? The same issue is what makes
us different, except we're on the other side of it now. We're
on the other side of it now. They rejected him as king. This
world and us by nature reject him as king. What do we have
to say about that as believers? My Lord and my God. Lord, what
would you have me do? Lord, remember me. Think about
this one. They wrote this accusation, accusation
over his head. This is Jesus, the king of the
Jews, as an accusation, as a crime, as a rejection of him as God's
king, as their king. But as that sign was hanging
up there over his head and as our Savior bled and died on that
cross, an old thief over there, All of a sudden realized who
he was and said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. That's the difference that his
grace makes. That's the difference that God makes when he reveals
who he is to a sinner. It's my Lord and my God. Thank
God he's on the throne. Do you know that I have life
because Christ is King? John 17 2. as thou hast given
me authority over all flesh, that I should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given me. I have life tonight because
Christ is on the throne, because He does as He pleases and not
me. If it was up to me, I would have
no Savior. Bless God it's not up to me,
it's up to Him, and He had mercy on me. He taught us to pray by his grace.
May we pray in our hearts tonight. Our father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. You know the next part? Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done. On earth as it is in heaven. Do you want his will to be done? By His grace, I believe I do.
I believe I do in everything. Thy kingdom come.