We are going this morning to
consider this call of the people to have a king. And in a sense,
our text is those two verses that I read from chapter 10,
when Samuel called the people to him and reminded them that
he was the God, that God was the God who brought them out
of Egypt. And verse 19, this day you have rejected your God
who himself saved you out of all your adversities and all
your tribulations. And my heading is that we People
wanted a king, not God, to rule them. And the point this morning
really is that the heart of man hasn't really changed. And we
shall consider the passage and some of the practical applications
from it. We of course reflect that the
human heart is sinful and lost. We must never forget that. We
must never be taken in by the spirit of our age. where we have
a sort of high view of man following from the enlightenment of man's
wisdom and man's ability and so on. We mustn't lose the truth
of man as presented in the scripture that man from the beginning has
been a rebel. He has rejected God's rule and
order as we know right from Genesis and chapter 3, those verses there
at the beginning of that chapter, that there was that challenge
to the authority of God. It's presented, of course, the
argument is presented that Satan comes and beguiles them, but
he's working what's in their heart. Yes, he was more subtle,
but this is what Satan says, have God said, you shall not
eat of the tree of the garden. There was that challenge, but
it worked, it seemed, on the fertile ground, of the heart
of Adam and Eve and they said well we're not supposed to eat
of a certain tree because we shall die and the serpent said
well ye shall not surely die for God knows that in the day
you eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and they took it and
we know what follows from that what have you done and they are
accursed and he's put enmity between them and sorrow came
in and thorns and thistles and the rest the fall because of
what they did that rebellion was there if the heart of Adam
had been as the heart of Christ when the devil came to Christ
he got nowhere did he? all those temptations to Christ
had no effect because of his righteous heart. But in the case
of Adam and Eve, we see their hearts, it would seem, were not
righteous. There's a mystery in all of this. Why? Why were
they like that when they were created? We can't answer some
of these things. But man, from the beginning,
was a rebel. And so, as we read in this chapter,
They came and they said we don't like God's order in Israel. That's
the message. People don't like sometimes the
order in the church. We might say something about
that later. People came and said we felt very happy. They had
some practical reasons for not being happy. because of these
two sons and we read about them in in chapter two you know they
were they were a couple of very we would call them almost thugs
today people used to bring their offerings and they used to hawk
out the best meat and if people argued about it they would virtually
threaten them with violence and said but we're going to have
this meat anyway and we know that they did very lewd and wicked
and immoral things I'm sure you're familiar with that as we read
in chapter two And they took bribes. They were after money.
And we see that the people didn't like that. And we note that Samuel
had made his sons judges. That's an important point, which
we'll come back to. And so the people said, we've
had enough of this. Rather than saying, will you
seek, beseech God, seek God, that he will raise up somebody
like you, Samuel. That he will raise up somebody
to rule over us. They said, no, we're going to be like the nations.
We're going to be like everybody else. They seem to be strong
and mighty. We want a king like the nations. And that means we
don't want God's order. We don't want things as they've
been in Israel. We want And of course there was an anticipation
of a king. I found that in Deuteronomy chapter
17 and verses 14 to 20. So there is the expectation of
a king. It's quite interesting this.
If you go to Deuteronomy 17 and verse 14. When thou come in unto the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and
dwell therein, thou shalt say, I will set a king over me, as
all the nations are about me. Thou shalt in any way set him
king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose. So there's
an anticipation that people will say, we want a king, but the
word of God, the law said, you will have somebody who I will
choose. and one from among thy brethren. But he is not to do certain things. He is not to multiply horses
and the rest of it and to cause people to go back to Egypt. He
shall not have lots of wives and he shall not multiply to
himself silver and gold and the rest. But rather you will have a heart
that is not lifted up, we read in verse 20. Not lifted up, but
brethren that he turn us aside from the commandment. because
Samuel said, if you have a king, he's going to take your sons
and your daughters and he's going to take your lands and your vineyards
and your olive yards. He warned them, all these things,
but that was not the pattern. The pattern for kingship was
a different one. We know that the ultimate pattern for kingship
is the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And there
we see in King David, when he was raised up as it were a type,
we know that these types were shadows, they were imperfect,
but they pointed to the truth. There was something in kingship.
God had something to teach them. spiritually, about true kingship. Ultimately, the kingship was
God's, and they had rejected Him. And God raised up judges,
and we read that in the Book of Judges. The Book of Judges,
which I am reading at the moment at home, is an interesting book. and we find it very hard to understand
quite what was the rule of law, what was the law and order in
those days. Judges chapter 2 and verse 16
we read after of course that faithful leadership by Joshua
we read the Lord raised up judges which delivered them out of the
hand of those which spoiled them. Yet we read here they would not
hearken unto their judges but went a-whoring after other gods
and bowed themselves unto them they turn quickly out of the
way which their fathers walked in obeying the commandments of
the Lord but they did not do so and we know that the people
of Israel constantly turned to the idolatry one of the reasons
they were sent in to destroy those tribes in Canaan was to
remove the idolatry but they didn't completely do it and they
got caught up with it and we read in verse we read the Lord
then raised up other judges in verse 18 But it repented the
Lord because of the state of the people. When one judge was
dead, that they returned and corrupted themselves more than
their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow
down unto them. They ceased not from their own
doings nor from the stubborn way. We read here that the anger
of the Lord was hot against Israel because of their transgressions.
And it's a similar day we're reading of here. This is the
state of the human heart. The human heart is in rebellion
against God. This is sin. People talk about
sins, and if you're in the Roman church, they categorise them
all, don't they? Cards and all, and all this sort
of thing, and make out that it's actually a list of things that
you do. That is wrong. The world thinks sin is doing
bad things, that people are capable of good things and bad things.
But sin is the state of the human heart, isn't it? That's what
we believe. The Word of God teaches it. And out of that human heart
comes all the evil. The only way you can deal with
sin is to deal with the human heart. Well, God had delivered
these people from Egypt. He'd given them a land. He'd
given them spiritual leaders. It wasn't enough. And there were
these judges. It's quite interesting when you
go through the various ones there were. Like Othniel. Very little
said about Othniel, but he ruled for 40 years. and we read of
Joshua, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Samsa, Jephthah, and even a lady,
Deborah, there's a controversy, a lady, a woman judge and God
raised these people up and they kept the nation free from their
enemies and they didn't have courts and king and all the standing
armies and all the rest of it, did they? Interesting, I was
thinking well How was the nation ruled in the days of the judges
and in the days of Samuel? Because they didn't seem to have
been a central government. Today we've commenced ourselves
in our nations and we as a nation have to have a big central government,
hordes of people, big offices, civil servants, pay massive amounts
of money in tax and so on, don't we? To have a state. But Israel
didn't seem to have any of that, did they? I think they were ruled
by the tribes. Each tribe kind of ruled itself
and had its law and order and it had its princes and we're
not quite sure how that was all financed. It's interesting isn't
it? We're not told a lot in the scriptures
and we know that that Samuel, when he was a judge, rotated
between three places. There were three places he went
and he ministered to them, but there wasn't, as it were, the
encumbrance of state. You can remember when Saul became
king, he didn't go to a palace because there wasn't a palace.
He just went back to his fields, didn't he? went back to doing
his work on his own land. And only when there was a threat
of war did he then rally the people. Interesting days. Samuel's sons were godless. And we see they were appointed
by Samuel. They weren't raised up by God.
There is a root of the problem. And so the people came. And they
asked for a king. They weren't looking for someone
like Christ. but they wanted one like the
nations and they as we've seen the thing displeased Samuel because
he said well they have rejected God and this is what we read
in verse 7, the Lord said unto Samuel Harkin, unto the voice
of the people in all that they say unto thee for they have not
rejected thee but they have rejected me that I should not reign over
them according to all the works which they have done since I
brought them up out of Egypt unto this day wherewith they
have forsaken me And so doth a God, so do they also unto thee. So all this asking for a king
was all part of forsaking God. It's all there, isn't it, as
a warning to us, a warning to the nation through history to
not reject God's rule, to not forsake those things that God
has set before them. They should have waited for God
to answer. They should have waited for His
time that God should answer, that God should deliver. But
we read at the end of the chapter, they refused, verse 19, to obey
the voice of Samuel, and said, Nay, we will have a king over
us. And we read that Samuel heard all the words of the people.
And we read about Hurston. And God said, Well, Harkensson,
and give them a king. And we must learn ourselves.
There are times when we need We want to be hasty. I know I
do at times. We need to wait on God. We need
to pray. We need God to lead in our lives
and in grave and serious matters. They have forgotten those who
have taken matters into their own hands. Remember Nadab and
Abihu, the oldest sons. They offered fire, false fire,
before God and were destroyed. They took, as it were, matters
into their own hands. They did things that they should
not have done. And of course, if you are familiar with the
story of that period and Samuel, you will know that there were
Hophni and Phineas, the sons of Eli. And they went with the
ark. They took the ark, which they
should not have done, out to battle against the Philistines. And
they were slain in the battle. do those things they should have
done. They were not attending to spiritual matters and to prayer,
to uphold the people, not attending to the worship in the tabernacle
and so they were destroyed. There are many warnings in those
days to them but God preserves them. They were small people
that God had preserved Israel. That's the remarkable thing.
We read in Judges 8, 22 and 23 that these people were those
kept of God. And you think they were a very
small nation. It's a miracle, a remarkable thing that they
survived for so long, at so many periods of history, as an independent
country. You see, when Gideon had delivered
them from Midian, verse 22 of Judges 8, the men of Israel said
unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy
sons also, for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. We
want you to be the king, they say, and we want a dynasty, we
want your sons and your grandsons to rule over us, we want to be
like the other people. And Gideon said unto them, I
will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you, the
Lord shall rule over you. That's the important principle
here. We need the Lord's rule and it's clearly set forth there. Now people want that kind of
rule that they see around us. They want a kingly rule but they've
been told of the, what's the implications of that. Verse 11
onwards, this is the manner of the king that shall reign over
you. How true that became, didn't it, in the kings? Particularly,
of course, in the reign of Solomon, which we shall consider briefly
in a moment. They got that answer. Now people,
of course, have other reasons for kings. People say, well,
we need a state, we need law and order, we need some kind
of strong figurehead. And that sort of thinking, alas,
has led to very grave situations. After the First World War, the
Great War, Europe was in a terrible state, Germany in particular
became almost ungovernable. There was the Weimar Republic
which was very loose and liberal. People had enough of it. The
currency became worthless. Then on came this political party,
National Socialist Party, that was promising jobs and law and
order and a strong currency and had a very determined leader
called Hitler. And they went for him. You know, the German
people really went for this. And they thought, well, we'd
rather have this, we want law and order, than what we've got.
And the Italians went for Mussolini. And we see it today in the world.
Why do the Russian people elect a tyrant like Putin? of law and
order. We don't want to explore politics,
but you can see the parallels of our own day. People want to
be like the other nations. They want strong men. They want
strong government. This is what the people were
asking for. They had rejected God. That's what we need first,
the Kingdom of God. And God gives them up to it,
we see. He allows it. But it's going to be a chastisement
to them. The very thing that they want is going to hurt them.
And sometimes you need to think about that. I need to think about
that. When we're praying for things, be very careful what
you seek, what you come before God for. Are you absolutely convinced
you're asking always for the right things? If you ask the
wrong things, He may give it to you and it may be a chastisement
to you. It may be a lesson to you, even
as it was to the people. And we can always find fault.
When we've been at work, we can always find fault with the manager. and so on. I'm sure in churches
or this one or other churches we belong to, we can find fault
at times with the church officers, with the way things are being
done. That is the nature of the human heart. But we must look
to God, to his pattern, his standards and leadership because we are,
all of us, are fallen people. We're not. Alas, we're not perfect
and we fail and we sin. There is a perfect type of leader.
a perfect one who we must look to and that's not the scripture
gradually build up that picture bit by bit as we read through
we have the privilege of having the whole word of God we can
see all of it but these people were in the process of that being
revealed that there was to be a king who was to be king of
kings to be lord of lords the perfect leader the perfect ruler
there was going to be an internal inheritance when he would reign
over it and they needed to see that. And we know that David,
when he came, would be a type of that to come. He was not perfect,
we know, there were many faults, but he was a man after God's
own heart. And David, of course, as king,
had his own problems and rebellions. Remember, his three elder sons,
what a problem they were. Amnon, and then we read of Absalom
who rebelled and overthrew his father, and his father had to
flee. that was confounded by the wisdom of God in the end
and the young man died. And then Adonijah was also one
who was warned by Solomon not to rebel and he rebelled later
after the death of his father. So there were these rebellions.
God's order is always challenged. It's Levitical priesthood that
was fulfilled, wasn't it? in Christ. So there's the type
of the kingship and there's the type of the priesthood. We know that in terms of role
and priesthood, there stood the judges, there stood Samuel at
his remarkable role, didn't he? Almost as a prophet, priest and
king really, but the perfect type was Christ. Now we know
he's a priest forever, isn't he? After the order of Melchizedek,
that mysterious order that was before the Levitical priesthood,
that is without time. The origins of it are a mystery,
but it is one that continues forever, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now in Saul, they got what they asked for. As I was saying, sometimes
you pray for things, maybe your prayer will be answered, but
you need to be very careful. We need to be very careful in
our prayers. They got what they asked for
and then trouble started. It didn't solve their problems
at all. There were other problems associated with having a king
and turning from God. You turn from God, it's going
to be a problem, isn't it? And Saul was what a man he was. He was a fine young man, tall
and strong, and from what we read in the early records in
Scripture, his character seemed to be a good character. A fine,
honest man, obedient to his father, he seemed perfect for the role. and they got what they wanted
and in a sense he was a good king in many ways he never stopped
fighting Israel's enemies to the end he was a mighty warrior
and faithfully saw off particularly the Philistines but others fighting
for God but alas he overstepped the mark he went beyond, there
was a problem with him, he wasn't a truly spiritual man, though
at times the spirit moved into prophecy, he wasn't a truly spiritual
man and he just couldn't wait at all for Samuel to come and
bring the offering at Gilgal before the battle he got impatient
and so he took it upon himself or he ordered himself that the
offering be made before Samuel had come and Samuel said to him
in chapter 13 of 1 Samuel verse 11 what hast thou done and Samuel
said because I saw that the people were scattered from me and that
Thou camest not within the days appointed, and that the Philistines
gathered themselves together at Michmash, therefore said I,
the Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I
have not made supplication unto the Lord, I forced myself therefore
and offered a burnt offering." He said, I've taken upon myself
that which wasn't my office, and Samuel said, Thou hast done
foolishly thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord thy
God which he commanded thee for now would the Lord have established
thy kingdom upon Israel forever but now thy kingdom shall not
continue the Lord hath sought in a man after his own heart
and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people
because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee."
Today people say, well you didn't do very much, that wasn't much,
why should Saul lose his throne, why should his dynasty be overthrown
just because of that? That's the mentality today, but
he disobeyed God, but it showed the heart of the man, alas, he
was not a godly man. But you see, though the people
wanted a king, God was going to raise up a king, and was going
to raise up a better king, a king who would be a type of that great
king yet to come. Now we note here also that Saul,
in addition to this, he sought a medium. When God deserts him
and he got no answer to his prayers, he sought a medium, the witch
at Endor. We know that he secretly and openly tried to kill and
destroy David when he understood that David had been anointed
later to be king. There was a wickedness, an evil
that came out deeper and deeper and deeper. Alas, in the heart
of Saul, he was chosen by Lot. That's interesting, isn't it?
He was chosen by the people. So, it was an interesting process. We're not told all the details,
but the were called one day to Mizpah by Samuel and he said
you're going to call him out yourself they called all the
tribes to come near and the tribe of Benjamin was taken and then
we find that the various families were taken then the son of Kish
was taken which was Saul and when they couldn't find him they
looked for him he was shy it seemed then he was hidden hidden
in all the baggage where is the man and they brought him forth
and he stood among the people and he was head and shoulders
above them and Samuel said here is the people whom the Lord have
chosen for them the man that they wanted but he was the people's
choice in a sense he'd been pulled out by lot and all the people
shouted and said God save the king and Samuel wrote up a book
about kingship but you see when we come to David it's different
isn't it? when we come to those Samuel
was raised up, wasn't he, quietly and secretly. God came to him
and spoke to him in the tabernacle. David was not, as it were, selected
or chosen publicly in chapter 16 verses 12 and 13. And we find that, we know the
story of course, the sons of Jesse were paraded from the oldest
before Samuel. And he said, no this isn't the
one I'm looking for. No, he bought the oldest one first. And he
said, have you got any more children? And he said, well there's the
youngest. Well, and he's out keeping the
sheep. He'd been treated as somebody of no consequence, so it wasn't
even worth bringing him at all before the Prophet Samuel. Well,
he won't bother with David, just leave him out with the sheep.
And Samuel said, fetch him. And he sent and brought him in. He was ready and with all and
other beautiful counsellors and goodly to look to. And the Lord
said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took
the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren
and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
So Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. There he was with his
family in a private place in front of his older brothers.
David was anointed but this was of God. God was going to raise
up a king. These are important principles
that we see in these passages. Some of them we've touched on.
Is our church under God's order? Are we acting in the light of
Scripture? That's something we must always
ask ourselves. We have regular church meetings
and clearly sometimes when we come together we have to deal
sadly sometimes with matters of church order or church discipline
but we have to do it and we must always come back to that and
in Salem as we mentioned before we do try to hold to scriptural
biblical reformation reform principles these are so important this is
why we are different to many other churches you could go to
today where very different things will be said and very different
things will be done. We do those things we do because we believe
this is what God wants. This is God's order. With many
other things we could do and therefore we want scriptural
order. We want to trust him. We look around today and we're
not going to go into it but you see the order people have in
the world of popes and their wonderful palaces that religious
men, cardinals and archbishops live in, all the fantastic ceremonies
and rituals and robes, you know all these things. None of them,
of course, are in the Scriptures. There is the leadership and ministry
by women, which again is forbidden in the Scriptures. There is the
raising up of homosexuality and all its evils, and what I would
call vain worship, and you're familiar with these things, we
see it around. We in Salem must come back to the Word of God
and try and make sure that we are not vain, that we do those
things that God has appointed. Those are the things that we
must and should do. And true ministers are raised
up by God. They are like the judges. Even
as God, as we've read, raised up David. Our pastor has a ministry. I'm sure before God he feels
like Mr Mastronoio before him. They were raised up ungifted
by God. They weren't selected by a committee,
they weren't appointed. I can remember at one point in
my younger days meeting a young man who decided he wanted to
be a minister. He wasn't really active as a membership of the
church, he hadn't really had any preaching experience, he
hadn't had any advice. He says, I want to be a minister.
I think he was in a congregational connection. So he applied to
a Bible college, and to go and train to be a minister of religion
and they saw his degree and all the rest of it and accepted him.
So off he went to train as far as I know he would have done
his three or four years and got his qualification and would then
have been put on the approved list and some congregational
church summit would have taken him as their minister. Now you say is that right? No. I think one of the things about
our chapels is that we We wait upon God and then we prayerfully
seek someone to come and be our pastor. If you were in the Baptist
Union you'd be told there's an approved list of ministers or
student pastors and you've got to have somebody off that list
and that person's got to have this, that and the other qualification
and many other churches have these rules and they may well
be godly men there. I don't want to go into that.
We want God's rule and it's different and that's why we do the things
that we do here. But we see in society at large,
we do remind ourselves there is no fear an aura of God. It's a sadness. It's how we must
understand the day we're in. We're in a day of, it's the rebellion
against God and it breaks out. It's how the human heart is. Psalm 36 and verse 1, the transgression
of the wicked said, within my heart that there is no fear of
God before his eyes. And that's the day we live in.
There is no fear of God. We must be so careful how we
conduct ourselves within the Church of Christ, that we give
a good testimony Now we read also just back in Psalm 33 and
I think it's verse 8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let
all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. There is
a lack you see today of an awe, a fear of God. And let me say
carefully, I fear that we have that lack within the Church of
Christ as well. We need to fear. There was a
time when people had more of a sense of an awe than fear of
God. There is no fear. Men are full
of themselves. We must come, of course, to more
personal applications of these great truths. We cannot doubt
them. Are we living ourselves? We can
look at society, we can look at the Church, but ourselves?
What's the order in your life? Are you living as though that
Christ was your King of Kings? and you're Lord of Lords. Or
are we living in another kind of way? You know, we see the
spirit of our age and the spirit of many people's hearts and within
professing churches is to reject God's rule and order and to think
it's perfectly alright to reject it and go down new routes. We
see this in chapter 19 of Luke. A very interesting account here. We see that our Lord here tells
a parable of a certain nobleman who went to a far country to
receive a kingdom. He says, and we understand what
he was trying to teach them when he gave his servants money to
occupy till he comes. He came, but we read in verse
14, his citizens hated him and sent a message after him saying,
we will not have this man to reign over us. And we know that
is the spirit of our age. When it comes to the Lord Jesus
Christ, we will not have this man to reign over us. And it comes back later, when
that king returns to his kingdom, he deals with these faithless
servants. Verse 27, those mine enemies
which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither
and slay them before me. Christ recognized there would
be a rejection of his rule. Christ's rule is very different. There is a serving of the Lord
Jesus Christ. There is that living and walking
as citizens of the Kingdom of God. When we are in Christ, we
are citizens now of that Kingdom of God. Yes, we have a glorious
inheritance yet to come. How is it we are living and walking
day to day? Are we walking as free men and
women? Are we walking in the truth?
day by day, enjoying the liberty of the sons of God. The people
around us who say we're free to do what we want, they're not. They're in bondage like the neighbour.
Yes, he's free to drink, but he has such a terrible problem
that he's in complete thrall and grip, and it's destroying
him in many ways. That's not liberty, is it? We
have liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, unlike these kings
in Israel, let me tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a
wonderful king. There's no other king like our
Lord Jesus Christ, is there? He doesn't tax us. He doesn't
take your sons and your daughters from you. He isn't going to come
and take your fields if you have them and your vineyards and your
olive yards if you have them. He doesn't come and steal things
from you. He doesn't send you to war. He
doesn't rob you. He gives you everything you need. Everything that we need in this
life we are supplied because of our faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's always with us. He never leaves us. He never
forsakes us. He watches over us for our good. He's a King who cares for us
individually. He doesn't see us as one in the
crowd. He sees us as a person for whom He personally died,
gave His life. His blood was shed that not one
of His children should be lost. He's not a cruel taskmaster.
When Solomon had his kingdom, you think of all the things that
Solomon had. The hundreds of wives, the soldiers, the possessions. It was a tremendous burden on
the people such that when Solomon died, people came to Rehoboam
and his son and said, well, what sort of king are you going to
be? Because the burden of your father, terrible burden upon
him. And if you'll just lighten that
burden a bit, make life a bit easier for us, we'll serve you
forever. That's what the people said.
So if you were Rehoboam, what would you have done? Well, he
went and consulted the old man and said, yeah, do it. Make life
easy for them. The people, they served Solomon. You've got a wonderful kingdom.
You do that. And then he consulted his friends.
They said, no, you're going to be harder. You know the story. You're going to be harder to
them. You're going to be even tougher than your father. And
that's when he went back and they said, well we won't have
you to rule over us. And the kingdom was split. We know it was of
God, because God also raised up that man Jeroboam to rule
the ten tribes of Israel. Jesus is not a cruel taskmaster. He doesn't leave us or forsake
us. And all those things we see in worldly kings. No! The complete
opposite. Rather, his kingdom is a totally
different kingdom. It's a holy kingdom, a righteous
kingdom. Everything he does is good for
us. Everything he does for you and me, if we be in Christ, is
in our best interest, because he cares for us. He has loved
us from the foundation of the world. He cares for you. This
is what we read in the Word of God. From the foundation of the
world, that we should be in that glorious kingdom, that we should
not be lost, that we should be kept to the end, and that we
should be raised up to be with him in glory forever. That is
the perfect type of kingship. David was a type of king on earth
who pointed to it that that's our Lord Jesus Christ and it's
all his glorious work. We see his kingdom as a kingdom
of righteousness. And that is the thing that we
must seek about all things. What is it that we seek in our
lives? That's part of the challenge here. What sort of people do
we want to be? Our Lord Jesus Christ in that
great Sermon, that Sermon on the Mount, that great piece of
scripture there in Matthew chapter 6 and it's like a manifesto, one
of the most revolutionary things you could read in all of literature
is that Sermon on the Mount. You compare that to what the
Jews were being taught by the scribes and the Pharisees. You
compare that to every other piece of religious teaching and writing.
There's nothing to compare. with our Lord Jesus Christ. No
wonder they said, no man spake like this man. He said, seek
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these
things shall be added unto you. All these things that you need.
All the things the Gentiles seek after, all your practical needs,
seek ye first the kingdom of God. That is the nature of Christ's
kingdom, isn't it? In the end, it's a spiritual
kingdom. We must seek first those spiritual
things. We must seek first the kingdom
of God. We must seek first righteousness and then by the grace of God
we shall have that wonderful revelation to our souls. And
I love this in Revelation and chapter 19. Wonderful, wonderful
picture there of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many pictures
of course of Christ in different ways in Revelation like the lamb
that was slain from the foundation of the world but here we see
as it were the fullness of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We see him there on that horse
and we see this is chapter 19 of Revelation verse 11. He's on a white horse and he's
And he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and
his eyes were as a flame of fire, and he was clothed in a vesture
dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And
the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean, and out of his mouth
goeth a sharp sword. and with it he should smite the
nations and he shall roar them with the rod of iron and he treadeth
the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of almighty God and
he hath on his vesture and on his thighs a name written King
of Kings and Lord of Lords. All that God would reveal these
things to our souls. This is that kingship that we
need to know. This is that King that we need
to love, that King to serve. This is that which we need God
to raise up in our hearts that we might praise Him and worship
Him. Well, the people wanted to go
the way of the world and they got the world's answer. They
should have sought for God to appear for them. As we read,
as we come to a conclusion here in our passage, 1 Samuel chapter
8 and verse 19, we read, after all of this, nevertheless the
people refused to obey the voice of Samuel and they said, Nay,
but we will have a king over us that we also may be like all
the nations and that our king may judge us and go out before
us and fight our battles and Samuel heard all the words of
the people and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord and the
Lord said to Samuel hearken unto their voice and make them a king
And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, go ye every man unto
his city. Well, we thank God for his precious
word of truth this morning. Amen.