This Old Testament picture of Christ.
Israel asked for God to give them a king. Give them a king. Now Samuel is an old man now. But you remember when he was
born, Hannah prayed and asked for him. And his very name means
asked of God. She dedicated to the Lord and
he started staying with Eli when he was just a young boy. And
Eli was the priest and the judge of God, prophet of God. And he
ministered, Samuel did, unto the Lord before Eli. But Eli
was getting old. Failed to discipline his sons.
Ain't that what it said there in verse 3? And his sons walked not in his
ways, Samuel's way, but turned aside after money, filthy lucre,
took bribes, and perverted judgment. Man had enough money to get his
way, and that's what it's talking about. So Samuel, God used him
to be God's prophet and judge in Israel. And Samuel was faithful,
oh how faithful he was. And all the days of his life
he was true. He was a faithful man. And here's
what happened. He made his sons and they just
displeased the Lord so much. Like Eli's sons. He didn't make
his sons and didn't discipline his sons. And God killed them. Hosni and Phinehas both. And
then when Samuel told him what God was going to do with that,
he said, well it is the Lord. Let Him do what seemeth good.
And so, they came to Samuel and said, listen, we've got to have
us a king. We want a king over Israel. Like all the nations around us.
Now this is not the first time this happened. This happened
over in Judges. I believe it's Judges 8, when
Gideon was sent. You know, there was about, I
don't know how many thousands there were, and God said, listen,
that's way too many. That's way too many. And he says,
now this is where we're going to separate them. When you go
get a drink of water that men had been down and used their
hand to get their water, he said, those will be the ones. There's
300 of them. And so Gideon took 300 men and defeated the enemies
of Israel. And they came to Gideon and said,
listen, Gideon, you rule over us. And then let your son rule
over us. And Gideon said, Oh, no, no,
no, no, I will not rule over you. My son will rule over you. God is the one who will rule
over you. The Lord rule over you. So he
said, No, I'm not going to rule. God is your Lord. God is your
reign. God is the one that you got to
follow. And he's your sovereign. And
so that's what he said. And I tell you what, God's people,
God's people have no king, no king that we bow to except the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're not going to bow to, I
don't care if it's the King of England, I don't care where he's at. I'm
not even going to curse you before a president or anybody else.
I'm telling you there's one person we bow to and that's Jesus Christ,
the King of Kings. Ain't that right? And I tell
you, nobody else is going to reign over us but Him by God's
blessed grace. And I do know this. He says,
call the King of kings and Lord of lords. And this scripture
tells us plainly that whosoever shall call upon the name of who? The Lord shall be saved. And you know when Peter was preaching
on the day of Pentecost, He got down to the end of his message
and he says this, that same Jesus who you crucified, God has made
him both Lord and Christ. And they were pricked in their
hearts and said, sirs, what must we do? He said, repent and believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tell you, God gave him
a name. And one of these days, everybody that's ever been on
the face of this earth, God's going to bring them out of the
grave. He's going to bring them from every tribe, kindred, nation
on this earth. And He's going to make every
one of them come before Jesus Christ. And He's going to make
every single one of them bow and confess that He is Lord.
And then the ones that do it gladly, we do it here, they'll
have to do it there. And then He's going to get them
off their knees and send them to hell. But they're going to
own that Jesus Christ is Lord. I know that's going to happen,
because you know why I know that's going to happen? God said it's
going to happen. What God says happens. Ain't
that right? And I tell you this request that
these leaders, these elders of Israel, when they went to Samuel,
said your sons are not like you, they're not faithful, they're
just a bunch of rogues. And it displeased Samuel. And
he knew it was a wicked and evil thing to want a king. To want
a king. So what did he do? He took the
matter to the Lord in prayer. Isn't that what he says in verse
6? But the thing displeased was evil in the eyes. Evil in the
eyes of Samuel. And when they said, give us a
king to judge us, and Samuel said, Lord, I've got... Lord...
And he knew God knew this. When we pray to God, we're not
giving Him any information. We're just telling Him what's
going on in our lives. And that's what Samuel's doing.
He's telling God what these people want. And what they're after. He knows God knows His. And the
Lord said unto Samuel, You listen to what the voice of the people,
and all that they say unto thee. For they've not rejected you.
They just don't only want you to be the prophet, but want you
to speak to them. But they don't want me. They've
rejected me. That I should not reign over
them. I should not reign over them.
And I tell you what, you remember Simon, I mean Thomas. You know
everybody calls him Doubting Thomas. But I remember Thomas
says, you know, except I see, put my finger in the print in
his hand, and stick my hand in that side, because he saw Christ
crucified. He saw and took down from the
cross and put in a grave. And the disciples come and run
and told him, says, Christ is risen. We've seen him. Simon
Peter saw him. We've all seen him. Thomas said,
I don't believe it. I'm just not going to believe
it until I've got some proof. I mean it no sooner got out of
his mouth than the Lord stood in front of him. And you know
what he said? And this is what every believer
cries through his heart. My Lord and my God. That's why we say my Lord and
my God. I've never seen a prince of nails
in his hands. I've never seen his side ripped
open. But I know it happened. I know he's got holes in his
feet. I know he's got scars around his head. But I don't have to
see those things to believe Him. But Thomas says, my Lord and
my God. And that's the faith of all believers. That's what we all say. All of
us say that, my Lord and my God. Our Lord Jesus is our King. God
designed Him to be King before the foundation of the world.
The scriptures tell us he was born king. When he was born,
he was born king. Nobody else was ever born a king.
Everybody else, David wasn't born a king. God anointed him
to be king. Samuel, Saul wasn't anointed,
wasn't made to be a king from his birth. No. God set him up
to be a king and these people did. But God set up our Lord
Jesus Christ to be king and he's king by decree. And everybody's
going to see that one of these days. Everybody's going to own
that. They can talk about Christ the
coming king all they want to. But I tell you what, he come.
He was born king. And they said, where is he that
is born king of the Jews? I say, where is he that is born
over all the whole world and the universe and reigns over
everything? Where is he born? He is born
in Bethlehem. But he is a king before he was
ever born in Bethlehem. He had a crown on before he ever
come into this world. He had to take that crown off
to come down here. He had to lay aside his glory
to come down here. And oh, I tell you, God said, this
is my king, this is my king. And then he's our king by his
death. Oh, he died. That he might be
Lord, both of the dead and the living. Now why does he talk
about the Lord dead and the living? Well, it could be the dead in
Christ and the living in Christ. Or it could be the living and
the dead both. It don't make any difference.
I know he's king over everybody. Whether they're dead or alive.
Whether they're spiritually dead or spiritually alive or spiritually
in the grave. Whatever. I know this, that he's
Lord over both the dead and the living. I'm going to tell you
a true story right here. I remember this when I mentioned
that. Rolf and Henry was preaching one time together. Henry told
me this. Barnard got up and preached out
of Romans 15. You know that Christ is made
this Lord over the dead and the living. God made him to be Lord
over the dead and the living. He preached from that. And I
mean he preached and Henry got up and said Barnard stole my
message. Because that was the text he
was going to use. But that would be an awful thing
that you had something to say and somebody gets up. Paul Mann
and I done that up at Dingus one time. I was going to preach
from Ephesians 1, 3 right on down through for a few verses.
Well he got up and that's what he did. So I had to get up and
just say, well I'm going to say what he said. That's what I said.
I'm just going to say what he said. That's what I said. You
know, we're all preaching the same thing. And if we both have
different deliveries and different styles of preaching, so it don't
make a whole lot of difference if they preach from the same
text. And if it comes out the same way, you say, boy, boy,
ain't that something? God bless both of those men to
know the same thing at the same time. That's the way the Lord
is. I'll tell you. He'll confound
us sometimes and we'll just say, oh my, I've never seen anything
like that. Oh boy. But I'll tell you what.
So he was king. And then I'll tell you something
else about his being our king. He's our king by us submitting
to him. We submit to his rule. Oh, I tell you what, when our
Lord said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, He says,
my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Him being King, oh
what a blessed King He is. What a kind, gracious King He
is. What a blessed, wonderful King
He is. He reigns in love. He reigns
in grace. He reigns in kindness. And you
know Samuel told these people, when he becomes king he's going
to take your sons, he's going to take your daughters, he's
going to take your seed, he's going to take your vineyards,
he's going to take your daughters and your sons and the strongest
among you. He's going to take them all and
make them to his use. Well Christ, he's the king and
you know what? He doesn't make us do anything. He comes and rules over us in
such love, in such kindness, in such grace, that we gladly,
rejoicingly, thankfully say, this is my Lord. This is my King. He didn't have to put His hand
and make me bow to Him. You know how it got me to bow
to Him? He got in my heart. He got in my heart. He got in
my soul. He got in my emotions. He got
in my affection. He got in my understanding. And
I said, this is the Lord. Oh, this is the Lord. Oh, my. We bow down to Him. And I tell
you, old Barnard used to say this, his crown right that men
refuse to own. I want you to keep this and I
want you to turn over with me to John chapter 19. Look at a
couple of things here with me. John chapter 19. Oh, listen. And I tell you what, I'll own
his crown rights. He got every right in the world
to me and I'm glad, glad, glad that he's my king. Oh my, you can read some of the
histories of kings and see some of the histories of kings. As
King Henry VIII, he killed seven wives. Married eight women, killed
seven of them. Because it was against the law
to divorce. So he'd just kill them. Have
them put in a tower and have their heads cut off. And you
know what he finally done? He said, well I tell you what,
since the Catholic Church won't let me divorce, and I'm getting
tired of killing all these women, he said, I'll start my own church.
You know what we'll call it? The Church of England. And that's where the Church of
England was born. King Henry VIII. Now how would you like
to have been under his reign? How would you like to have been? You know, we could have Christ
as our King and oh my! He is the only King that lets
all of His subjects come to Him and receives them all and embraces
them all. You don't have to hold out a
scepter. You know, if I don't hold out
my scepter, you can't come. He tells us to come all the time.
Huh? Oh, come! Mary even said it, he said at
the feet of Christ the King. Oh my, look quite well, look
here. They didn't know if he was delivered
to Pilate. You know, and they said this,
that we will not have this man to reign over us. Look here in
John 19, in verse 15. Pilate was going to let him go.
Pilate was going to let him go. And oh listen, but they cried
out the more, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said, thund
him. Shall I crucify your king? That's
what Pilate said. Shall I crucify your king? The
chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. Oh my. And I'll tell you what,
look what happens now. Back up here in verse 19. Excuse
me verse chapter 19 verse 1 look what they say now They mocked
him. They mocked our Lord as a king
Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him and the soldiers
Planted a crown of thorns. Oh, he's a king. Well, let's
give him a crown They planted a crown of thorns put it on his
head. They got a purple robe and and
put it around him, and listen to what they said. Said, Hail,
King of the Jews! And they smote him with their
hands. Oh, they mocked him as the King
of the Jews. Now look down here in verse 19,
look what's happened here. Oh my, and you know what they
put over his cross? And Pilate wrote a title and
put it on the cross. The writing was Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews. Oh my! And I tell you what the
Jews said. This title then read many of
the Jews for the place where Christ was crucified, Jesus was
crucified. was nigh in the city and Hebrew
and Greek and Latin the chief priest said oh right not the
king of the Jews but then he said I am king of the Jews he
said what I've written I've written so I tell you what God let them
know who he was all the way to the time he was dead with his
own that cross king When he said, oh listen, we're going to let
him go. No, crucify him. We ain't going to have nobody.
We ain't going to have this man reign over us. But I'll tell you what,
in modern religion, this is one thing that modern religion, and
I tell you it's a prophet, a priest, and a king, that all of we own
him, all three of those blessed offices, don't we? We own him
as our priest, we own him as our prophet, we own him as our
king. He's the only person that holds all three offices. And
as a prophet, he spoke for God. As a priest, he offered a sacrifice. And as a king, he sits on the
right hand of the throne of God. And I know this, that's what
we all bow to Him and receive Him and recognize Him. And then
there's these people who want to have Him as their personal
Savior, but don't want Him as Lord. There was, I guess they
still do it, but I remember very, very well when everybody was
teaching and preaching to justify their sorry converts. And that's
all I can say about it. They'd get these people to make
these professions. Get them to walk an aisle and
then they'd get them baptized. And they'd say, you've accepted
Jesus as your personal Savior. Then they'd go and just live
like they always did. No change in them. No change
in their nature. No change in their character.
No change in their conversation. No change in them at all. So
what they said was, they saved, but they've just not let Jesus
be Lord yet. That's an impossibility. You
cannot be a saved person and not own Christ as Lord at the
same time and not own Christ as King at the same time. It's
an impossibility. But do you know why they do that?
Because they said, well, we got all these converts here, they're
not living like they ought to live. We were telling them how
to live, but they're not living that way. I know what their problem
is. Y'all need to accept, you know,
you need to learn what it is to have Christ as Lord. They
got to learn that. But I tell you what, I didn't
have to learn that He is Lord. I didn't have to learn He is
King. I didn't have to learn. And I've never ever called Him
my personal Savior in that sense, even though He is the one who
saved me personally. But I do know this, it was the
Lord that saved me. It was a King that saved me.
It was a God-man that saved me. It was a man that had all power
in heaven and earth that saved me. It was a man whose blood
washed away all my sins. And I tell you what, only a king
can do that, only a God can do that. Oh my. And I tell you what, somebody
that don't know nothing about Christ, I wouldn't give you a
plug nickel for their profession. Now, Israel is like most people.
They're glad to receive God's blessings. Glad to receive His
blessings. But oh my, they didn't want his
reign. Give us a king. They never refused
his benefits, but they refused his scepter.
And I tell you what, you know when our Lord Jesus Christ said
this, and this is what redemption is. This is when Christ died,
God made him Christ and made him Lord. And here's what happened. I don't know if any of you have
ever read The Holy War by John Bunyan. But what happens in that
thing is, is that an evangelist comes, this preacher comes. And
he starts preaching. And he bombards Irrigate. Gets
in on them ears. And he sets up his engines and
he sets up his cannons and he goes to fire. And he gets in
that Irrigate. And understanding goes in there
and says, Oh my, I understand that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm lost. I'm without God. I'm
without Christ. I'm without hope. Well, they
kept preaching. And Mr. Understanding, he said,
well, listen. I understand that Christ is Lord. Christ is King. And oh, I tell you, Mr. Understanding
said, come on in. And Christ walked down the city
of Mansoul. And he walked down the city of
man's soul and walked right up into the soul of a man and sat
down on the throne of his heart. And I tell you what, you know
what they said? That was the most blessed thing that they'd
ever seen, how he walked and came and took control of them. And I tell you what that's where
I want him at don't you right here right here sitting on that
throne Oh my two people can't sit on the same throne at the
same time. That's why our Lord said no man can serve two masters
You know either Christ is on the throne or you are It can't
be both of you And if somebody's riding a horse, somebody's got
to hold the reins. And I tell you, our Lord demands
absolute, total, and complete submission to Himself. So this is what's happening.
I'm telling you, they wanted a king. Now let's look back over
here in 1 Samuel. Samuel told him people what you
what you need to expect And look what he said to him
down here God told him said in verse 9
show him what manner the king will be that'll reign over tell
him what he'll be like And protest solemnly so they'll know what
they're getting into Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto
the people that ask of him a king and He said, this will be the
manner of the king that shall reign over you. He'll take your
sons, and he'll appoint them for himself, for his chariots,
and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots.
He'll appoint him captains over thousands, captains over fifties,
and will set them to ear his ground, to reap his harvest,
to make him instruments of war, and instruments of chariots.
And he shall take your daughters, to be bakers, to be cooks, confectionaries. And he'll take your fields, he'll
take your field away from you. And your vineyards, and your
olive yards. And listen to this, he'll take the best of them.
He gonna get the best one you got. Well, that field over there,
that's my best field. No, he'll go over there and look
and say, no, no, no. Over here is your best and he
gonna come over and get that one. And all this and what he
says now. And he'll take the tenth of your
seed and your vineyards and give it to his officers and his servants.
He's going to take what you've got and give it away. Kind of
sounds like our government, don't it? Take what you've got and give
it to somebody that ain't going to hit a lick of the snake. And I don't apologize for that. Because that's the truth, ain't
it? And He'll take your men's servants,
your maid's servants, your goodly young men and your asses and
put them to work. He'll take the tenth of your sheep and ye
shall be His servants. And then you're going to cry
out because of the king you had. The Lord ain't going to hear
you. But what did the people say? What did they say? Nevertheless, the people refused
to obey the voice of Samuel. They said, nope, nope, Samuel,
we don't care what you say. We don't care what you said.
The Lord said, we do not care. Give us a king. Give us a king. And I tell you, you know what
the king did the first day of business that he had? He'd been
king about two years, and I want you to look over here in 1 Samuel
13. Look at his first business now. I'm going to deal with this
Lord willing next week. He had reigned about two years. It says there in verse 1, he
reigned one year and when he had reigned two years over Israel.
Got him an army. And now look down verse 8. This
is what we deal with God willing next week. And he tarried seven
days because Samuel told him to go down there over in chapter
six or seven. He told him, said, go down there
at Gilgal and wait till I get there. Say seven days. But Samuel came not to Gilgal,
and the people were scattered from him. And Saul said, bring
hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered
the burnt offering. Oh, you know what he did? He
entered into the priesthood. not only did he offer a sacrifice
and you know what when you put a sacrifice in the place of Christ
and you're not the priest and you do it for and you put it
you're dishonoring Christ's priesthood you're dishonoring you're denying
Christ's priesthood you're denying his sacrifice you're defying
his right to offer those sacrifices and look what he said and it
came to pass that as soon as he had made an end of offering
the burnt offering behold Samuel came and Saul went out, listen
to what it says here, to meet him that he might salute him.
In the margin it says bless him. He got so high minded and so
full of himself that he gonna go out there and bless the prophet. And Samuel said what have you
done? What have you done? And boy I
tell you what, that's a question ain't it, what have you done?
What have you done? That's what Mary said. What have
you done with my Lord? What have you done? He entered
into a ministry that was not his to have. Alright, let's pray.