1 Samuel chapter 8 and verse 1. And it came to pass, when Samuel
was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name
of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abihah. They were judges in Beersheba. And his sons walked not in his
ways, but turned aside after looker, and took bribes and perverted
judgment. 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. But the thing displeased Samuel
when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed
unto the Lord, And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken 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 the day that I brought them up out of
Egypt, even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me and served
other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto
their voice, howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show
them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel
told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of
him a king. And he said, this will be the
manner of the king that shall reign over you. He will take
your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and
to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots.
And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains
over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap
his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments
of his chariots. And he will take your daughters
to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields,
and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of
them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of
your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and
to his servants. And he will take your men's servants,
and your maid's servants, and your goodliest young men, and
your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth
of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry
out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen
you, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. 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. 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. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. I think that I mentioned before,
that Samuel was a link between the age of the judges in Israel and of the kings of Israel. Now,
we've thought about those judges over recent months, and I don't
imagine that you will remember too many of them. Some are more
well-known than others, such as Ehud, the left-handed judge,
or Samson, the mighty judge, or Gideon, who had his fleece,
and Deborah, the only woman amongst them. And some, of course, were
lesser known, like Tola and Jair and Elon. In all, there were
15 named judges, if Eli and Samuel are included amongst them. But
here we read about Samuel's sons, Joel and Abijah. And though they are referred
to here, they are not included in the usual list of judges,
perhaps because like Eli's sons, they were men unworthy of the
title due to their corruption in office. Their mention their corruption,
the mention of their corruption reminds us that though they were
Samuel's sons, that grace does not run in families. Being a son or a daughter of
a believer does not make you one of the Lord's people. God's
grace and the gift of faith is a personal experience. Now this is not the end of Samuel's
life, even although it speaks of him in this chapter as being
old. This isn't the end of his life
today. We're going to hear about him
in the chapters ahead. But this chapter marks a major
change in the way in which Israel was governed, and indeed the
way in which it is going to be governed for centuries to come. So we read together that the
leaders of Israel, that's the most senior people in the nation,
probably the heads of tribes and the heads of families within
those tribes, these leaders, these elders of Israel, they
came to Samuel and they said, quite bluntly, that Samuel was
getting old and as he was growing older, The desire of the people
was to have a king to lead them in the future and not any longer
a judge appointed by God. And it's interesting that they
did not come seeking to remove Samuel's sons because they were
unjust, because they judged improperly. They did not
come seeking to replace these men with honest judges. They
wanted a whole new system. They wanted a king so that they
could be like the nations round about. Now the Lord was Israel's
king and it was God who appointed the judges to be his representatives
amongst the people. But now the people, Israel, was
turning its back on the rule and the kingship of God and of
God's choice people amongst them. And Samuel saw what was happening
and he was not at all pleased about it. And here we learn an admirable
quality in Samuel. We learn that Samuel took the
problem to the Lord in prayer. Samuel's life is characterised,
even from being a little boy, as him speaking and praying to
the Lord. And prayer is a blessing that
the Lord gives his people. It's a way of communicating with
the Lord, a way of speaking with the Lord. And Samuel was a man
of prayer. And when he had a question, when
he had a problem, when he had a difficulty, when things weren't
going right for Samuel, he used that as an opportunity to spread
his concerns out before the Lord in prayer. And as such, he's
a very good example to us. That's something that we should
do as well. He asked the Lord what he should
do. Now, prayer isn't like asking
Alexa and getting an answer. Prayer teaches us humility. It teaches us patience and it
teaches us gratitude to God. And it opens our heart and our
mind to receive God's word of direction. So I encourage you
to practise praying. Pray to the Lord and let both
prayer and Bible reading be an element of your own personal
prayer. engagement with God and your
quiet times with the Lord. The Lord's reply to Samuel was
that the prophet should comply with these leaders, these elders
of Israel's request. Samuel was not to take the request
as a personal rejection but he was to realise that it was God
himself that the people were rejecting and the Lord gave Samuel
liberty to speak his own mind in protest about what was being
suggested and also to explain what the result would be. Nevertheless,
he was to submit to the will of the people and he was to grant
what they requested, the bringing forward of a king. So Samuel told the people what
this earthly king would be like. He told them what he would demand
of them and we read that together in verses 10 to 17. He lists there the cost of setting
up an earthly kingdom with an earthly monarch, of putting all
the power, all the authority, all the responsibility into the
hands of one man like this and he told them that it would cost
the people dearly. It would cost them in money,
it would cost them in land, it would cost them in livestock,
it would cost them in crops, it would even cost them their
families and this the people said was a price that they were
willing to pay. But there would be an even greater
price than all that and in verse 18 Samuel tells the people that
this king will make you his servants and when he makes you his servants
When he dominates you and when he imposes his will upon you,
you will cry out in that day because of your king which he
have chosen you. And, Samuel says, the Lord will
not hear you in that day. We cannot turn our backs upon
the Lord and then expect him to hear us when things don't
go as we had hoped. People were adamant, they were
insistent. They wanted a king because they
wanted to be like the nations round about. And what a poor
reason that is. As though the surrounding nations
were better off than the children of Israel. not having the Lord
as their King, as though Israel was in some way deprived by having
the Lord God as their one true God and King, who had himself
fought their battles. as he had done so even recently
by thundering upon the Philistines and giving his people victory.
What could an earthly king do more or better than the Lord
did for his people? Here are a few lessons that we
can learn from this passage today. The first one is this. The Lord
is a king to his people. I want us to know that the Lord
is our king. We're living here in the United
Kingdom, not all our listeners are from the United Kingdom,
but we have a king in our country. But the true king, the spiritual
king that we have is the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, one of
the Lord Jesus Christ's titles is King. He is King. Actually, he is King of Kings. So that even our monarch has
to acknowledge the kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is no other king like the King of heaven and earth. And no people
so blessed in all this world as those who are members of his
kingdom. Those who have Christ the King
for their King and their Master. And yet there are those like
these people in Israel who despise the kingship of Christ. And they
want rather to be rebels. To be like the people of this
world who do not acknowledge the rule of Jesus Christ. They think life will be better
without Christ. And it's very interesting what
we read in this passage because the Lord said to Samuel, and
the Lord says to them, give them what they want. Let them put
themselves under the servitude and the slavery of another king,
a lesser king, a ruler who will impoverish them and exploit them
and take everything from them. Everything that they have to
give and will give them little in return. I want especially the young people
who are listening to think about this. It will be hard for you as you are growing up
not to envy the false, empty attractions of this world. The world very often, especially
to a young person, offers attractions that seem desirable, but they
are inconsistent with life in the kingdom and under the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is better to have Christ and
you may have been brought up, many of you, in Christian homes,
but there will come a time when you must choose for yourself
who your king will be. Is it to be the idol gods and
the empty attractions and the false rulers of this world, or
the one true God, the only sovereign of heaven and earth? These Jews
turned their backs upon the Lord. And God said to Samuel, they
have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should
not reign over them. This was a fearful and a foolish
thing to do. And when the time of choosing
comes for you, may the Lord give you, may the Lord give us all
grace to choose a right that Christ should be our King. Here's another thing that I want
to mention to you. Samuel's sons must have been
a disappointment to their father. Now I don't doubt that these
boys had many good qualities. Samuel would not have appointed
them if they had not been sufficiently wise to judge. If they had not
been outwardly able to serve in the capacity that he desired
under his leadership. However, they proved to be inadequate
because they were greedy men who wanted to be rich and they
were willing to be bribed in order to judge cases falsely. And I suspect they made good
money at their deceit. But what a testimony they had. They were crooks and people knew
it. They brought shame on their father,
they brought criticism upon the role of judge, and upon God himself,
before whom they were pledged to serve with honesty. Honesty and integrity in any
office, in any role, is a mark of a man or a woman who fulfils
that role. And no society, no form of government,
no matter what it may be, of whatever structure it is, can
long survive if there is no justice in the land. And these men, these two men,
may not have caused the elders of Israel to reject God, but
they certainly did not help. They provided an excuse for those
who wanted to overthrow God's pattern. And this can happen
in churches and it can happen in fellowships. Our witness Our
witness and our testimony, our witness in our service for the
Lord should never bring the Lord's name into disrepute. Be aware, God detests hypocrisy
and he hates deceit. He hates lies and false judgment. outside of the forgiveness which
is in Christ, neither hypocrisy nor deceit will go unpunished. And lastly, here's a warning
and a word of hope. First, the warning. I find it
fearful how the Lord tells Samuel, give them what they want and
let them go. Hearken unto their voice and
make them a king. If the Lord simply allows us
to go our own way, it is a fearful prospect. If he says to us, if
you want to go, go ahead, but I will not hear you in that day. When people turn their backs
on God, it is a fearful thing if God turns his backs on them. However, there is still a word
of hope. And maybe you have turned your
back on the Lord. And maybe you have followed your
own way, like these Old Testament Jews wanted to follow their own
way. Or maybe you've practised deceit,
like Samuel's sons. And hypocrisy. All is not lost. There is forgiveness
with God. If the Lord gives you a sense
of guilt, if the Lord gives you an awareness of your need to
come to Him, to return to Him, then it is a mark of His grace. There is mercy in Christ for
all who come to Him for forgiveness. The Lord told another prophet
in Ezekiel chapter 33 verse 11, say unto them, As I live, saith
the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but
that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye
from your evil ways, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? May the Lord enable us all so
to turn. Amen.