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1 Samuel 8
8:1 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” 6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. 8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”
10 So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men1 and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”
19 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, 20 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.” 21 And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the LORD. 22 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.” Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”
(ESV)
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If you
Joel Brooks:have a Bible, I invite you to turn to 1st Samuel chapter 8. We're gonna look at how Israel demands a king. Basically, how Israel decides they don't wanna have a libertarian form of government. They now want big government. And we'll see the disastrous consequences of big government.
Joel Brooks:People get so nervous. You do a political joke, and you're like, can I laugh? Not Yeah. This is really gonna be the theme for the rest of 1st Samuel is going to be our search for a King. Israel's search for a king.
Joel Brooks:We all have
Joel Brooks:this desire for a king to rule over us. And so the rest of Samuel is going to unpacked this. So if you would read me with me. So if you would read me with me. So if you would read me with
Joel Brooks:me. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second Abijah. They were the judges They were judges in Beersheba. Yet, his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
Joel Brooks:And I just want to insert there that I was named for a different Joel in the bible. It's named for Joel the prophet, not the Joel here. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like the other nations. But this thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us.
Joel Brooks:And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought you up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the way of the king who shall reign over them.
Joel Brooks:So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of 1,000 and commanders of fifties. And some to plow His ground and to reap His harvest.
Joel Brooks:To make His implements of war and the equipment of His chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, and vineyards, and olive orchards, and give them to His servants. He will take the tent of your grain and your vineyards and give it to the officers and to His servants. He will take your male servants and female servants, and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to work.
Joel Brooks:He will take the tent of your flocks and you shall be His slaves. And in that day, you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves. But the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, no.
Joel Brooks:But there shall be a king over us, that we may also be like all the nations, and that our King may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey their voice and make them a king. Samuel then said to the men of Israel, go every man to his city. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks be to God. Pray with me. Father, we thank you for preserving this word to us for 3000 years now. And how you have used this word to change your people. When they hear your voice, the more and more we hear your voice, the more we become like you.
Joel Brooks:That's what we long from this moment, to become more like Jesus. So we pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:So the last time we saw Samuel, he was serving as a little boy in the temple. But now he's an old man. You're actually given very few details about his his life, other than he was a judge, and he did a pretty good job. Now, he's old, and he he knows his time is limited. So, he appoints his sons to be the new judges over Israel.
Joel Brooks:Now, Samuel is way out of line in doing this. He had no business doing this. Judges were not a hereditary position. They were a divinely appointed position. And God would never have appointed his sons to be judges because we realize, we read that they perverted justice.
Joel Brooks:They were evil. How often Samuel Samuel's like a lot of parents in which they're blind to the evils of their kids. They explain them away. The evils that everyone else could so easily see and they're like, oh, no. You know, my child's really not a bully.
Joel Brooks:My child's really not abusive. My my child just speaks truth. My child's not reckless. My my child's just free spirited. He began just explaining things away, blind to their sins, and that's what Samuel does.
Joel Brooks:And so he appoints his kids to be judges. In other words, he makes the exact same mistake as Eli did, his predecessor. And and this puts the people in somewhat of a bind. I mean, now what they're What are they supposed to do? Well, they come to this conclusion.
Joel Brooks:It's time to put the period of the judges to an end. It's been a, you know, it's been a good experiment or actually, it really hasn't been a great experiment. And it's been 400 years of kind of misery. Let's just kill this. We want a king.
Joel Brooks:It's actually hard when you're reading through this to not laugh at the insanity of their request if you take time to think about it. The problem with Eli was that he appointed his sons to be leaders. The problem with Samuel was that he appointed his sons to be leaders. And now, they want to ensure a form of government in which the king is always going to be appointing his son to be the next king and leader over them. But but but they're not thinking about the insanity of their request.
Joel Brooks:They are just desperate at this point. And Israel's been leaning in this direction for a number of years now wanting a king. From time to time to the judges, they they would try to make their judges king. One one of my favorites is the story of Gideon in Judges chapter 8. They forcibly try to make a Gideon king, and this is comical.
Joel Brooks:He goes, no. No. No. No. You will not make me king.
Joel Brooks:Then do you know what he names his firstborn? Abimelech, which means my dad is king. No. No. I'm not gonna be king, but I'm just gonna name my child daddy is the king.
Joel Brooks:And that's what they've wanted. They've wanted a king to rule over them for for many years now, and there's nothing wrong with their request for a king in and of itself. God had promised them a king in Deuteronomy 17. We looked back when in first Samuel chapter 2 in Hannah's prayer. She has that prophetic moment in which she prophesies that there will be a king who's gonna come and rule righteously and justly.
Joel Brooks:There's nothing wrong in and of itself with this request. It's the why. Why does Israel want a king? You see, they wanted a king for all of the wrong reasons. They said in verse 20, they want a king to go before them, to judge them, to fight their battles for them.
Joel Brooks:But isn't that what God has been doing for them all along? Hasn't God already faithfully been fighting their battles? Hasn't God been the one who faithfully delivered them from oppression in Egypt? So what they're asking for is a replacement of God. Can we get an earthly king to do what You've been doing, God?
Joel Brooks:And that's why, when God hears a request, he says, This is tyranny. You're rejecting me as king. But when you read through this, you have to acknowledge it's somewhat understandable their request, isn't it? Because they're not outright rejecting God. I mean, and they're they're they're not.
Joel Brooks:Not at all. If you were to just go up to a typical Israelite on the street and you were to say, do you still believe in God? They would say, absolutely. I believe in God. Of course, I believe in God.
Joel Brooks:Do you trust God? Of course, I trust in God. He's my creator. He's all powerful and so I trust him for forgiveness and for my eternal salvation. But but, you know, I've actually gotta put real food on the table, not just spiritual food on the table.
Joel Brooks:I've got real bills to pay. And if you were to go over that mountain over there, you would see a real physical enemy who wants me dead. And and so, yes, I do I do trust God. I do I do believe God, but I actually need someone physically present here to help me with real world needs. Praying to some invisible God who we don't know where he is or what he's doing half of the time just hasn't really cut it.
Joel Brooks:You see, they wanted a God that could actually see, hold on to, hold accountable. I mean, yes, they've entered into a covenant with God, but it's hard to hold that kind of God, accountable if you can't actually sit down at a table and and see Him across from you and go over the line items of the covenant. You know like, God, you know you you did a great job there. You know you do the little millennial sandwich, you know, where you have to compliment in the front and the end, but then really in the middle. But God, you were a little late to work the other day.
Joel Brooks:You left me hanging here and I had to cover for you and get my own self out of a jam. You want that kind of God that you can hold accountable, that you can control. And once again, they didn't see this as completely abandoning the faith. No. They would trust God for those big things like salvation.
Joel Brooks:They would trust him for all the other things as kind of their fallback plan. Their hail Mary. I mean, if everything else real in their lives fell apart, well, of course, they would call out to God for that. But for the day to day practical living, for real world problems, they wanted a person who could deal with it. Do you understand that, don't you?
Joel Brooks:We we live our lives this way. I think the hardest part of the Christian faith, if we were honest with ourself, is just the simple fact that God is invisible. I mean call a spade a spade people. It's hard serving and trusting an invisible God. That's why the bible speaks so much about faith.
Joel Brooks:It takes a lot of faith to trust an invisible God. Let me ask you this, would you be scared of disease or of dying of cancer in a hospital if you could actually physically see God in Would you send that angry email or look at porn on your computer if God was sitting next to you and you could physically see Him. Not a chance. You wouldn't do those things. So trusting God and obeying God would be infinitely easier if you could just see Him.
Joel Brooks:It was hard for the Israelites 3000 years ago, and it's hard for us today serving and trusting an invisible God. And unfortunately, this is what we typically do. This is how we typically respond to this. But we typically will still pray and and confess our trust in God, because we really do trust Him for those big things, like our forgiveness and for our salvation and our eternal soul. But then, we add to that trust a trust in some other things for our day to day operations.
Joel Brooks:We trust in you, God, but for the practical, real day to day things, I need some other things that I could depend on in order for me to feel secure and happy. So let me ask you this and be honest. We're not gonna get anywhere if you don't be honest. Be honest. Which makes you feel more secure Knowing that you have the promise of God that says this.
Joel Brooks:He will take care of you just like he takes care of the birds of the field. And just like he takes care of the the flowers in the field. Birds of the air and the flowers in the field. He will take care of you the same way. Do you feel more secure knowing that or more secure if you have a healthy savings account?
Joel Brooks:Which would you rather have? Do you feel more secure knowing that God says He will provide for you? Or knowing that you have a good job? Do you see what I'm saying? We We've got God's promises, but if we're honest, God's promises are a lot easier to believe when we have something physical attached to them.
Joel Brooks:Isn't it easier to believe God loves you when you have a fulfilling marriage? Isn't it easier to believe God loves you when your kids obey you? Isn't it easier to believe God cares for you when your body is healthy? Easier to believe that God wants for you the best in your life when your kids have gone off grown up and they've become so productive in their careers? You still, of course, want God, but if you're honest, you'll have to admit you would just like to trust Him all the while having something a little more tangible.
Joel Brooks:Any of you use Venmo? Alright. For those of you who don't know what Venmo is, first, welcome to the 21st century. Venmo is essentially it's, it's a savings account on your phone, and you could kinda like a checking account. I know what that's not exactly what it is, but you get the idea.
Joel Brooks:And you can send money back and forth to different phones. And when someone sends you money, you get to hear the cash come in, and it makes What's what's the sound it makes? Cha ching. Cha ching. Is that a glorious sound?
Joel Brooks:I mean, I don't care like where you are. If if your phone's somewhere, and all of a sudden you hear that ching, you just your spirits are lifted. So just a little deposit. You only know how much was put in there, but it just it makes you feel good. It's a glorious sound.
Joel Brooks:Now wouldn't it be great that whenever you prayed to God, maybe with a financial concern, need you have, and then you prayed, amen. You heard a heavenly cha ching. Wouldn't that be amazing? You're like, So I I could pray, Lord, as you know, I've got a daughter. She's at Auburn.
Joel Brooks:I gotta pay for tuition. I've also got insurance. I've got all these other bills. So if you could just financially help us out right here, we'd really appreciate it. If I heard right after I prayed that, cha ching, my confidence in that moment is like, Lord, you did it.
Joel Brooks:I'm not sweating anything. But this is what happens, the way more common experience. Lord, I have I have some financial needs and I need you to provide. So could you do that for me? Silence.
Joel Brooks:Lord, I'm just gonna repeat that request with a few more adjectives. I really have got some big financial needs, and you are an amazing, omnipotent God in control of it all. Would you help me out? Silence. God, you did hear me.
Joel Brooks:Right? You've are you do you have a plan in motion? Is it is it going? We get nothing. It's hard, isn't it?
Joel Brooks:Don't you want something just a little bit more tangible? Could you imagine if you could just sit down at the end of the day, once again have God sit across the table from you, and you could just chat through your day. You could give Him some good honest feedback. God, I could have used you a little more in the lunch room today. I needed a wingman.
Joel Brooks:You know I was after that girl. I could have just used a little something. And you I was stuttering. I was stammering, and you didn't help me out. You left me high and dry.
Joel Brooks:So maybe next time, you could go through your day. You could evaluate God's performance. Maybe even give him a grade. Because that's what we want. Isn't it?
Joel Brooks:A God we can control. A God that we can hold accountable to our standards. That's what the Israelites wanted. It's what we want. But God says that desire is a rejection of him.
Joel Brooks:Now one of the surprising things about this story is God gives to the people what they asked for. I mean, look at verse 6. But the thing displeased Samuel, obviously, because they're saying, we're rejecting you as a judge. It displeased Samuel when they said, give a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the lord, and the lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you.
Joel Brooks:For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Samuel had to be thinking after that. What? Really? God, you you you heard what they were asking for.
Joel Brooks:Right? Yes. You you know it's an evil request. Right? Yes.
Joel Brooks:And you you want me to obey them. I want you to obey every single word they have told you. Why does God do this? Why does he give these people what they want? Well, I can tell you this.
Joel Brooks:It is not an act of grace. It is an act of judgment. Parents, let me ask you this, this question. When you look over your children's lives, how you've parented them, Has it been the yeses or the noes that you have told them that has kept them alive? Which has it been?
Joel Brooks:Your yeses or your noes? Your no's keep your kids alive. Daddy, can I get up on the roof with you? No. Daddy, can I drive your truck?
Joel Brooks:No. You're 6 years old. Daddy, can I eat the slice of pizza that I found in the playground? No. Daddy, can I watch silence of the lambs?
Joel Brooks:No. You're 6 years old. Daddy, there's a guy at the van over there giving out candy. Can I go? No, no.
Joel Brooks:Our nose as parents is what keeps our kids alive To say yes to their request often would result in harm or death. For God here saying yes to the Israelites is an act of judgment. It's what we read about when we were going through Romans when we came to the Romans chapter 1 and people out of their wickedness, they have all these desires and they're like, God quit being such a killjoy. Just let us do this. We wanna do this.
Joel Brooks:And finally, as an act of judgment, God says, go at it. It's kinda like, you know, the dad says, you wanna smoke a cigarette? Here's all of them. You wanna do that evil? Go for it.
Joel Brooks:And they're like, really? God says, go for it. I won't stop you. And people in Romans 1, they gave themselves to their evilness, That wickedness. And it was judgment.
Joel Brooks:There was no life to be found in that. That's what God says here. Go ahead. I'll give you your heart's desire and let's see what happens. Remember, Christian brothers and sisters, that when you pray to God and you get noes and you are frustrated, that there's a really good chance those no's, God's keeping you from harm.
Joel Brooks:He is not giving you something that will ultimately destroy you. We saw that with Hannah initially who wanted a child so badly. But if God had given her a child right off the bat, that child would have become the center of her life and not him. She needed a heart change first. Israel needs a heart change.
Joel Brooks:Here in this story though, God decides to teach them the lesson by actually giving them their heart desire. But first, he's gonna warn them. Verses 10 through 11, he warns the Israelites about what they were asking for and he gives them a absolutely brutal description of what a king is gonna do to them. They're looking for a king to give them all these things. Give them protection.
Joel Brooks:Give them safety. Fight their battles for them. Give, give, give. And Samuel says, oh, a king is not gonna give. A king's gonna take.
Joel Brooks:He says he's gonna take your sons. Verse 13. He's gonna take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. Verse 14. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
Joel Brooks:15. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers servants. 16. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work. 17.
Joel Brooks:He will take the tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves. It's just It's brutal what Samuel puts there. They want a king to give them security, to give them peace, to give them happiness. And of course, a king like all politicians promises those things. Make me King and all of those things are yours, but it's an empty promise.
Joel Brooks:Any king besides God is going to exploit you. Any king other than Jesus is gonna make you an its slave. You shall be his slaves. Do you feel like slaves to anything right now? Anything in your life that you feel like you absolutely must have?
Joel Brooks:That thing has enslaved you. Some of you know this all too well. For some of you, you're enslaved to a certain lifestyle of luxury that you have to have. You absolutely have to have, you know, an Instagram worthy house. You have to have an exotic vacation.
Joel Brooks:You have to have a new car with all the bells and whistles. You have to have those things and as a result, you are enslaved because you are in debt over your eyeballs. You're literally drowning in debt and do not have the ability to pay any of those things back. You're a slave. For some of you, you absolutely have to have a romantic relationship.
Joel Brooks:You have to be in a romantic relationship to feel secure or to feel happy. And because of this, some of you women here have compromised your standards because you cannot be alone. And so you compromise and you so fear losing that person who you have to have in your life that you let him take and take and take. And you're enslaved. Some of you men, you absolutely have to at the end of a hard long day, in order to deal with your stress and your anxiety, you have to have a drink or go to porn.
Joel Brooks:And you go there because it's made promises to you. Made promises that it will help with your stress. It will give you the peace you you want. And it has enslaved you. Some of you are thinking, no, Joel.
Joel Brooks:You're absolutely wrong. I'm not enslaved to anyone. I do what I want, when I want, how I want. That's why I'm never gonna be married. I don't need all of that.
Joel Brooks:You are enslaved to your own selfishness. You are not free to marry someone and to give yourself to them. It's just another form of slavery. Listen, all of us have kings in our lives, rulers in our lives that we go to for our security and for our happiness. Everyone has something in their heart ruling.
Joel Brooks:You can't not have that. The question is, what kind of king do you have? Because any king other than Jesus is going to oppress. It's gonna take and take and take and take until you are eventually a slave. You know, the first time a king is ever mentioned in the bible, God mentioned as a king, is in Exodus 15.
Joel Brooks:God's just delivered the Israelites from slavery, just parted the Red Sea, taken them through. And he's taking them to Mount Sinai to tell him how to live. It's in the song of Moses. God is presented as the king of Israel. And there, you get a picture as to what a king is supposed to look like.
Joel Brooks:Always pay attention to the first in the Bible, when something is first introduced, and this is when God is first introduced as king. And what we realize, a king is supposed to look like this. A king does not enslave. A king does not oppress. A king does the opposite.
Joel Brooks:A king is supposed to take on the oppressive powers, defeat evil, free us, and then invite us to come and to live under his reign as an alternative to the world's oppressive regimes. That's what Jesus has done. Jesus is our true king. He's the one that our hearts have always longed for. When Jesus came, he didn't take and take and take.
Joel Brooks:Actually, the only thing Jesus has ever taken is our sins. He has taken our sins and in this place, He has given us life and hope and forgiveness and joy in His spirit. Jesus came and at that point, the invisible God became visible. For the first time, you could actually reach out and touch God. You could hug Him.
Joel Brooks:You could speak to Him. And we got to find out what what kingship under God is really like. When Jesus came, He was not like those other oppressive kings. He came to give. He said, I did not come to be served.
Joel Brooks:I came to serve. I didn't come to throw guilt and to throw shame on you, but I came to forgive you and to liberate you. I didn't come to take your life. I came to lay down my life in order that you might have true life. The only thing Jesus came to take away was our sin.
Joel Brooks:So would you let him? Would you let Jesus take that away? You'll never find another king like Jesus. So is that the king that you currently follow? Is he the king that you've actually surrendered to?
Joel Brooks:Some of your hearts, as I look around this room and I've talked with you, I know are so filled with fear and anxiety. Some of you are so angry, so depressed, and it's because your heart is being ruled by an oppressive king. Jesus wants to liberate you from that. This week, I wanna encourage you to do something. I wanna encourage you to kneel before your king.
Joel Brooks:You know, we often do this in prayer. You could do this today later. We kneel in prayer before Him. It's an act of submission. It's an act of worship.
Joel Brooks:You know, often, you know, we fold our hands too as we pray. I used to always think, probably because my mom and dad told me this, that you need to fold your hands so you don't hit your brother and sister, so you're not distracted. But actually, the the tradition of folding hands came as an act of surrender. When the early Christians, when they were being persecuted, when they were being arrested for their faith, and they were asked if they were a Christ follower, if they had said the earliest Christian creed, which was simply this, Jesus is Lord, Progressing that he is the king, if they had said that, then they were gonna be arrested. What they did is they held their hands and they offered them to be bound.
Joel Brooks:Christ is my king. I follow him no matter the cost. That's why we do this in prayer. It's thy will be done. And we we kneel to our king.
Joel Brooks:And this is such a joyful surrender because He's not an oppressive king. He gives us such life. Once again, when you surrender, all he takes from you is your guilt and your shame and your sin and he gives you new life. Let's pray to him now. Jesus, I pray that we would all experience such a sweet surrender.
Joel Brooks:Thank you for your incredible graciousness and generosity to us. It's hard to even imagine such a king. We took from you and you have freely given to us. Right now for those in this room who are being ruled by such oppressive forces, would you be so kind as to expose those to them? And may they hear your voice calling to yourself for them to come and find rest.
Joel Brooks:And I pray they would enjoy such a sweet surrender. We pray this in the name of our lord and savior Jesus. Amen.