“A BAD CHOICE BY A FOOLISH PEOPLE” (1 Sam 8:1-5)
August 29th, 2001
Int. In Chapter eight, we are faced with a transition from a Theocracy to a Monarchy.
1. The people desired to be like other nations. ( A King they could see and touch)
2. J. Sidlow Baxter says: “Their troubles increased through choosing the seemingly easier but lower way of human wisdom, in preference to God’s way...by choosing less than God’s best.”
God has His best things for the few
Who dare to stand the test;
God has His second choice for those
Who will not take His best.
It is not always open ill
That risks the promised rest;
The better often is the foe
That keeps us from the best.
And others make the highest choice,
But when by trials pressed,
They shrink, they yield, they shun the cross,
And so they lose the best.
3. Things went well under Samuel while he was young, but as often is the case, when Leaders begin to age, youthful rebellion begins. (He was now about sixty)
I. CONSIDER THEIR REQUEST FOR A KING. (Vr. 1-6)
A. THE GOVERNMENT HAD DEGENERATED. (Vr. 1-3)
1. (Exo 18:21) "Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:"
a. “ Fear God and you'll have nothing else to fear.”
b. (Deu 16:19) "Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous."
2. His sons took bribes.(Vr. 3) ......
a. ”Man cannot bribe death, sickness, grave, judgment day”
3. His sons perverted judgement. (Vr. 3)
a. (Prov 17:15) "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD."
B. THE PEOPLE HAD BECOME DISCONTENT. (Vr. 4-5)
1. Samuel had exercised patience with Israel, but now it was different.
a. Eli’s sons corrupted themselves and now Samuel’s sons were doing the same.
2. The elders of Israel....”Heads of families”
a. (1 Sam 15:30) "Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God."
b. (2 Sam 5:3) "So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD: and they anointed David king over Israel."
C. THEY WENT TO SAMUEL’S HOUSE IN RAMAH..(Vr. 4).
1. “Ramah” was the place where Elkanah lived. (1 Sam 2:11).
2. Samuel was buried "in his own house in Ramah".
a. To have buried him in his living quarters would have constituted cermonial defilement.
b. (Num 19:16) "And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days."
3. (2 Ki 21:18) "And Manasseh slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza: and Amon his son reigned in his stead."
4. Pastors were buried underneath floor of the church in Richmond, Virginia where Patrick Henry made his famous speech.
5. Jamerson’s History of the Bible “In the East still every respectable family has its own house of the dead; often this is in a little detached garden, consisting of a small stone building, resembling a house, which is called the sepulchre of the family.
6. Jeremiah wrote about Ramah: (Jer 31:15) "Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, (About six miles north of Jerusalem) lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." Rachel is poetically represented as heard as far away as Ramah.
D. SAMUEL WAS DISPLEASED. (Vr. 6)
1. Samuel took the matter to The Lord.
"And he who at the sixth hour sought
The lone house-top to pray,
There gained a sight beyond his thought--
The dawn of Gentile day.
Then reckon not, when perils lour,
The time of prayer mis-spent;
Nor meanest chance, nor place, nor hour,
Without its heavenward bent."
2. Samuel’s family fails, but not God.
3. Samuel had remained true.
a. (1 Sam 7:15) "And Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life."
4. They wanted to change their entire system of Government over frivilous excuses.
a. Samuel’s age and his son’s sins.
II. CONSIDER THE REPLY OF THE LORD. (Vr. 7-9)
A. THEY ALREADY HAD A KING.... “THE KING OF ALL KINGS.”
1. He ruled in Mercy and Truth. (Psa 25:10) "All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies."
2. He governed by means of His servants, the Judges, Priests and Prophets.
3. He led them to victory and deliverance and prosperity. (From Egypt to Canaan.)
4. Now they would reject so benevolent a Benefactor. (1 Sam 8:7)
a. (Lk 19:14) “.....We will not have this man to reign over us.”
b. (John19:15). “We have no king but Caesar”
5. (Jn 19:21). "Write not, The King of the Jews."
6. A slogan of the American Revolution, which was so distressing to the emissaries of the king that it was found in correspondence sent back to England, was the line, "We have no king but Jesus."
B. CONSIDER GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS TO HIS SERVANT. (Vr. 7)
1. Hearken unto the voice of the people. (Vr. 7)
2. Sometimes the worse thing that could happen to us is for God to let us have our own way. (Isa 56:3)
3. (Luke 19:27) "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."
C. CONSIDER THE MINDSET OF EASTERN PEOPLE CONCERNING A KING.
1. `“The Eastern mind is so essentially and prevadingly regal, that to be without a Monarch is scarely an intelligible state of things to an Orental.
2. The want (lack) of a royal head must often have been cast in the teeth of the Israelites by their neighbors as a kind of stigma.
3. In Harris’s Collections of Travels, when the English and Dutch were competing for power and influence in the East, the English, in order to damage their rivals industriously, circulated the dangerous secret that the Dutch had no King.
4. John Kitto says: “The Oriental mind was astonished and perplexed by the indication of a condition, so utterly beyond the scope of its experience and comprehension, and the Dutch alarmed for the effect of this slur upon their respectability, stoutly repelled the charge as a lie, affirming that they had a very great King,...thus exalting for the time being their stadholder (governor of a Providence) to that high rank.”
D. SAMUEL WAS ORDER TO PROTEST SOLEMNLY UNTO ISRAEL. (Vr 9)
1. He was to show them the kind of king they were about to get.(Vr. 9)
III. CONSIDER THE REMINDER TO ISRAEL FROM SAMUEL. (Vr. 10-18)
A. THIS KING WOULD MAKE SOLDIERS OF THEIR SONS. (Vr. 10-11)
1. Some would be “running footmen.”
2. John Kitto says: “Chariots are now used, but in Persia it is to this day a piece of state for the King and other great personages to have several men run on foot before and beside them, as they ride on horseback.
3. “This they do even when the rider puts his horse to a gallop. The men are trained to their business from boyhood; and the feats they are able to perform would scarcely be considered credible in this country.
4. “They are called “shatirs.” One candidate is reported to have run 120 miles in 14 hours.
5. “It was, as a general rule, understood that an accomplished footman ought to remain untired as long, or longer, than the horse ridden by his master.”
B. THIS KING WOULD TAX THEM 10 % ON EVERYTHING. (Vr. 15-18)
1. This was over and beyond all Ecclesiastical claims.
V. CONSIDER THE REFUSAL OF THE PEOPLE TO OBEY THE VOICE OF SAMUEL. (Vr. 19-22).
A. THEY DISAPPROVED OF SAMUEL’S REASONING. (Vr. 19)
B. THEY DESIRED A KING LIKE THE OTHER NATIONS. (Vr. 20)
C. THEY DISOBEYED THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD. (Vr. 21-22)
Conclusion: Next week we shall see that Israel gets their wish....a King of their own.