Well, this past week, we didn't talk about it really at all here at The Journey, but this past week was the marking of the 500th anniversary of when Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. At that time he was seeking to challenge what was being taught in the Roman Catholic Church or at that time really in the church. He was seeking to challenge the movement that had happened between the church and what he had found to be the teachings of scripture. And contrary to what many people think, his goal was not rebellion. Martin Luther was not a rebel. He was not trying to be a rebellious person. He was trying to open dialogue on what he saw as inconsistencies happening between scripture and the practice of the church. As he studied scriptures, especially in Romans and Galatians, he came to see some problems with what was going on in the church at that time and see the gulf that had happened. Well, Luther in no way intended this, because like I said, he intended to open discussion, but instead it sparked what we now know as the Reformation. And unfortunately, we live in a day and age that does not acknowledge church history very much or think about church history or look back on church history. But this was a monumental, majestic, huge, by God's grace, sanctifying event that happened. It swept through Europe, and it is still felt today. And my back screen isn't working, so I've got to kind of look and see what's going on. But the Reformation, what Martin Luther was arguing for, essentially stood upon five pillars. You maybe have heard of the five pillars of the Reformation, and they are these, faith alone, scripture alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and to the glory of God alone. That was what scripture taught and Luther was saying, this is what the church should be about. And so the desire of the reformers was to return to these fundamentals of the gospel. But instead of a dialogue happening like Luther was hoping, instead something really unexpected and somewhat horrendous happened and that was huge persecution broke out and things did not go as was hoped. What was happening is at this point in time, a little history here is important, the church had become intimately entwined with the monarchy. And the church had come to believe that it was good to become associated more with culture, to become associated more with government. And what happened is the church was then filled with false believers, false teachings, and false practices. The attempt had been to conform Christianity to the culture, like I said, especially the government, and it proved to be a disastrous maneuver, a disastrous idea. At this time, it was almost impossible to find a leader in the church who was an Orthodox Christian who was not corrupt. The gospel had been all but lost in Europe. and knowledge of Scripture was minimal at best, as it became to become more acknowledged that the Pope alone had the authority to read and interpret Scripture. And so the people began to stop reading Scripture. The Reformation was a breaking away of this out of a desire for the church to live for the glory of God and to submission of Scripture. But it wasn't without cost. Many lost their lives. Horrendous things occurred in the name of God. Countless more suffered greatly. And what we see here, there's so much more that could be said. But what we see here is that abandoning the truths established by God will always be disastrous for the church. And likewise, abandoning God's design for leadership of the church will always be disastrous. God never intended for the church to be headed by a king or a government leader. And the result of the church doing this in the Middle Ages nearly resulted in the loss of the true church and the loss of the gospel. The church at this time would have done well to know 1 Samuel 8. Because as we look at 1 Samuel 8, we see the exact same thing happening there as what happened to the church in the Middle Ages. So let's turn to 1 Samuel 8. And let's begin working. We're going to cover through this whole chapter today as we've been working through this book. We'll start it in verse 1. Now, it came to pass when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. And they were judges in Beersheba. But his sons did not walk in his ways, and they turned aside after dishonest gain. They took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your 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. We don't know how long it's been since chapter 7, but the implication is it has been a while. Because now Samuel is old. God has been leading Israel through Samuel. And the implication is that Samuel has led the people well. Israel has experienced peace. There has not been war in the land. And it seems that there is faithfulness to God during this time. But now things are about to change. And we are going to see. This is one of the primary turning points in Israel's history is 1 Samuel chapter 8. It is a vitally important chapter in the story of God's people. And so what we see here as we start this is this demand. The people of Israel began to be concerned for their future. They began to be concerned for their direction for a couple of reasons. First, Samuel was getting old. This is a problem, right, of all human leaders. They get old and they fade away. Samuel has faithfully led, but now he's getting old. The second thing that the people of Israel see is that Samuel has appointed his sons to be judges and to succeed him. This is not normal. The norm was that God would appoint the judges. Why Samuel did this, we don't know. Maybe he put where they're serving at is 50 miles to the south. So perhaps Samuel thought he put his sons down there to lead Israel and get more leadership throughout the land. We don't know. But the problem is that Samuel's sons are wicked. This might strike a remembering thing in your brain as we remember Eli and remember Eli's sons were wicked, Hophni and Phinehas. Like Eli's sons, these sons of Samuel do not walk in the ways of God, nor do they walk in the ways of Samuel. They're corrupt. They're seeking to gain wealth and they pervert justice. They're leading in such a way as to get wealthy, to get monetary gain from leading the people. And these are not the men that Israel is looking at going, we want them to lead us. And so they're looking ahead and they're thinking the future is bleak. And here we're reminded again that the best of leaders can have the worst of children. Interestingly, Samuel is not condemned for his sons as Eli was. We don't know why. It may be because Samuel's sons are so far away, 50 miles away is a significant distance, and Samuel did not have the control over them, whereas Eli lived there with his sons in Shiloh. That may be why Samuel is not judged for his sons. but they are wicked sons. And so the elders of Israel come to Samuel. If you remember right, the elders are the people who represent Israel. They are the men who are leaders and represent Israel. The last time we saw them was their disastrous decision to bring the ark into battle. How poor of a decision that was. Now they come to Samuel with a demand. Make us a king. to judge us like all the nations. Now the first thing we should note, there's a lot of problems here, but the first thing we should note is the way the elders approach Samuel, the man appointed by God to lead them. They don't come with prayerful humility, but instead they come in selfish pride. They have not sought the Lord on this issue and then bring it before Samuel, nor do they come to Samuel and say, Samuel, we've been thinking about something and we want your counsel on it as our leader, as God's spokesman for us. No, they come to their leader and dictate what he should do. Be nice if this was the last time we saw this kind of behavior, but unfortunately, it continues to be a common behavior in the church. where people come to the pastor or come to the leaders in the church and demand what they want or demand what they think is best. I remember one such situation in which I was on staff at a church where a lady came up to me and demanded that myself and the church leaders do something different. And it was a big thing. There was no mention by her of seeking the Lord in prayer. There was no mention of, hey, what do you think about this? It was a demand. Nor was there mention of scripture that supported it. And I tried to tell her as kindly as I could, we can't do that. And I didn't say this, but for one, because it wasn't biblical, but secondly, it was just foolish. So I said, we can't do that. She never came back to the church again. The second thing we should note is what the elders demand. A king to judge. Now, who's Samuel? Their judge. And remember, the judge is the one to lead them in the ways of the Lord. And so what they are saying essentially is, Samuel, we want a king instead of you. But we'll see in a minute, it's even worse. What they're stating is, Samuel, we want a king instead of God. The desire for a king is a desire for leadership that they can see as predictable, visible, tangible, something they can sink their teeth into, something they can see and visualize. In the current situation, God appoints a judge to lead Israel, so Israel must wait upon the Lord. And then Israel must follow God's direction as God reveals himself to the judge. So what the elders are asking for here is not just a new leader. What we need to see here is they're asking for a whole new system of government. Rather than having a judge appointed by God to lead, they want to enter into a government of monarchy. So essentially what they're doing is saying, God, we want to abandon the leadership that you have designed for us. They see having a king as having one who is visible and physical for security, as opposed to have to waiting in faith on an unseen God to sustain and lead them. They want a king to govern them, to politically lead them, rather than a judge to lead in the ways of God. They're not satisfied with where God has them. There's an irony here that they don't see. One of the motivations for this demand is what? The wicked sons of Samuel. And so they're saying, you've appointed your sons to judge us, and they're wicked. We don't want them to judge us, so we want a king. Well, here's the irony. The type of government that they are demanding is one that entails and even necessitates the rising up of sons to then lead, regardless of whether they're evil or good, as Israel will find out. They're not solving the problem, they're enhancing it by digging it in even deeper that wicked sons would rise up to rule over them. It's often what happens when we abandon God's ways, isn't it? We actually don't solve problems, but rather we enhance them as we abandon God's ways and we deepen them and we multiply our problems. There's another thing we need to see here as well. Like all the nations. Israel is saying we want to be like the nations. We want to look like the nations. to stark contrast from what God created them for. We could look at several passages, but just consider this one from Exodus chapter 19. Now, therefore, you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, and then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Elsewhere in scripture we read that Israel is to be set apart. In fact, the text Annalise read this morning from 2 Corinthians, Paul is quoting from Numbers as God is saying, you will be a special people set apart for me. And Israel says that we don't want to be that anymore. We want to be instead of set apart, we want to be like the nations. They want a king in their image instead of to be a people in God's image. They are weary of unique, we could say. They want conformity and security. So they're rejecting the blessing and security of God and embracing something far less glorious, being like the world. And here's the great danger that's always been there for the people of God, to be like the world, to look at the world and say, I want what the world has. I don't want to be different. I want to look just like the world. Can't I have Christ and the world too? Yet time and time again, it's proved to be disastrous. Over and over, Israel is warned of this. And over and over, the New Testament church is warned as well. You might remember Romans 12, 2. You can look at this really from two standpoints. One, the individual Christian. walking in faith and distinct from the world can become wearisome. The things of the world begin to entice us, and we begin to be distracted by them. We may become consumed with setting things up so we're safe and secure. We may want to appear cool, or the average Joe, or not look different. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to seem like the religious freak. We may want to have the same stuff that the world does, so consequently our sacrifices for the kingdom of God are minimal at best as we try to stockpile the things that the world stockpiles. We may want the pleasures the world has to offer. Why deny self when these things of the world seem so enticing? When they seem to be so happy when they have them? So why deny myself? Why not take these as well? So it's a danger for the individual, but it's also a danger for the church. Israel looks at the pagan ways of the world and seems to think, hey, this is working for the world, why wouldn't this work for us? And this is something the church does over and over as well, that we need to guard against. Churches that try to look as appealing as possible to the pagan world. Churches that try to make their music look exactly like the world's. Churches that stop preaching and instead have conversations, because that's more palatable to people. Churches that look at, well, what's working for corporations and how can we incorporate that into our church? churches whose focus has changed from the purpose being to worship God to now doing what makes people feel happy, comfortable, and pump them up for the week. So the question comes, how can we avoid this? And the answer is by continually seeking God in His Word and continuing to grow and rest in the gospel. One commentator stated this, and I think he's right. One who has tasted little of the gospel and little of God will struggle to stand apart from the world. That's true. One who has tasted little of the gospel and little of God will struggle to stand apart from the world. Paul has an answer to this. When we look, it's a little bit of a lengthy text, but we're going to look at it. Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11. Paul writes this, So Paul here is saying to stand apart, to not live like the world, to not just look like the world. But here's his answer, the second part. looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. So what's Paul's answer to avoiding just looking like the world? His answer is to look to Christ and to pursue Christ. and to reflect on the truths of the gospel that this Savior gave Himself for us. Remember that. That's going to be important, and we're going to come back to it. The Savior who gave Himself. So the more we look to God, the more we look at the gospel, the more we look to Christ, the more we will rest in Him, and the more we'll be able to resist conforming to the world. Now, when Samuel hears this, he's not happy. And it's not because Samuel's poor little feelings are hurt. Samuel understands what the people are asking. He understands that they are rejecting God's rule. Because it's not necessarily wrong. Here's the important thing to see. It's not necessarily wrong that Israel wants a king. God had anticipated a king and had said there would be a time when a king would come. If you remember all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, when Abraham is given the promise by God, one of the things that God tells Abraham is kings will come from you. We also read it in Deuteronomy. And there's some other texts we could look at. But in Deuteronomy, when you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you and possess it and dwell in it and say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. And then as we read in the law, there's a provision there for kings and how kings are to act. Samuel would have known this, so why is he upset? Look, we get the clue in verse 6. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. What they're saying, give us a king to lead us instead of God. We don't want to be led by God. So what's the answer? Well, we see here the answer comes. So let's pick it up. In verse seven. Well, actually, halfway through verse six, give us a king to judge us, so Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, 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 out of Egypt, even so to this day, with which they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. Now, therefore, heed their voice. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them." So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked for a king. And he said, this will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots to be his horsemen and some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties and will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvests and some to make his weapons of war and equipments for chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, your olive groves, and give them to His servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage and give it to His officers and servants. And He will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, your donkeys, and put them to His work. And He will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will be His servants. And you will cry out to the Lord in that day because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day." So this is the answer. Unlike the elders, what does Samuel do? He turns to the Lord in prayer. A model for us as well, when conflict comes, to turn to the Lord in prayer. This is what Samuel does. And surprisingly, God tells Samuel, do what the people want. But we also see God's mercy and kindness here in really two ways. The first one is this, and this is really beautiful. God comforts Samuel. He says, Samuel, this is not about you. This is not about you failing. This is not because you weren't peppy enough, not current enough, not hip enough, didn't wear the right clothes. Samuel, there's a deeper issue here. He tells Samuel that, hey, it looks like they're rejecting you, but they're really rejecting me. So take comfort, Samuel. They've been doing this since the beginning. But secondly, God is gracious enough in his love to warn Israel. He could have just said, all right, fine. But he warns Israel, hey, this is what's going to happen. So while Israel is rejecting God's rule, God loves them enough. To warn them. I think we need to see here that Israel may be rejecting God. But God is not rejecting them. And so Samuel tells Israel all that God spoke, reminding us again, this is the role of a prophet, to speak the words of God, whether they're nice words or not, even if they're words that people don't want to hear. And Samuel warns the people, hey, this is what will happen if you go down this road. The king will take and he will take and he will take and he will take and he will take six times. Samuel uses that word. He will take. He'll take your sons, take your daughters, take your crops, take your livestock, take your land, take your servants, and eventually you will be taking yourselves. This is the leadership of the pagan nations. The king will take and they will serve. All the people have, and they even themselves will be at the use of the king and what he desires. We need to remember here that this is a drastic change that Israel is demanding. This is huge. I mean, up to this point, Israel has been tribes led by a judge who is led by God, so they have lived fairly independent, free lives. And what they are asking for is to lose all of that in order to have the physical security of the world. They will go from being led to being ruled. It's a radical change that they are not even aware. Similar to if the U.S. was to, in one year, move from democracy to full communism. A huge change. This will be a huge change for Israel. So now we come to point three, the decision. Look with me at verse 19. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, No, 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 repeated them in the hearing of the Lord. So the Lord said to Samuel, Heed their voice and make them a king. And Samuel said to the men of Israel, Every man go to his city. When the people hear the warning from Samuel, they heed the counsel from their faithful leader and go to seek the Lord in prayer. No, they don't, do they? I wish. No, they refuse to obey. They're smarter than God. They're wiser than God. They understand the ways of the world better than God. They can see the path they're on better than God can. No, we will have a king. Over us, the demand has now become selfish, it has become adamant and impatient, we want a king now. And herein we are reminded of another part of the problem. People are unwilling to wait for God's timing. They would have known that a king was coming. But they wanted that king now. And once again, we see ourselves reflected in the story. 1 Samuel 8 is pretty painful if you read it and reread it and begin to think about your own life and the pattern that you see in your own life. It's the same that happens here. How often do we settle for something inferior rather than wait upon the Lord? Maybe we rush into a relationship because after all, time is running out. Maybe we make a rash decision to take a job. Maybe we decide we have to take a matter into our own hands. Maybe we want something now and so we go into large debt so that we can have it. Waiting on the Lord takes courage and it takes patience and it takes faith. But as we read on, we see a little more of the problem. Our king may go out before us and fight our battles. They're looking for a tangible source of security rather than waiting in faith upon God. waiting on God to fight their battles for them. But no, they're tired of that. And again, it takes courage and it takes faith to rest on God rather than our tangible means of security. Just think about all the security we try to surround our lives with. We have cars with airbags and alarms in case someone tries to steal them. We have homes with locks and deadbolts on every door and then an alarm system in case somebody tries to come in. We have insurance for every possible scenario. Even this week, I was reading an article, you may have seen it also, of the growing trend in purchasing pet insurance. By 2019, it's projected to be a billion dollar industry buying insurance for your pets. We have health insurance. We have life insurance. We have insurance for our insurance. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't take precautions and that we shouldn't be wise, but here's the rub. How often are we guilty of having our faith and our securities we set up around ourselves rather than the almighty God? How often do we set up our little world and say, but I'm trusting God. And the reality is when those little things are in our world begin to fall apart, we find out we're not trusting God. We're trusting in the things we've set up around in our world. I remember a number of years ago I was talking with a man from overseas who was a missionary here in the United States, doing work here in the United States. And I was talking to him about what life was like for him. He was raising support over across the Atlantic to be here, not something we often think about. And one of the things he said, and I've shared this before, one of the things he shared was, you know, there's just things we go without. He's like, we don't have a TV. You know, our home is simple. You know, we don't have things that you all have, like health insurance or anything like that. And I remember that striking me. And I remember asking him, well, what about what? What about not having health insurance? And he's like, well, that's just something we can't afford. So that's just something we trust the Lord with. Very foreign mentality than us, isn't it? How could you not have health insurance? How people survive till now is unbelievable, isn't it? How fickle and faithless and forgetful we are. Let's go back to this. Israel wants a king to fight their battles. What did God last do for them? As the Philistines came and were going to overpower them, God thundered from heaven, threw them into confusion, and the Philistines fled. Can an earthly king do that? Can an earthly king part the ocean? Can an earthly king do things like stop the sun? Hold it in the air? But the Israelites want what they want. They hear the wisdom of God from Samuel, and they say, we just have a better idea. We want what we want. So we're going to do it. Give us a king. And in this they are consistent, are they not? As are we. We read in Judges 2.17. Yet they would not listen to their judges, but they played the harlot with other gods and bowed down to them and they turned quickly from the way in which their fathers walked. In obeying the commandments of the Lord, they did not do so. So Samuel the judge is not heeded and instead God tells Samuel to heed the people, give them a king. And here we're reminded again of something we need to wrestle with. Sometimes God's judgments are giving people what they want. Sometimes God's discipline is giving us what we want. God at times gives us what we want, so we may see that what we want is insufficient compared to Him. Israel is going to be given what they want, so they may see how much better it is to be led by the true King. Here we should remember that just because we get something we want does not mean that it is God's blessing in our lives. Sometimes it's His discipline. And this is something we need to wrestle with. We need to think carefully about. Sometimes that thing that we've just been dying to get, and we receive it, and we turn and say, Sometimes that's God's discipline. And so we should be constantly weighing our motives, constantly humbling ourselves before God. This is why we need to be in God's Word. And this is why we need to be surrounded with God's people. We in the American church are very good at hiding our lives from people. And one of the things I've observed is as we hide our lives from people and don't let people in, we receive things we want and we think that they're God's blessing to us. And other people could have said, that's dangerous for you. The King of Israel, the King Israel will be so thrilled to receive, is going to be a disaster. But as always, God's working here through Israel's sin to bring about His chosen King. First, He's going to use this situation to bring about David. But most importantly, He's going to use this situation to bring about King Jesus, the King of kings. And unlike the kings of the world, Jesus is a king who does not take and take and take. You remember the trial of Jesus before Pilate, and Pilate says to him, are you the king of the Jews? Make that connection. Are you the king of the Jews? And what does Jesus say? He says this, my kingdom is not of this world. You say rightly I'm a king. He's not a king like the king of the nations. He's not a king like the kings of the world. He's the King who gives. Remember Romans 6.23, And not only are we given this salvation, But we're given the kingdom. You remember Hebrews 12, 29. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. We serve the king who gave. Gave all he could. Jesus said this in Mark chapter 10, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to what? Give His life as a ransom for many. So as we close chapter 8, some questions before us. Will we follow the true King? Or will we want the things of the nations? Will we live in service to him and in service to others? Will we walk as God's people and live distinct from the world? Will we turn away from the visible, yet lesser securities of the world? for the greater security of the King, the true King who reigns for eternity and gave of himself for us. Those are some questions to wrestle with. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word, Lord. We can thank you over and over again for the beauty of your word. And though it's painful at times to open a text like this that we think we're just going to read about the history of Israel, it's painful to see the same patterns being played out in our own lives as well. Lord, how often we turn to the things of the world, how often we want to look just like the nations, how often we resist being set apart and conformed into the image of Christ. How often we try to set up our little world with all of our man-made securities and rest in them instead of resting in You. How often we pursue what we want and get it and think that it's You blessing us. Father, would You convict us where we need to be convicted, Lord? And would You help us to live as You have called us to? You still call us. be a kingdom of priests, set apart your holy people. So Lord, would you please do that work in our hearts and would you help us to realize that the physical things the world has to offer pales in comparison to the rich glories that are found in Christ. So Father, help us in these things that we might grow and that we might grow to love you and love each other better. And we thank you that we serve a King who gave. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.