Let me pray again and we'll continue our worship. Father, what a privilege we have to be able to sing your praises and to do so not with duplicitous or pretentious false hearts, but as those who can praise you in truth because you have caused us to know you, to know you in truth as we have come to know you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you have come to know us in a true and living way by gathering us up into your own life and your son to establish this intimacy between you and us that vastly transcends anything that we can even imagine in this life. But we know that this relationship of intimacy of us in you and you and us will continue and only flourish and thrive unto the day when it is consummately so in the renewal of all things. And so we do look for that day, Father, when The kingship over all the earth that you have established in Jesus, our Lord, will be fully realized. And the whole creation will be filled with the glory of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the seas. And in that day, Father, you, as you have eternally purposed, you, our God, Father, Son, and Spirit, will be all in all. So we praise you and we bow our hearts before you because of this great and glorious truth. And we are so grateful that you have made us sharers in it. We pray that you will bless our time of consideration this morning, that in everything that we think, in everything that we hear, in everything that we read, in all of our contemplations, that they will point us more truly, more thoroughly to Jesus our Lord. the great King and Lord of our salvation, the one in whom our own destiny is bound up. So we ask that you will bless us in that way, edify us, encourage us. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, the last time we considered the era of the judges is a time when Israel's national life continued to decline. And even covenantally, even within the relationship amongst the tribes, there was increasing decline and increasing apostasy. We saw that the judges was a cycle of repeated apostasy, inner captivity within the land, God raising up a judge to deliver, to restore the people, the cycle beginning all over again. And as we begin to talk about this new trend, this change in Israel's life that we call the monarchy, the emergence of the kingship in Israel, It really is the most significant, I think, development in Israel's life prior to the coming of the Messiah, but it also brings to a climax this period of the Judges. Because remember we saw the characteristic summary of Israel's life during the period of the Judges was in those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. And we talked about the fact that that even implies that Yahweh himself was not king in Israel. He was king, but he wasn't regarded as king. Each man was his own lord. Each man was his own king. And that disposition in the sons of Israel reached its high point and really the transition away from the period of the judges with Israel's demand for a king. It reflected that basic premise, that basic principle that even God was not king in Israel. They sought a human king, not to be a king under Yahweh, but to be a king alongside or a king who would effectively supplant Yahweh. A king who would make them like the other nations around them. So we're going to see as we look at this, as I say, to me the most significant development in Israel's life was the emergence of the monarchy. And as much as it was brought about through another dimension of Israel's unfaithfulness, it was very much a part of God's plan. God's plan was eternally for human kingship with respect to his kingdom. And hopefully we know that if for no other reason than because God's own reign was to be fully realized in the human Son, the image Son Christ Jesus. He is the one in whom God's kingship reaches its ultimacy, but as the exalted image Son. And so God's plan all along was for human kingship, but the way in which this comes about is very unexpected or seems to be counter God's purposes and yet works very much unto his purposes. So again, Israel was not seeking a king who would be Yahweh's ruler manifesting the God of Israel in his rule, but they wanted a king so that they could be like the nations. They could be like the nations. And as we consider this section, this is 1 Samuel 8-15, we'll see how that desire on Israel's part came about and what was the outcome of it and how ultimately this became a pointer to David himself who becomes the great king in Israel and the great prototype of the messianic king who is to come. So as I say in the notes, Israel's demand for a king really heralded the end of the era of the judges. The judges were the rulers in Israel. Samuel becomes the final judge in the sense that as he is older, he's appointing his sons to be judges, but the text records that they were unrighteous men. They were self-serving men. And Israel saw that happening and the elders of the people came to Samuel and they said, we don't want these men to reign over us. We don't want them to be judges. They're unrighteous men. They're self-serving men. We want a king like the other nations. And this is what you see in the opening verses of chapter eight. It says, when it came about that Samuel was old, he appointed his son's judges over Israel there to take his place. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Avijah. They were judging in Beersheba. Now Samuel is still the primary judge, but he's passing the baton, as it were, to them. But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. Then the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said, behold, you've grown old. Your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations. But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, give us a king. And Samuel prayed to Yahweh, and Yahweh said to him, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this very day, in that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they are doing to you also. So Israel's desire for a king was not a noble thing. It really was another reflection of their unfaithfulness, the pattern of unfaithfulness that had characterized them throughout their history. And that's why I say this call for a king is really the climax of the ear of the judges. It kind of becomes the climactic act of unfaithfulness by which their desire to be their own lords, not to have Yahweh king in Israel, kind of reaches its high point. So it's interesting that God says, yes, I will give them a king. I'll go ahead and give them what they want. He doesn't resist that. He agrees to give them a king. And that has, as I said, always been his plan to have his own kingship be administered through human authority, through a human king. That was key to God's ultimate plan, as we see even realized in Christ himself. But God would have a certain kind of king. A king who is like him. A king in whom God can say, when you see my king, you see me. As we'll see in the expression that God uses, a man after my own heart. So Israel's longing for a human king exposed their idolatrous hearts. They were still, this was an issue of idolatry. They wanted a human to rule them, not the God of Israel. But God gave them their request. He gave them what they wanted. And they would learn through this what they lost when they rejected his rule. That will become very clear to them, not just in Saul, although it begins with Saul, but throughout their history. When they rejected Yahweh's rule, they put themselves in a very desperate place. So God then goes on to single out Saul as the man that he chooses. And people often think, well, the people chose Saul. Well, Yahweh chose Saul, but he chose him in deference to the desires of the Israelite people. And the text describes Saul as exactly what you would want to see in a ruler. More than once it mentions that he was taller than everyone else. From the shoulders up, he stood above the crowd. He was a distinguished fighter. He was a man of valor. He was a man of war. He was a man of apparent integrity. But everything that met the eye seemed to identify someone like Saul as the ideal candidate. And if you think about even in our own culture, what cause, and not just in America, but throughout the world, When we look to potential leaders, we're looking primarily at external things, things that we can see, right? Their appearance. There's kind of a look that characterizes most politicians, certainly male politicians, right? Maybe epitomized in a guy like John Kennedy or something like that. Anyway, so Israel had a notion in their head. They wanted a king, but a king who met their own criteria of what a king should be, and that's very important. So God picked Saul, but he picked him because he was the kind of man that Israel was wanting. He was the kind of man that they sought. And he identified him to Samuel as the one that would be ruler. But before all of this, you know, presenting of Saul and crowning of Saul took place, God warned through Samuel and he told Samuel, tell the people what this king will be like. What it will be like to have this king. So if you look in verse 10, it says, Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked him of a king. And he said, this will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you. And I want you to note that he doesn't say this is just about Saul. Whoever will be king over you, this is how he will administer his reign. He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots. He will conscript your sons to fight his wars. He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties and some to do his plowing, some to reap his harvest, to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. And he will take a tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. He will also take your male servants, and your female servants, and your best young men, and your donkeys, and use them for his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants. And then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. He's going to give you what you want and you're going to pay the consequences of it. Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel and they said, no, but there shall be a king over us that we may be like all the nations. that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord's hearing. And the Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice, appoint them a king. So Samuel said to the men of Israel, go every man to his city. So God agrees to give them what they want. And certainly after he reveals these things to Samuel, it's very clear what's going to be the outcome of this decision. When God gives them a king, this is how the king is going to rule over them. And what's the obvious implication? This is not how Yahweh was king in Israel. The procedure of the king is antithetical to the way God exercises his lordship. God doesn't use his power and his resource and his authority to exploit and to serve his own ends. He uses his authority and his power to serve the good of his subjects, to serve the good of those under his care. And that's going to be very important as we move through this. So even though the text doesn't say directly that this is a contrast between God's kingship and the human kingship that Israel will have. That's what the implication is. This is not the way God administers his kingship. Once you set that aside and you take on yourself the yoke of human kingship, it's not going to go well for you. So God gives them what they seek. He gives them what they seek. And no matter who they choose, a person hasn't even been identified yet, but whoever they choose, that one will rule according to a procedure that will benefit him at the expense of the people. He will rule in his own name, not in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. So the sons of Israel were to understand that a human king would mean the end of the loving, benevolent, wise, and just lordship they had taken for granted under Yahweh's rule. It didn't matter who they chose or how well they chose, because it's inherent in every person to seek his own interests first. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So after that, then, as you go through the narrative, God identifies Saul as the one to Samuel, and it's through this providence of Saul out looking for donkeys, his father's donkeys that had wandered away, and they go to find this seer that they hear is nearby to ask him whether they should continue the search or what they should do. Well, that's Samuel, and it's at that time that he identifies Saul as the one who God is raising up. And so then eventually what Samuel does is identify Saul to the people. And there are some in Israel who are unsure of this. They're not sure whether Saul should be the man or not. But God says he is to be the man and he has Samuel anoint him and he gives him his spirit. God gives Saul his spirit. And the idea is not, okay, Saul is saved. He has now the spirit of God. That's not the point. The point is that the king is Yahweh's anointed, anointing with his spirit, so that he is enabled to rule in Yahweh's name, in Yahweh's authority. He is effectively God's own rule. The spirit is enabling him to do that work, to rule with God's mind, God's understanding, God's wisdom. And God has this manifested to the people in that he Saul is directed to go up and meet with these prophets and the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he starts prophesying along with these prophets. And as the people see that, they say, what's going on here? Is Saul the son of Kish now among the prophets? And so he's seen to be one who's anointed with Yahweh's Spirit in a new way. And God says, I will make him a new man. I will give him my Spirit and I will make him a new man. Again, these are important principles in the way God is building this theology of the kingship and how it functions ultimately in relation to his kingdom. So by anointing him with this spirit, Saul is made a new man. Now God has formally identified him as his man, but the people are still, some of them are still somewhat suspicious. So in the context of a battle You have the the Ammonites, I believe, who have come out against Israel. And you have Saul going out, being the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him in a mighty way to fight this battle. And he has this huge triumph in battle. And the people see that and they say, yes, this is the one. This is the one who will be king over us. So Samuel goes on to then basically coronate Saul in the sight of the people. After this great military triumph he is presented before the people and he is crowned the king of Israel. Well, that triumph kind of establishes the high point in Saul's reign. He's just now been crowned. And right away, Samuel, as the people are exultant over this new king, he's mighty, he's powerful. Look how he's delivered us from our enemies. Remember, that's what they said. We want a king just like the other nations who will fight our battles for us and deliver us from our enemies. Then you have Samuel coming and tempering this by telling them, remember, this is arisen from your unbelief and your unfaithfulness. you rejected Yahweh as king. And so as much as this seems to be a good thing and in the immediate time frame it's going well and even though Saul is just beginning his reign, understand the context in which this has happened. And so there's this tone of foreboding that it's probably not going to go well. God had given them a king and God had enabled this king to triumph, but it still was reflecting the fact that they had rejected him. Through Samuel, he sets before them the obligation of both the sons of Israel and Saul, their new king, to uphold the proper role of the kingship under the covenant. In other words, God is telling them, all of this has come about through your unfaithfulness but he must be faithful to the covenant. You must be faithful to it as well. So if you look in chapter 12 verse 12, we'll just read this section. Samuel says to the people, when you saw that Nahash, the king of the sons of Ammon, the Ammonites, came out against you, you said to me, no, a king shall reign over us, someone who will deliver us, although the Lord your God was your king. Now, therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you've asked for, and behold, Yahweh has set a king over you. If you will fear Yahweh, if you will serve him, again this is Yahweh the Covenant King, Covenant Lord in Israel, and listen to his voice and not rebel against the command of Yahweh, then both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God. It will go well for you. If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it has been against your fathers. Even now take your stand and see this great thing which the Lord will do before your eyes. He's not the weed harvest today. I call, I will call to the Lord that he may send thunder and rain. In other words, at that time of year, thunder and rain were not common. So this is going to be a sign from God. And then you will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of the Lord by asking for yourselves a King. So Samuel called to Yahweh and Yahweh sent thunder and rain that day. And all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And they said to him, pray for your servants to the Lord your God so that we may not die for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king. And Samuel said to the people, do not fear you've committed all this evil yet do not turn aside from following the Lord. Serve him with all your heart. You must not turn aside for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are empty. For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, on account of his faithfulness. He has been pleased to make you a people for himself. And as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart, for consider what great things he has done for you. but if you still do wickedly, both you and your king shall be swept away." That's kind of this assessment and this general establishing of Saul's kingship. At this point, everything is going well, even though all of this has been born out of rebellion and an unwillingness to have God be king. Now we see Saul's failure emerge. He's just become king, and despite these kind of early successes, there's going to be a series of failures. Saul will rule according to the procedure of the king. And remember again, that idea is that the king will use his power, his authority, his resources, his capabilities to ultimately benefit himself first and foremost. And so the very first thing that the text records of Saul is perhaps his greatest offense, which is that Samuel had told him to wait for him at Gilgal. And when Samuel comes, he will present these offerings to the Lord. Well, Samuel is delayed. Saul is panicking. The people are starting to scatter from him. And so he decides he's going to take it to himself to offer these offerings to the Lord and petition the he sees his people scattering from him because of a circumstance that's taking place. And no sooner does he exercise that priestly function than Samuel shows up and says, what have you done? This isn't your place. And already we see the fact in an explicit way that Israel's kings were not to serve in the priestly function. It'll become more clear as we go on, but God had distinguished between the kingship and the priesthood already early on in that he assigned the priesthood to the tribe of Levi, one of Jacob's sons. The kingship is pledged to Judah, a different son. You can't have a king-priest in Israel because there are different tribes. You can't be descended from two brothers, one or the other or neither, but you can't be descended from both. And we will see later on the only one in Israel who is able to function as a priest in any sense in his kingly role is David. But Saul, the very first offense that he commits, and it's in a self-seeking way. He's trying to, in a sense, reach out to Yahweh and get Yahweh to act on his behalf because the people are departing from him. And Samuel confronts him with that. And he tells him, because you have done this, God has stripped the kingdom from you. He's barely gotten started and God is already taking the kingdom away from him. He's already taking the kingdom away from him. And then the second thing that we see is that as they're fighting against the Philistines, trying to lay siege against a Philistine garrison, the battle isn't going very well. It's a long siege. It's a high-casualty siege. And Saul makes this rash pledge. He says, no one who's fighting for me can have any food touch his lips until I am vindicated and until I prevail against my enemies. And Jonathan, his son, doesn't hear of that oath. Saul makes all of his fighting men take this oath that no food will cross their lips until he obtains the victory in this siege against the Philistine garrison. Well, his son Jonathan wasn't there, didn't hear it at that time. And so as they're out in the field, he finds some honey because they're all hungry. This is a long siege. They're weary, they're tired, they're hungry. And Jonathan eats a little bit of honey. And he encourages others to do it. And they say, no, don't you know, you know, your father, Saul said, don't, we can't eat anything. We're bound by this oath. And so what ends up happening is they do end up prevailing in some sense, not completely, but they attain some spoil, but they're all so hungry that what they do is they slaughter these animals on the spot and they're eating the meat without draining the blood from it. So they're violating the requirement of the law of Moses. And then Saul, they call upon these intercessors to go before the Lord to see whether they should continue the fight into the night. And God doesn't answer. And so Saul gets the idea that, okay, we've done something wrong because the Lord isn't answering. And so he decides somebody has violated his oath and he says, whoever that one is, when I find him, he's going to die. Well, then it turns out it's Jonathan. So he's going to put his own son to death and the people intervene. His men intervene and they say, no, Jonathan has won for us a great victory today. Don't take his life. And I think what the text wants you to see is that in Saul's mind, this is all about him. God has refused to, God has stepped back and refused to engage them and fight alongside them because somebody has violated Saul's vow, which was all about him. None of you can eat until you win this battle for me. when really what it was about, I believe, is God is saying, you've forced these men by your selfish decision in a place of virtual starvation to have to eat in a way that violates the requirement of the covenant. you force these men to sin. But Saul doesn't see it. To him, it's all about who's broken my vow, because clearly God sees it the way I do. So that's the second thing that he does. And then the third thing is God sends Saul and the army out against Agag and the Amalekites, a long-term perpetual enemy of Israel. And he tells them, when you go out against them, kill all of them. Kill everyone. Kill all the animals. Take no spoil. bring back no hostages. Well, Saul goes out and he brings back Agag, the king, as well as choicest animals. And when he comes back, Samuel confronts him and he says, what have you done? And he says, well, I've done exactly what the Lord told me to do. We went out, we routed the Amalekites, we put them to death. And Samuel says, well, what's that bleeding in my ears that I hear? What's the sound of sheep and cattle? What's the sound that I hear? Oh, well, we brought back the choicest animals to sacrifice to the Lord your God. We brought these back to worship God. And Samuel says, does the Lord have as much delight in sacrifices and in offerings as in heeding the voice of the Lord? To disobey is like the sin of witchcraft. So you've disobeyed God in order to worship God. You've decided how you're going to honor the Lord. You have not listened to him or heeded his voice in the name of worshiping him. And the pinnacle of that is that he brought back Agag the king. It was typical in the ancient world when you conquered another people to bring back their king and their mighty men to parade him in front of your own subjects to show the greatness of your triumph. You bring them back in chains and bonds to show how you've triumphed in this mighty way. So that's what Saul is doing. He brings back Agag to parade him in front of the Israelites to say, see, look at this great victory that I've won. And Samuel is so incensed over that that he takes a sword and he kills Agag. But anyway, what comes out of this is that Samuel says, if you would have obeyed the Lord, he would have established your kingdom, but now it is taken from you. And God will raise up a man after his own heart who will heed him, who will follow after him. God has stripped the kingdom from you this day. Now Saul will continue to be king for a long time. He was king, I think, for 32 years in Israel. And we know that there's this long period, and we'll see this next time after God identifies David as the one who is to be this successor to Saul, there is a long period in which David has been anointed as God's king and yet he is still yielding to Saul as sitting on the throne of Israel and the conflict between them. David is living in a state of exile and flight and hiding and being pursued and persecuted by Saul before he finally comes to the throne. So Saul shows himself to be a failed king. he shows himself to be exactly the kind of king that the rulers of the nations are. He exercises his kingship just as you would expect the kings of the nations. And there's the great irony, is that that's exactly the kind of king that Israel wanted, and yet now it's creating all this calamity for them in terms of their nation, and their well-being, and even their relationship with God. He was the man who met Israel's longing, but Yahweh intended his people to be ruled by a man devoted to him, a man after his own heart. Now, if you know the story, you know that Saul could not have been ultimately king in Israel because he was of the wrong tribe. He is a Benjamite. So even that is a clue that this man cannot be the king that God has in mind. Remember, Jacob's blessing on his son Judah is that the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, the one to whom it belongs. Judah was the regal tribe. When God raised up a king in Israel, that king would come from the tribe of Judah. Saul is of the tribe of Benjamin. But even more than that, Saul was intent on ruling in his own name. He was a false king. He was not the kind of king that God intended for Israel. So what then do we see in this story of Saul, this early story of Saul that What do we learn about this developing doctrine of God's kingdom and the kingship? God was king in Israel, but he had purposed, we know from the beginning, God promised all the way back to Abraham that Abraham would be the source of a royal people. Kings would come forth from him. The same thing was said to Sarah. Her name was changed to Sarah Princess, indicative of her own kind of royal status, because kings and princes would come forth from her. Abraham was to be the father of a royal people, and even as Israel arrives at Sinai, They are said to be a kingdom of priests, a royal people. God had even mentioned again the fact that the kingship, the scepter, would come to the tribe of Judah. Moses later on spoke of a future king. when Israel was on the plains of Moab. Now he tied this coming of a king to, again, their unfaithfulness. If you go back and you look at Deuteronomy 17, Moses said, God is going to give you a king, but this is what sort of king he's to be. Verse 14 of Deuteronomy 17, when you enter the land, now remember this is Moses speaking to the people of Israel right before he dies, they're on the plains of Moab, they're about to inherit the land. This is well before the period of the judges and Saul, this is some three centuries earlier. But already God is announcing through Moses what's going to come. When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me, then you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. One from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves. Not a foreigner, but an Israelite, but a certain kind of Israelite. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses." In other words, forming alliances, beneficial alliances with other nations, which is what's going to be Israel's legacy. Since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself. This is already echoing of what's going to come in Solomon, right? And we'll get to all of this down the road, but he shall not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this covenant, this Torah on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. In other words, that they can certify that he's copied it correctly, that he has captured this as his own copy of this, as his own document that will bind him. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may fear or learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully considering and observing all the words of this Torah, these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen, the procedure of the king, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, in order that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel." So already God had given some general definition. When there's a king in Israel, he must be a king who is utterly devoted to the Lord and his Torah. The Torah revealed the truth of God and established and defined the covenant relationship, and the king is to be devoted and committed to that. He is serving Yahweh's kingship. He is the way in which the Lord's own kingship is manifested in Israel. And that sort of human kingship is antithetical to this thing called the procedure of the king, which is the natural, normal, human way of doing power. Why is it true of every single ruler that he rules according to the procedure of the king? because every ruler is a son of Adam. And every human being, as he comes into this world, lives a self-centered existence. That's why every king, no matter who you pick, will rule according to the procedure of the king. Even if he is not brazen and totally corrupt, he will ultimately have his own self-interest in mind in the decisions that he makes, in the policies that he enacts. in the way that he rules. It's inherent to our human existence. So even Jesus' disciples, just like their Israelite forefathers, had to learn a different concept of kingship if they were to discern and embrace God's King. See, God's intent was to have a human king rule in his creation, a human king that would manifest his own rule. But in order to recognize and embrace that sort of king, people had to rethink the issue of kingship. And I mentioned Jesus' disciples because this instruction that Jesus brought reached its high point in the day before his crucifixion. They all knew he was the Messiah. All of his disciples knew he was the Messiah, and Messiah means king of Israel. They knew that Jesus was Lord. They knew that he was king, but they had to rethink this whole notion of kingship because they thought that he was a king in the way that human beings are naturally kings. They thought that God is king in that way. And when Pilate says, are you a king? Jesus said, yes, I am, but you don't understand what kind of a king I am because my kingdom is not of the sort that you find in this world. You understand power, Pilate. You know how it works. You have men under you. You're a man under authority. Caesar wields all authority. You understand kingship, but I'm not that sort of a king. And even his disciples had to learn that lesson. So if you look in Mark 10, for example, but this was a constant theme that Jesus was teaching his disciples. I am the Lord. I am the Messiah. I am the king, but I'm not the sort of king you think. This is not how we do power in my father's kingdom. This is not how God does power. This is not how God does authority. In verse 32 of Mark 10, it says, when they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, this is near the end, as Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he's going to be crucified. As he's walking on ahead of them, they were amazed and those who followed were fearful. And again, he took the 12 aside and began to tell them what was going to happen. He said, behold, we're going up to Jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests, the scribes. They will condemn him to death and we'll deliver him to the Gentiles. They will mock him and spit on him and scourge him and kill him. And three days later, he will rise again. And James and John, the two sons of Zebedee came to him saying, teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said, what do you want me to do for you? And they said, grant that we may sit in your glory on your right and on your left, that we may share in your regal glory. And Jesus said, you do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you able to be glorified in the way that I will be glorified? Or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? Are you able to undergo this means of kingship, this way in which I will become king and ascend to my throne? Are you able to take that on yourselves? And they said, we are able. And Jesus said to them, the cup that I drink, you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But to sit on my right or my left, this is not mine to give. It is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the 10 heard this, they were indignant with James and John. Who do you guys think you are trying to muscle your way into the right hand and the left hand of the Lord in his glory? Who do you think you are? And calling them to himself, Jesus said, you know that those who are recognized as rulers among the Gentiles lord it over them. And their great men exercise authority over them. They call themselves benefactors, but they're overlords. It is not so to be among you. Whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served. This is a profound thing for the Messiah to be saying. The King of Israel, the Anointed One, did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And as they're in the upper room and Jesus is now serving them and waiting on them and again explaining the significance of his death the next day and how they're to understand this horrible thing by which he will enter into his kingdom, the plaque over his head, this is the king of the Jews. That's self-giving, humiliation, death at the hands of Rome. How to understand that? As he's serving them, this is Luke 22, he hands them the cup and says, take this and share it among yourselves. I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes. And then he took bread and said this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me and then the cup. And he said in verse 21 but behold the hand of the one betraying me is with me on the table. For indeed the son of man is going as it has been determined but woe to that man by whom he's betrayed. And then they began to discuss among themselves which of them might be the one who is going to do this. They start looking around saying, who's the one that's going to betray him? He said he's sitting here. Who is he? And in the process of trying to figure out who's the one who's going to betray him, they start arguing about who's the greatest. I wouldn't betray him. I wouldn't betray him. Who's going to betray him? I'm greater than you are. I'm more significant than you are. So they get into this argument again about their greatness. Verse 24, and Jesus responds, the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who have authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Let him who is the greatest among you become as the youngest. Young ones had no authority, no standing, no status. And the leader as the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials, and just as my father has granted me a kingdom, I will grant you that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel." And he will go on then to wash their feet, right? And Peter's like, you're the Lord, you can't wash my feet. That's wrong for you to do that. You're the Messiah, you're the Lord. And he said, unless you receive me in this way, you have no share in me. So Jesus is teaching them how to think about authority and power and kingship. And this Saul episode is the way in which this principle begins to be fleshed out. Israel has a notion of a king, and when they get the king that they want, it's a disaster. And they've forsaken the lordship of Yahweh, who is this sort of king. the king who serves the good of his people, the king who's merciful, who continues to forgive, who continues to restore, who continues to deliver. They've forsaken that kind of lordship for a human king. So this is the primary sense in which we have to understand Saul's failure and how even Saul's failure is the springboard to God's promise of a king who will not be like that. And he says, I'll raise up a king after my own heart. Well, David is initially that king and David is a man after God's own heart. But even so, David himself falls prey to the procedure of the king. Right? He sees Bathsheba. I'm the king. I can have what I want. Send her up here to me. Well, now we got a problem. She's gotten pregnant. I'm going to have to kill her husband. Let's figure out how to do away with him. It's good to be the king. I can do what I want, right? Even with all of David's faithfulness, he still failed. He still failed. And ultimately, the king in Israel was to be the epitomizing son. If Israel was to be a royal people who bore witness to the king of Israel by their faithfulness, the king was in the epitome of that, right? The king was the epitome of the royal son who manifests Yahweh's lordship such that the nations would come to know the God of Israel in that way. The king was the epitomizing Israelite. because they were a royal people. They were the ones who manifested God's own lordship and rule and mind and heart in the world, that the world would come to know him. And so when David fails, how does Nathan confront him? And we'll see that because of what you've done, you've given occasion to the nations to blaspheme. just as Saul would stand with the nations against Yahweh, so David would in that instance stand with the nations against Yahweh. He himself would rule according to the procedure of the king such that he would testify against the God of Israel. He would give them occasion to blaspheme rather than cause them to know the God of Israel, which was the king's mandate as the epitomizing Israelite. So David will be the one who God will raise up. Even though he rejects Saul, God is not rejecting the kingship, and the kingship will continue in Israel until it's done away at the time of the Babylonian captivity, but with the promise, as we'll see, that one day God will raise up a son for David to sit on his throne. David's own failure becomes the springboard, not for God to reject the kingship, but for God to promise a son of David who will be the faithful king, who will triumph where David failed. This is the way the story is building. Again, the introduction of the kingship and the way in which it functioned and the way in which it failed, the way in which the dynamic of the human kingship in Israel and God's kingship plays out becomes very important so that even by the time again Jesus comes on the scene as the Messiah who is the king of Israel, we're already expecting to see a different sort of king in him. Unfortunately, his disciples didn't expect that different sort of king. He had to teach them that, but that's what's coming. That's what's coming. Well, let me pray and then we'll close with this last song. Father, once again, this is a whirlwind tour, and I hope that all of these who are present and are a part of this study are doing their own reading, doing their own consideration week in and week out, because it's by our yielding ourselves in reading and studying and contemplation that these things get imprinted in our minds and hearts and become woven into the fabric of our understanding who we are. And they help us to grow in our knowledge of and conformity to Christ as the true King, and to understand what it means that we are in Him, kings and priests who are God. It's so easy for us to think of ourselves as King's kids, and that means that we lord it over others, that we exploit one another, that we take advantage of circumstances and resources. that we even lord it over the nations of the earth, the unbelievers around us. We wag our fingers at them. We sit in self-righteous condemnation of them. But Father, I pray that we would exercise our own lordship as your image children in the way that you intend us to, in the way that you are Lord, in the way that Jesus has shown us what it is for human beings to share in and to administer your lordship as servants of the good of your creation, servants of the good of other people, servants of the good of your children. Convict us and Father give us the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness that we need, that we would truly be servants of one another, that we would manifest the truth of what it means that our God reigns. We ask all these things that you would continue to teach us and lead us that you would continue to perfect the life of Christ in us. We ask all these things in his name and for his sake, that he would be glorified in the church and in the world, not just in this age, but ultimately in all eternity. Amen.